The plan was to drive east on US 26 to go over the Cascade mountains and to get out from under the clouds to see the solar eclipse yesterday.

I drove 301 miles, from Portland to central Oregon and back. I was looking for the Peter Skeen Ogden roadside rest area. The weather report yesterday indicated that I wouldn't see anything, eclipse-wise, but I had been wanting to go to the rest stop for a while, and so yesterday I said to myself, "(censored) I'm going anyway".

I have been there before, last in 2008, with my friend Jhni as we drove down to southern California, but in the four years since, I guess I forgot exactly where the rest area was; I thought it was on US 26. 26 meets US 97 in Madras, Oregon and runs with 97 for a few miles before splitting off and continuing east. I stayed on 26... and by the time I got to Prineville, 140 miles had passed and I realized that I had missed the rest area.

No one knew what I was talking about, in the McDonalds I stopped in for coffee, but, looking at my AAA map, I realized that, 1. Peter Skeen Ogden rest area is NOT on US 26, and 2. the eclipse was long past by then.

It turned out I was less than 30 miles from the rest area, and that is exactly why I drove all that way, to see the rest stop, so instead of just driving home, I drove over to US 97 and found the rest area.

It was rather late in the day by then, but it looks like I took 101 pictures there. I'll edit them and upload them to Photo bucket and post them here later.

***

Had I stayed in Portland, sigh, I hear that the weather cleared and that a friend of mine was able to see the eclipse from Rocky Butte, here in town.

I guess the eclipse was the excuse for the long drive I had been meaning to take anyway, and that rest area over the Crooked River Gorge is totally photo-worthy.

Stay tuned please.

***

AND

I forgot to mention the moments of panic last night.  I don't text or use my phone in the car; it's got a Bluetooth system in it so I don't have to handle the phone to use it.  At some point yesterday, I put the cell phone in my flight jacket and the jacket in the back seat.  Coming home, I heard a text come in, and stopped a few miles on at the rest area in Warm Springs on the Deschutes river.

I got out when I stopped and put on my jacket and paniced when I could not find my phone.  I got out my flashlight and looked under the seats.  I looked here, and there and in my jacket three times and realized...

I had lost my cell phone.

I started thinking of where I had stopped - would it be possible to drive back to each place and look for my phone?

Umm, no, not really, and besides, oh shit!

(and besides, I had heard it recieve a text  ten minutes or so before I stopped.  It had to be somewhere in or around the car!)

I was just about to go try it anyway - it's my phone - and was planning the way I'd go, where I had been and oh shit oh shit oh shit.

I walked around the car from the passenger side, resigned to back-tracking myself and lost in the "oh shit" mindset, and... I saw my cell phone lying on the ground where it had fallen from my jacket pocket.

I could get high off those feelings of relief... but the stress of creating them isn't worth it.

*****