From Hardin, Montana, we moved on to Buffalo, Wyoming, for a four-night stay at the Buffalo KOA Journey, We timed our visit to coincide with the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, and selected the Buffalo KOA as a base within reasonable driving distance (100 miles) of the eclipse track near Casper, Wyoming.

Our Travel Itinerary – Wyoming – 2017

Driving from Hardin to Buffalo, we ran into very heavy smoke from forest fires burning somewhere in the region. At times the visibility was only about a mile and the stench of burning was heavy in the air. Very bad air quality! We were hoping that these conditions would not hold for the day of the eclipse. Other than the heavy smoke, our drive to Buffalo was uneventful. We enjoyed seeing the rolling plains of eastern Montana and the nearby Bighorn Mountains along the route.

Arriving at the Buffalo KOA, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the campground was busy, but wasn’t full with eclipse chasers. Even the night before the eclipse, the campground still had many available spaces.

Total Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017

Total Solar Eclipse Poster by Tyler Nordgren

Weather was good for the day of the eclipse, with mostly clear skies, a little haze and a few scattered clouds. Not bad at all! Our plan was to drive south toward Casper, Wyoming, to a place under the path of totality, yet not so far as to run into the throngs predicted to at Casper. 

Long before the event we had studied the eclipse track maps, selected a general area that looked promising and then refined our search with Google Maps & imagery. Our first choice was a large highway maintenance yard about 90 miles south of Buffalo and just off the interstate.

Expecting heavy traffic, we left early and were pleasantly surprised at how light the traffic was – not at all the nightmare we had heard about from other areas of the country. Arriving at the site, we found the yard open and un-posted, with only a few other observers present. We parked at the back of the site and proceeded to get comfortable. More vehicles arrived at the yard closer to time of the eclipse, but the site was still far from being crowded.

Having never experienced a total solar eclipse, we were both quite excited. I did not plan to take any serious photos of the event, instead opting to just relax and be in-the-moment for totality. The last thing I wanted was distraction from fiddling with lots of camera equipment and tracking mounts while missing the experience.

We set up a shade tent and relaxed awhile until the eclipse started. We used our eclipse glasses to watch the partial phases the eclipse. We also played around with a pair of binoculars to project images on a sheet of paper, as well as projections using pinholes in aluminum foil. Fun to capture cell phone photos of the projections!

At times heavier bands of clouds drifted through and we worried that totality would be obscured. Fortunately, the sky was cloudless around the sun at totality.

Totality was an incredible experience – daylight was increasingly faded and weird-looking, but then fell dramatically with the onset of totality. The sun blinked out and the white streamers of the corona appeared. We took off our eclipse shades and could look directly at the sun, now a deep black hole in the sky, wreathed in a glorious halo of light. Wild! Looking around the horizon we could see a 360 degree sunset while we stood in an eerie twilight. A few planets and stars were visible in the skies of totality. The air noticeably cooled. A pronghorn doe and fawn moved into a grassy area nearby and made to bed down, as though for the night.

All too soon, totality ended and the sun blazed forth, briefly forming the diamond ring. Time to put the eclipse shades back on! We stayed a little while longer watching the eclipse partial phases again, then packed up and headed back to the campground. What an amazing experience! Brief though it was, about two minutes, this truly was a bucket-list item to see. Seeing a 99% partial eclipse is impressive, but still nowhere near the awe-inducing experience of the total solar eclipse! 

Next Stop, the Devils Tower…

The rest of our stay in Buffalo almost felt anti-climactic as we basked in the memories of the solar eclipse. Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head on to our next stop at Devils Tower National Monument. The drive from Buffalo to Devils Tower was short, just 130 miles, made without incident. We stayed for one week at the Devils Tower / Black Hills KOA, a lovely campground just outside of the monument and right on the shore of the Belle Fourche River. The Devils Tower forms a dramatic backdrop for the campground.

During our stay we enjoyed picnics, hikes and many photo-ops in the stunning landscape around the Devils Tower. Jasmine was especially fascinated watching (from the truck) the antics of the many prairie dogs scampering around the prairie dog colony in the park.

No visit to Devils Tower would be complete without watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the movie filmed on-site in 1976. The KOA features nightly showings of the film in a patio area with the Devils Tower looming behind the screen. On the night we attended the showing, a thunderstorm was approaching the Devils Tower. The flickers and flashes in the clouds echoed the action in the film to great effect. As lightning bolts got closer and the smell of rain filled the air, we opted to head for our camper and finish watching our copy of the film on Blu-ray. (On battery power as the storm had just knocked out power to the campground.) Fun!

Taking heed of the park poster, Half the Park is After Dark, I went out several nights for photography and star-gazing, but conditions weren’t great for night shots – mostly due to haze and smoke in the area. One night was clear enough for star trails and moonlight on the tower. (See photo below.) As a bonus, strange lights were playing on top of the tower. Close Encounters? Climbers giving a shout-out? You decide…

We had a great time at the Devils Tower and enjoyed crossing another item off the old bucket-list. We would love to visit here again, someday. That’s all for now. Safe travels and enjoy the journey!