When the alarm went off at 4:00am I was up and Adam. By 5:00am the truck was loaded and my wife and I were on our way. I had a bold plan that involved ten and a half hours of driving over 650 miles. The big unknown was going to be traffic, parking, and photographing things I'd never done before. My goal was to shoot the Annular eclipse in Monroe, Utah, then drive to Grand Junction, Colorado to photograph the Navy demonstration team, the Blue Angels at the Grand Junction Airshow. From there we would drive the four and a half hours home to complete our day. We could not afford any major delays to complete the task. I had planned to research eclipse photography, but had not gotten to it. As for the Blue Angels, I had recently started photographing airshows and working on camera settings, deciding what I liked and didn't like, and developing the skills to get the shots. When we merged onto I-15 we were amazed, although not surprised to see all the traffic at 5:30am on a Saturday. Fortunately it flowed quite well. When we exited at Scipio I was pleasantly surprised to find the road relatively traffic free. We never lost anytime and arrived in Monroe with lots of time to spare. There were very few people where we parked to shoot. I ran some test shots and waited for the big event. There were some cirrus clouds in the air, but not enough to interfere with capturing the Sun's disappearance behind the moon. When the big event finally began, I went to shooting. As soon at the moon started moving out of full eclipse I packed up the gear and we were on our way to Grand Junction hoping not to run into crowds leaving town. Fortunately the only traffic jam we saw was at an exit off I-70 to Salina. Fortunately it did not affect us. My wife was busy buying me a ticket for the airshow over the internet, an expensive option so she decided not to go. (As it turned out she got quite the view from the parking spot we would discover by accident.) All the lots had "full" signs out as we drove up the road to the airport. The plan was to have her drop me off. Pulling into small strip mall within walking distance to the airport I discovered parking spots in the back; perfect!. I grabbed my camera equipment and before I knew it I was standing at the barrier in front of the Navy Hornets painted in blue and yellow. I was ready! The show was great! I made friends with a 14-year-old young man who asked me a question about my camera. He had a camera in hand and we had a great time sharing our results during the performance. Walking back to the truck I encountered the first crowd of the day, but it didn't matter because the shots were in the can! Rather than fight the traffic coming out of the airport, my wife and I walked down to a sushi restaurant where we enjoyed a lovely dinner. To that point I had survived the day on two small granola bars and half a breakfast burrito! Traffic had subsided quite a bit as we arrived back at the truck to start the long drive home. After a stop in Price, Utah for a couple of chocolate malts at DQ, we rolled into our driveway just after 10:00pm. It was the longest day, but well worth every bit of it!

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