[Rockhounds] Citizen Scientists To Study Solar Eclipse 2017

[Alan Silverstein]

My wife and I did a mostly fabulous 6-night camper van trip following
the North Platte River in Wyoming (the "ice cream sundae") with the
total eclipse (cloudless, whew) on the 6th day (the "cherry on top").

During the trip, I launched my kayak 5 times on 4 (of the 6) major
reservoirs on the North Platte River, in 3 days of boating!  I collected
a couple of gallons of mostly really beautiful banded iron formation
(BIF, "ironwood", age 2000 MY+; there's the rockhounding connection!)
in various shoreline locations.  Conditions often calm enough to hunt
from the kayak at the waterline!  Whee.

We camped at:  Seminoe, Pathfinder, Alcova, Fort Casper, a private ranch
outside Glendo, and when we could NOT drive anywhere else Monday evening
due to huge traffic, a short ways down the road at Glendo State Park
(backup plan A => more kayaking the next day).  The first three nights,
we had our favorite campsites at S-P-A!  OK at Alcova we elected to move
up the hill and join a geologist waiting for the rest of his group the
next day (this was prearranged), leaving my favorite shoreline site for
someone else, but guess what, the sunset and sunrise views from higher
on the hill were awesome too!

I could even have floated a couple of miles of the North Platte in
Casper, but didn't push hard enough to make time for that.  And we could
have added Guernsey downstream for one more night, but...  Nah, it was
time to go home.

Cheers,
Alan Silverstein