Event #3879

Total Eclipse in a Park - SUNday

West Tyson County Park, 131 N Outer Rd E, Eureka, MO

Registered Boxes: All Traditional HH/Cootie/Flea Postal LTC Event Box Traveler Other

Starts	Sun August 20, 2017 8:00am
Ends	Mon August 21, 2017 7:00am
Owner	MO UR4Me
Admins	MO UR4Me
Signups	35/∞
Location	West Tyson County Park, 131 N Outer Rd E, Eureka, MO View Map
Add to Calendar	Google calendar ICS file (e.g. Outlook, iCal, etc.)

Description

Experience 2 minutes and 13 seconds of TOTAL DARKNESS and other once-in-a-lifetime phenomena during the 2017 Solar Eclipse, which will occur mid-day on Monday, August 21, 2017.

COST UPDATE: Eclipse glasses $1 each for first 60 who signed up ($5 for special ones); $5/person for camping/lodge (SUNday) and suggested donation of $8/family to cover other (non-letterbox) costs.

WHO: Unlimited day trippers, up to 20 overnighters in the lodge, 20ish campers.

WHAT: 40+ new letterboxes from carvers across America, to find along beautiful but rugged trails, broken into loops, including a moonlight set of boxes to find at night with flashlights.
Clues for existing boxes will be incorporated into your clue packet. SUNday Moonlight Boxing - one clue sheet will not be released until Sunday evening. These will be mostly temporary boxes that are not in ideal-for-long-term hiding spots. But they are down in the valley and you can find them with a flashlight. These boxes will be available on Monday as well, but possibly not after that. So bring a flashlight.

WHEN: The entire event is taking place SUNday through MOONday. These are just the details for Sunday. There is no particular time that you need to show up by on Sunday; being August it may be hot so hiking in the morning may be preferred. So I'll have the clues available when the park opens at 8:00 a.m. for anyone who wants to get an early start; just look for the yellow tablecloth at the camping area. The trails are rugged so you may want to break it up and then go find some air conditioning or a pool in the afternoon. See parking information below.
The MOONday portion is listed separately so please RSVP there too if you're coming both days: https://www.atlasquest.com/showinfo.html?eventId=3771

WHERE: West Tyson County Park in St. Louis County. I have reserved a "camping lodge" which sleeps 20 indoors plus the group campsite, which holds another 20. Day trippers welcome. Unlike some other parks, there will not be 950 other people trying to get into the park at the same time. The lodge has a covered patio with 5 tables that will be our center of activity.

WEAR: We have eclipse glasses for the first 60 people who sign up, for $1 each at the event, so you don't need to find your own. A few are "wacky" pairs for $5 if you want to get even crazier.

THE PATH: Yes, it’s really called the Path of Totality. If you are in this path, and not ten feet outside the path, you will experience total blockage of the sun. You can learn more about it here Eclipse 2017 Info The Path stretches from Oregon to South Carolina, so hopefully this will not be the only event planned for the day. Here is a closeup map of the St. Louis area St. Louis Eclipse Map

DARKNESS: The partial phase will start at about 11:48am and totality starts at about 1:15pm. West Tyson County Park will get over 2 minutes of totality!

ECLIPSE VIEWING - We’ll be hanging out at the camping area and you can spread out however you want. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. There will be at least 5 picnic tables in the shade and there is plenty more shade. The themed event boxes will be down here too. If the sky is cloudy, we can use the Route 66 Museum's indoor conference room and watch NASA's webcast from another city in the path.

LODGING OPTIONS:
a) Camping Lodge - basically just a really big one-room cabin. No water inside, but there is a BBQ Oven outside, 8 electrical outlets, and a covered patio with tables. Roth Memorial Lodge
If you’re staying in the lodge, you can drive up there to drop off your stuff and then drive back down to the parking area. (They are not far apart but to walk there you can use a short but somewhat steep connector trail whereas the drive has a gradual incline and long switchback.) We can have a few cars parked up there at a time, but we need to leave room for everyone to turn around. If you need to get out in the middle of the night or you arrive after the park is “closed”, the gates won’t really be locked. The LODGE is basically a big room with a concrete floor, so bring whatever padding sleeping items you need. It has screened windows and doors on two sides so that we should be able to get nice air flow going through there. There are 5 outlets inside so let me know if you can bring an extra fan and then it’ll be even cooler. There are lights inside the lodge and outside in the covered porch area. In addition, the connector trail down the parking lot has lights!
b) Primitive Camping in lovely grassy group campsite West Tyson Group Campsite photos. We have one or two large tents with only 1 person, so let me know if you want to share a tent with someone.
There are bathrooms / shower house about 50 feet away from the lodge/campsite. BYOT - Bring Your Own Towel! I will provide shower curtains... the shower side is not fancy.
c) Find your own hotel. There are groups of die-hard eclipse chasers who travel to the far corners of the earth to see them, so book in advance!!
RESERVATIONS: If you want to stay over on Sunday night, you must AQmail MO UR4Me and to reserve your piece of floor or grass.

FOOD:
SUNday Lunch/Dinner – I’m not organizing food, but you’re welcome to bring your own or go out; within 5 to 10 minutes is a BBQ place, Panera, Little Caesar’s Pizza, Arby’s, Burger King, frozen custard and much more if you go a bit farther. We might be able to place separate credit cards orders with some of them and then I can go pick it all up while you’re hiking.
MOONday Breakfast - Potluck for anyone who wants to participate starting at 7:00am since some may hit the trails early before the heat kicks in. If you want to participate, please think about something to bring that can easily be ready by 7:00 am (just please don’t all bring donuts/danishes unless that is what you are really going to eat). We’ll keep all the breakfast food either inside the lodge or in someone’s car right outside and then whoever is an early riser can get it out in the morning (I may be in a tent down the hill). I will bring a coffee maker and coffee.
MOONday Potluck Lunch - At the campground at NOON. Bring whatever you want (but not the easy stuff if you’re a local, please. Let out-of-towners have those). There is a BBQ at the campground if anyone wants to use it, plus 5 picnic tables and I’ll have extra tables as well. If you need to cook something, you can put a crockpot in the lodge that morning and then bring it down, or let me know and I’ll bring it down while you’re ‘boxing. There are 4 outlets in the lodge porch and I’ll bring power strips. Coolers can just be dropped off in the camping area that morning; I’ll be around. The eclipse will start at about 11:45 and totality is at 1:15ish.

EVENT BOXES Bring your stamping stuff to the campground area; there will be some themed event boxes there. MO UR4Me will provide the tunes!

PARKING – The reason I reserved this particular park is that there is limited sky, limited parking yet unlimited beautiful trails with plentiful hiding spots. So it’s not an ideal location for ‘noxers when Route 66 State Park is next door and wide open. Since we’ll have people in the park Sunday night, they’ll already have a parking spot. The rangers “dummy lock” the front gates and then open them officially at 8am. So I encourage day trippers to just come anytime before 7:45 and let yourself in. You’ll grab a parking spot and can hit the trails while it’s cool out. I don’t anticipate many others even trying to get into the park, but there were a few people driving around and stopping at different spots at around 1:00 today. But don’t worry, I only saw 8 total people there today and they were all after 9am; it’s not super busy on weekdays. But even if others do come, there is still plenty of parking around. There will probably be many hikers/bikers on Sunday afternoon, but we’ll all fit.

SHUTTLE: I’m going to have one spot at the campground cordoned off for my mini-van (shall we call it the Silver Shuttle?) so that I can shuttle people wherever they need to go. So worst case scenario: park by the entrance and I’ll come pick you up. No problem.

Signups

Total signups:35