About two weeks ago me and a couple friends decided to catch the solar eclipse up in Oregon. It was a last minute road trip, so we pretty much planned things out last minute. We left from the Bay Area around noon on Sunday the 20th and drove up six hours to Grant's Pass, Oregon. Our original plan was to drive further up to Coravlis, but everything was booked solid from Airbnbs to hotels.


On the way up north, we drove past a couple sites that I haven't heard of - I've actually never drove up further than Napa, California before. We made a quick pit stop at Lake Shasta which had a dam, you could view.

The dam


There wasn't much going on at the lake but it was quite idyllic. After passing the lake, about another 1/2 hour drive we reached Mount Shasta. It's a volcanic mountain with a couple of glaciers on there, and it's also a popular skiing spot when there is more snow. 



After this we didn't make any stops until we reached Ashland, Oregon. The only other interesting thing along the way was we stopped by a city called Weed, and it had a big banner advertising to buy "I heart Weed" shirts along with a "Weed welcomes you back" sign. lol

In Ashland we stopped to have dinner at a restaurant called Hearsay - it was a funky little restaurant with some risqué 20s themed paintings on the wall. The food was also pretty yummy, especially after driving for 5 hours. 

Buddha Bowl

 Bone Marrow

Tri-tip Steak Wedge Salad.

After dinner we made our final pitstop for the night at Grants Pass. My friend found a cute family owned inn called Buona Sera Inn. We weren't expecting much but were really surprised. He booked a two bedroom, and although small it came with a living room and a dining and kitchen area. Our rooms had a french country style, with quirky decorations and random french paintings. It was also extremely clean and had a nice homely feel. I normally do not fall asleep easily in new places, but went to bed fine here. The only sad thing was we only stayed here for about 5 hours before we woke up at around 4am to drive further up north!

On our early morning journey, we grabbed Dutch Bros Coffee - they had a stand that was open 24/7. Apparently Grants Pass is also the birth place of Dutch Bros! The friendly employees at 4am definitely perked us up. After this, I passed out in the car until we reached Albany, Oregon. We chose this spot to watch the eclipse, so that we could easily get onto the 5 right afterwards.

We found a park called Waverly Lake where we setup shop to view the eclipse. The eclipse started around 9:00am and ended around 11:17am. For the first hour and a half I would say nothing really happened. You really needed eclipse glasses to see anything at all. With the glasses you could slowly see the moon covering the sun. 

My collage of the Eclipse

I took most of my photos with the eclipse glasses infront of my iPhone; I didn't have a solar filter for my camera, but the end results were still worth it. 

As it begin reaching totality, you could feel the weather getting chiller and a dimness that was different from a sunrise or sunset. It legitimately felt like something was covering the sun; which was eery and cool at the same time.

Waverly Lake

When it finally reached totality, you could take off your glasses and look directly at the sun. It look exactly as the professional photos you see online. It was pretty cool to see, and lasted less than too minutes. The photo below is my photo of the totality. It's not the best shot, as it was cooler in person but still worth the experience. You'll notice on the bottom left corner, a white dot, which was a large bright star, that became more visible as it reached totality. I believe it might have been a planet, but I'm not 100% sure.


We left five minutes after the end of totality and the 5 was already packed! We saw tons of people camped out in the most random places to view the eclipse, like in a Kohl's parking lot. It took us 12 hours to get home! This was definitely the shortest road trip I've ever taken, but definitely worth the experience. After all, the next American one won't be around until 2024.