. . .was one that bought many unforeseen gifts. This trip began with a simple card to my friend Ken. It read ‘Just Roll With It’ because so many things can go wrong when planning a trip that deals with mother nature and with the technical side of photographing.
The journey began the night of my 50th High School Reunion in Waco, TX. Being with my former classmates, reminiscing, laughing, music and dancing, feeling as young as we were back then, it was a true gift of love and friendship.
Getting up the next morning to be packed and on the road by 3:30, we arrived Kansas City, MO. Once checked into our hotel, we immediately headed north to scout a location to photograph the eclipse. We wanted to be away from the masses. By chance we found the perfect location (a cemetery overlooking a pond with open skies). We would be by ourselves because who would want to photograph the eclipse in a cemetery? We had a hard plan!!! While back at the hotel and with the TV on, the dreaded weather forecast was announced…heavy thunderstorms and cloud cover coming in from the southwest and northwest during the time of the eclipse.
Crucial Decision #1: Instead of going to the cemetery and take a chance of rain, we headed east of KC to beat the rain and then headed north to get to the center line of totality…Marshall, MO!
Crucial Decision #2: On the way north to Marshall, we turned east along a tiny, paved country road and found ourselves in the middle of Soy Bean farmland all alone. We found a place to park our rented Jeep Cherokee. The sky was cloudy and there was great concern since we had heavy clouds overhead.
- Did we drive all this distance just to experience a rained out eclipse?
- Should we have taken another path and gone elsewhere?
- We had no time to travel anywhere else…were we going to be deprived of this great eclipse?
I decided no matter what happens I would. . .
*STAY TUNE TO THE REST OF THE STORY. . .
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