Texas Road Trip 2024: The big day

We left our warm and happy place on the gulf coast to get to the site where we planned to watch the eclipse, mother nature willing. We were joining a Winnebago View/Navion "rally" organized a fellow Washingtonian, with about 70+ other people who have the same RV as we do. The site was the San Gabriel River Brewery in Liberty Hill, Texas, a local brewery that is also a Harvest Host location. The photo below is most of the group on Sunday as everyone was arriving.

Photo Credit to Yasuhiko Obara and his drone.

We picked Clay up at the Austin airport Friday night so he could join us for the big event! Unfortunately, Rowan was sick so he had to cancel his trip. Since this was our first rally we really didn't know what to expect (never thought we'd actually go to an event like this!) but it turned out to be very fun! It was a great group of like-minded people who like to camp the same way we do. Very laid back, outdoorsy, and adventurous. People were there from all over - Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Texas, New York, North Carolina, etc. It was a great time and exceeded our expectations.

Saturday before the eclipse we did a quick road trip in the CRV to explore Longhorn State Caverns. Clint thought he wanted to do this until the walls and ceiling were a bit smaller than he was comfortable with, so he spent the next 90 mins walking the grounds while Clay and Liz went spelunking. It was fascinating! Turns out most of central Texas is on a bed of limestone and there are caverns everywhere.

After 2 days of relaxation, eating, games, music and brew we were ready for the main event. The weather forecast wasn't good, and we were all prepared for the worst, hoping that our long drives across the country were going to be worth it. We had low clouds all morning and as the eclipse began we got filtered views of the sun. Then 10 minutes before totality the clouds cleared and were able to see the whole event!

Clay was ready with his impressive 2x and 1.4x teleconverters with a 200mm lens, and captured some beautiful shots. You can see a couple of large solar flares on the bottom and right side of the sun.

This is a great video of the period of totality with Liz's Nikon P950 and amazing zoom.

With this, our time at San Gabriel River Brewery in Liberty Hill, Texas was over. We were up at 4am the next day after a sleepless night of over 90% humidity to get Clay to the airport, but his flight was canceled due to severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings! He ended up getting rebooked twice, and flew back to Seattle via Austin, Orlando and Philadelphia! Lots of airports and very long travel day, but at least they got him comfortable seats and he was able to get home the same day. He's a pro at air travel now!

Leaving Liberty Hill, we faced fierce thunderstorms and tornado warnings and again changed our plans because of weather. That chapter is coming next. 😊