Saturday Eclipse Viewing From Mount Wichita Summit

I figured if there was to be any Ring of Fire Eclipse viewing in my area the best wide-open location to do so would be at Lake Wichita, perhaps from the summit of Mount Wichita.

I knew we were not directly in the eclipse's path. That was a few miles to the south, with Abilene and Austin getting the full blackout.

Upon arrival at the Mount Wichita parking lot I made note of a larger than usual number of vehicles parked. Likely enjoying the cool weather. We got down to 48 degrees last night. It was barely 60 upon arrival at Lake Wichita.

Last week's one day of rain added some water to Lake Wichita. That band of blue you see in the photo was not there upon my last visit to this location. But, it is going to take a lot more rain to finally float that new dock waiting for water.

I decided to hike to the summit of Mount Wichita for the first time on a long time. I think well before COVID was the last time I made that arduous trek to this summit. I used the trail on the east side of the mountain to get to the top. You can barely see the trail in the photo documentation.

From the summit, looking down at the Circle Trail and the newly added water.

When I was almost to the summit I was greeted by an aggressive poodle guard dog. The poodle's human picked him up to calm him down.

The poodle quit barking when I asked if I could take his picture. Poodles are such vain little mutts.

Back at ground level, upon reaching the parking lot, I saw a lot of people looking at the sky. I looked at the sun and it seemed way brighter than the norm.

I was almost to my vehicle when a girl, who was with a group of skywatchers, asked me if I wanted to see something cool.

Sure, said I.

She handed me sky viewing glasses. I then looked at the sun and could see the eclipse. The sun looked crescent shaped.

Back at my vehicle I looked at the sun again, without sky viewing glasses. At first what I saw looked like the photo I took from that location, looking at the sun.

But, continuing to look, suddenly I could see the eclipse, without sky viewing glasses.

I shouted to the people who had let me see with their sky viewing glasses that I could now see the eclipse without help.

Don't look too long, shouted a guy who was with the sky viewing glasses girl. It can do damage, said he. To which I said, I thought that was only with a direct viewing of an eclipse.

So, I then got in my vehicle and woke the phone to see how many Google Fit Minutes I had walked.

Well.

I could not read the numbers. I was blinded by that bright light. Luckily this blinding phenomenon did not last long, with my full sight returned.

But, it was unnerving. I won't make that stupid mistake again...

In Arizona Watching The Solar Eclipse With David, Theo & Ruby

Soon after the most stupendous American moon related event of the year I received photo documentation of five Tacoma eclipse viewers viewing the eclipse of the sun behind eye doctor approved viewing glasses.

Forming a triangle around their parental units we see my nephew David on the left, niece Ruby at the bottom, with nephew Theo on the right.

The nephew/niece triangle trio opined that the eclipse was extremely cool from their Washington viewing location.

Meanwhile in Arizona I watched the eclipse with grandma Daisy, on the TV. It was riveting television viewing. When the eclipse reached our Arizona location me and grandma Daisy did not make note of any dimming of the sun. Other Arizona sun observers did indicate they did notice some dimming.

I am currently at David, Theo and Ruby's Aunt Jackie's where the Arizona Diamondbacks are once again playing baseball.

Tomorrow I leave Arizona, making my way east from the sublime to the ridiculous. I am sort of looking forward to a bit less of the sublime and a bit more ridiculousness...

Fort Worth Native UFO, Eclipsed, Hillary, Missile

The moon puts on a show tonight. And the U.S. military might be putting on an extra-terrestrial show as well. The moon will be eclipsed for all of North America to see tonight. If you have clear skies. In the Central Time Zone the eclipse will start about 8:43pm and end at 9 minutes past midnight on Thursday. The moon should look very red.

Unrelated to the moon, there is a Navy ship out at sea that is going to try and shoot down an out of control satellite that is loaded with a ton of very toxic liquid that could survive if allowed to crash to earth. So, one of the Star Wars missiles is hoping to slam into the satellite at a very high speed. This missile was designed to shoot down ICBMs traveling at a slower speed than the satelite. The Navy has 3 missiles that have been re-programmed to make this hit.

Speaking of taking a hit. Hillary has now lost 10 states in a row. There are 2 upcoming debates prior to the Texas primary on March 4. I read today that Hillary's advisors are arguing about what to do, whether to go into aggressive attack mode or not. I think she should try the Tears Strategy again, only this time get in some real good sobbing and produce at least one really big tear running down at least one of her cheeks.

I got a real good photo of the Fort Worth UFO yesterday. With the beautiful skyline of downtown Fort Worth in the background. This view is looking west down the I-30 freeway. The photo makes it appear that the UFO is taller than the tallest Fort Worth skyscraper. I believe this is an illusion.

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On another note, yesterday I mentioned my petty little issue regarding particular peculiar verbiage I read over and over again in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Today there were some fresh examples. I decided it might be fun to chronicle these. I wish I'd kept every instance of the "Green with Envy" verbiage when I first made note of it. Several years went by before I started keeping a collection. You may remember that yesterday we all learned that the reason the Star-Telegram repeats over and over again if a person has some remote connection to Fort Worth is because this gives the reader a local connection to the story. No matter how tenuous. So, in today's Star-Telegram, once more regarding American Idol, we learn that tonight among the 12 women singing that "Kristy Lee Cook lists Oregon as home but used to sing at Cowboys Arlington; Kady Malloy is from Houston."

Houston does not seem all that local to me, but what do I know? And then in another section, this, "Fort Worth native and CBS newsman Bob Schieffer...", in a blurb about Fort Worth native Bob Schieffer quitting news to play in a band. I have never seen Fort Worth native Bob Schieffer mentioned in the Star-Telegram without "Fort Worth native" preceding the name. Well, that's not totally accurate, later in the same article the last name may be repeated without the first name or the "Fort Worth native" modifier.