Newly opened Casper bar, The Gaslight Social.
As Casper was right in the center of the 2017 Solar Eclipse, it took advantage of the situation and had a three day festival to commemorate it. The festival featured the openings, basically, of three new bars (or one bar/restaurant reopening, one new bar/restaurant and one new bar) and a new city feature, a downtown plaza. It was well attended.
Downtown revelers and a carriage. Casper, unlike Fort Collins or even, occasionally, Denver, generally doesn't have horse drawn carriages downtown.
There were wildly varying predictions for the eclipse. Frankly, I doubted some of them. But maybe more of them came true than I would have guessed.
Map
showing where people had come from to view the eclipse. Some of the
locations were so surprising, I wonder if they were really true.
showing where people had come from to view the eclipse. Some of the
locations were so surprising, I wonder if they were really true.
Over 1,000,000 people, according to the Star Tribune, entered the state during the eclipse. Assuming that's correct, that means that the state's population tripled yesterday. Having said that, it didn't appear to be the case that Casper's population more than doubled, as had been predicted. I know that not all of the camping spots filled that had been predicted to, although perhaps many did. I also know that people were camping right in the neighborhood, in front of people's houses that they knew.
This doesn't do this map justice. There were visitors, according to the map, from Greenland, Ascension Island, and North Korea. All quite surprising, if true.
Europe seemed pretty well represented. I met one Irish visitor who had just left the Wonder Bar, which has a nice restaurant. Apparently he hadn't realized that as he asked me and my son for directions to "a pub" so he could get something to eat. He was surprised when I directed him back to the Wonder Bar.
New downtown plaza. I was skeptical that this would be complete on time.
It's not everyday you see a municipal judge on the guitar.
Picking up my trailer, which I had loaned out to friends
I'm included amongst those that had camping visitors. Some good friends of mine were in town for the eclipse. They'd planned on staying in Gillette and driving down, but I loaned them my camp trailer and let them camp near our garden land. That became three couples by the time of the eclipse. This land has never had residents, although the neighboring land does and has for quite some time, so I suppose its population increased from 0 to six.
Another old friend of mine drove up from Salt Lake to Riverton, where they also experienced an influx. And I guess the Jackson Hole Airport received a huge corporate jet boost.
