The Great American Eclipse: August 21, 2017
Nancy's Birthday Eclipse

I owe my photographic success to Bob Disher, who, along with his wife Kim, hosted Nancy and me, Annie and Thomas, and Nathanael and Cynthia for a great eclipse holiday.

My summer vacation week began as Nancy and I drove down to Dallas, Oregon after her annual P.E.O. summer picnic in West Seattle.  We arrived around 10:30PM on Saturday the 19th.  As I greeted Bob, he offered me a solar filter, "if I could use it."  He'd bought two from B&H.  It was perfect for my longest lens, an old push-pull Nikon 70-210mm f/4-5.6.  The filter fit perfectly.  The picture at the right would have been impossible without it.  My idea of using a piece of #14 welders glass was only useful on my other long lens to help keep it focused on the sun until it could be removed for totality.  Nancy liked my "diamond ring" photo above left.

After church with them the next morning, we ate well (and often) and scoped out spots to set up our cameras for the next morning. 

I had all four Nikon D300 cameras to work with.  The first took pictures of people.  The second shot the whole southeastern sky at 1/8000 sec. and f11 to show me where the sun was about every five minutes.  Camera three had my fast 70-200mm sports lens to shoot "totality."  As it turned out, my fourth lens, the old 70-210mm with Bob's extra filter, took better totality pictures (like the last one of five images above left and the central image at the right.)  With that last camera, I shot with a five second delay so the camera would be steady when the shutter released.

I had the bright idea to mount a large piece of cardboard on the camera I used the most.  It saved me from the sun's heat for the nearly three hours I was outside.  The ten degree temperature drop during totality was refreshing. 
My neck still got sunburned.

We celebrated Nancy's 62nd birthday a day early on the 20th.  Bob and Kim Disher took care of everything.

On Tuesday, Nancy wanted to go to Forgarty Beach on the coast.  I looked up the tides and we managed to make it to the second lowest tide of the month by getting up at 5:30AM.  After two hours on the beach, Nancy let me take her to a favorite town, Depoe Bay, just south of Forgarty Beach.  I got carmel corn and salt water taffy!  Definitely not on my diet.

Our last night in Dallas, Nancy and I took Bob and Kim out for a Mexican dinner.  And on our way home, we had lunch with Nancy's cousins David and Susan Cautley at a favorite Italian restaurant of theirs in Oregon City.

 
I spent much of Thursday putting the composite photo (above right) together.  It is a large file, suitable for printing.  Friday, I stopped in at work briefly, and then came home to watch the Seahawks defeat the Chiefs in preseason 26-13. 

[As I type this on the 31st, the Seahawks just beat Oakland in their last pre-season game. Their 17-13 win tonight, with a come-from-behind touchdown with one minute left, finished an undefeated pre-season record.]

The photos below and right are all formatted at 1920x1080 so they can be used as wallpaper:
Mt. Hood from the I-205 bridge, Ainslee's Homemade Salt Water Taffy in Depoe Bay, and three shots from Fogarty Beach.
 

Annual AquaSox Game, August 16^th

Again, Randy, Don, and I enjoyed burgers and hot dogs at the Everett AquaSox, the Mariners single "A" team. We saw them beat the league leading Tri-City Dust Devils 4-1.  Randy won the raffle and got two box seat tickets for a later game.

August 28th, I joined him again in Everett to share the tickets he won.  The team won again, 5-4 in the 9th, over the Eugene Emeralds.

British Columbia Fires Impact
Air Quality

The first dozen days of the month had us breathing smoke from Canadian forest fires.  Sea-Tac recorded 0.02 inches of rain just before midnight Saturday night, August 12th.  That ended the official Seattle streak with a new record of 55 days without measurable rainfall.  It cleaned the smoke out of the atmosphere.  This photo of the sun, taken from the top of Clyde Hill, didn't need a sun filter.