We haven’t traveled since last fall other than one visit to the States to see family. Otherwise, we have been sticking close to home while we work on our residency renewal. 

However, for the August 12th solar eclipse, we took a four-day road trip, along with a friend, to Spain to watch from within the path of totality. We chose to observe it from a field outside of the tiny village of Ayllón, Spain which is about 140 kilometers north of Madrid. The weather was scorching, dry, and 37 degrees Celsius (98.6º F.) When scouting our site the day before, we even got caught up in a dust devil of swirling straw.

The experience of totality during the eclipse was even more awe-inspiring than we expected. We all wondered how early man would have reacted to seeing an eclipse. The entire trip was a great experience. 

I don’t own the kind  camera equipment that serious, professional photographers use for shooting eclipses, but I decided to try with what I have since I had nothing to lose.

Below is a composite photo I created with 16 images of the sun I took over about an hour and a half with my “real” camera, plus a shot of the location taken with my cell phone.

There is also a video I created with clips from my cell phone.

After the eclipse day, we took our time driving back to Porto making two overnight stops to break it up. There are some random  photos below of towns we visited along the way.