Day 4 Since Cody was a stopover evening for us we didn't do exploring in the area. Up in the morning and then on into Yellowstone National Park, through the same entrance as 20 years before. I have to say that I didn't remember a lot of the scenery leading up to the entrance and it was nice to revisit the area. Traffic was heavier than I remember but usually any memories of traffic are wiped away with time and only the good parts remain (what's that about "nostalgia is memory with the pain removed?")

Point of note: There is a "Big Boy" out in the middle of a field near the road into the park.20914417_1471251786274888_7428031349826370637_n.jpg

We toured the central part of the park and made plans for what sections we wanted to focus on in the coming days. What we didn't realize was there are several areas undergoing renovation/reconstruction in the park and that was causing some of the heavier traffic we were seeing.

On the way to our campground in West Yellowstone we stopped at a local restaurant and I had my first taste of bison meat. I found it to be prepared well and tasty, too. Some friends had mentioned their experiences finding it dry but that was not the case at all.

Day 5 This was the day of the eclipse and we were up fairly early, expecting traffic to be heavy. The original plan was to head into Jackson, Wyoming for the eclipse but a check of the weather the night before mentioned partly cloudy conditions. Seeing as how almost every meteor shower is obscured by clouds back in Massachusetts, I've become accustomed to paying close attention to the weather near celestial events. The plan was altered to go into the tidy town of Rexburg, Idaho. Heading out of the campground, traffic was already heavy and I wasn't even sure I'd find a gap to get into the flow of vehicles. Finally a gap appeared and for nearly 70 miles we were part of a grand convoy of eclipse watchers heading out in the pre-sunrise hours.

By the time we arrived near Rexburg many of our convoy companions had headed off to other points - most likely Jackson - and we found ourselves at Smith Park. The town was prepared for the incoming crowds as the park had all of the appropriate facilities for an influx of people set up. We were fortunate to have arrived early enough to find excellent parking on a side street.

For the next few hours we watched the progress of the eclipse with a few hundred other people, including a soccer team from Seattle that had made a bus trip just for the occasion.

Pictures cannot do justice to what we saw that day. If you ever get the chance to experience a full solar eclipse absolutely take the time to view it. Totality was brought on with silence from the birds that had been singing - many flew back to their nests - as well as the surreal sight of stars being visible during the middle of the day.

During the eclipse I had been fiddling with my camera and I was making the mistake of using nighttime photography techniques during totality. That means I was using long exposure times...all the same the result was pretty interesting.

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The plan for afterwards was to head into the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and travel the Gravelly Range Road, but the five-hour drive back (it took an hour to get out there) from Rexburg put the kibosh on that plan for the day.