Eclipse on Tick Creek

Not too far into the benighted land of Hoosiers known as the State of Indiana lies a place known as Tick Creek. It's spelled Lick Creek on the map but judging by the abundance of the bloodthirsty buggers there, it seems a spelling error occurred on some paperwork somewhere. On less astronomical occasions Tick Creek is a riding trail in Hoosier National Forest, but when the sun and moon align it turns into a great place for dispersed camping. Besides, everyone knows that old saying, "bullet holes marks the spot!"

For weeks the news has been going on about the eclipse and how every place in totality's path with space was booked up, so we went with the advice a ranger gave me in 2017 and went camping in a national forest. That experience in Wyoming also made me suspect I'd be hardly the only one with that idea, so I tried to find a place that stood a chance of being overlooked, which led me to Tick Creek.

There's only so much you can tell from Google sat view and forest service maps, so I wasn't at all certain it'd be our final destination but when we arrived it fit the bill perfectly. For dispersed camping you have to be 300 feet from the trailhead and 100 feet from the trail but we ended up hiking in a bit further. Hadn't even set up the tents when we encountered the first of the parasites that give the place its name. We'd gotten there in the early afternoon in case we had to hit up a few places to find a spot, got camp set up with plenty of time to spare instead. Time to explore...

The forest was just starting to spring to life, with burst of color here and there and the briars not yet impenetrable. It was kind of wild, was afraid the place would be packed but aside from a pair of hikers and a couple people riding bikes we had the forest to ourselves. The weather was the biggest question mark of the whole adventure and it kept us guessing that first day, with a lovely afternoon and a rainy evening.

The sun and moon aligned for us on Monday though, and the weather was rather glorious. Got another hike in before the big event and ran into some cattle rustlers. They're the ones who ride horses, right?

Show time! Not counting phones, we had at least six cameras for the three of us but some of them were analog. Despite all the photography equipment we were there for the experience, neither my partner nor my brother had experienced totality before.

Totality is the highlight but the partial eclipse leading up to and following it is rather amazing to see as well. Space cowboy eclipse glasses just make it even better.

Had a little more company for the eclipse but there were still less than two dozen people there, was like some sort of strange picnic. It got steadily darker, the cattle and dogs expressed their alarm, the birds got quiet, and then everything lined up.

Had the aperture set a bit too wide for this shot but I still like how it turned out. This made my second totality and once again had big plans for it but somehow always end up spending more time gazing in awe and never get to half of it. It's always way too short anyway, how can you not just gaze upon it?

Probably should have gotten new contacts for this, old contacts and manual focusing don't mix well. Was trying to get Baily's beads in this shot and I think I succeeded but it may not be quite in focus.

Ordered a paper solar filter so I could shoot the partial but it wasn't as universal as advertised. Fit my partner's film camera nicely so they used it for most of the eclipse. Towards the very end I managed to use my lens hood and holding my mouth just right to get it to stay in place long enough to snap a few shots. Don't know how it was supposed to turn out but the results were fun.

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That's all for now, will be back in a day or two with some black and white shots. Who else caught totality yesterday?