Lessons Learned – Eclipse 2017
Have a checklist, follow it, and check it at least 3 times. I had 2, one for personal items and one for provisions for the trailer. The trailer one was less important since this was a road-trip with plenty of opportunities to pick up stuff at Walmart. The personal check list is where I dropped the ball. I went over it twice, once as I packed the items and again before walking out the door. Both times I missed the GPSs. Big mistake! The Tahoe's navigation system also decided to go on strike shortly after we hit the road. To view the eclipse, I found a county road 26 miles north of Torrington, WY, that placed us a few hundred feet from the centerline of the eclipse. Without a GPS, finding it would be difficult. Difficult, but not impossible because I had my smart phone. Yep, but no service because of all the people. OK, back to basics. I knew the county road number: 24. But the roads were numbered as streets for some odd reason, there was no county number on any of them. I had to get a little more basic, I remembered the shape of the highway we were on and the fact that there was a long straight stretch with Co. Rd. 24 going off only to the right. Found it, went to the top of a slight rise about half a mile and found our perfect spot!
Don't pass up a chance to top off your fuel and carry more extra than you think you'll need, because you'll need it. We topped off (I thought) at Cheyenne before joining Highway 85 leading to our target location. Round trip from the service station was only 204 miles. Normally, pulling the trailer, we easily get 300 miles. On the return leg in bumper-to-bumper traffic, top speed about 10 MPH, at 142 miles we were down to ¾ tank. At Yoder, we pulled over at a traffic control point so I could put the gas from our jerry can into the car. This is the fuel for our gennie which I filled once and topped off once so I should have had at least 3 ½ gallons. But, when my wife first filled the gas can, she put the nozzle all of the way into the can and stopped when it cut off. So we probably only had 3 gallons to start with and it didn't get topped off in Cheyenne. So, at Yoder, we only had one gallon left. Not enough. A sheriff deputy told us that the fire department had planned ahead and had extra fuel available. They gave us enough to get the Pine Bluffs and saved the day.
Golf1Echo learned not to take a manual transmission vehicle when you are going to be faced with 75 miles of 10 MPH bumper-to-bumper traffic. The next morning, at our camp site, he kept walking around in clockwise circles.
I'm sure that there is more and if I remember it I'll add it later. The fuel situation is the important part. I was taught, when faced with an evacuation, to only take enough fuel to get you to an area out of danger where topping off will not effect your neighbors' ability to get fuel also. Doing this may well leave you stranded in a bad location. Double it. And, in rural areas, don't pass a gas station without topping off ALL of your fuel containers and generator, if you have one.
Pat