Over the weekend of Aug 18-21 (2017) we dusted off the Yellow Mog and ventured off to Sheridan Oregon to attend North West MogFest. NWMF is a well established institution and gathering of owners of Unimogs, VW Westfalias and other exotic vehicles of European origin. We learned about NWMF last summer when we rescued a bogged VW Westfalia from the muddy shores of BC lake bed and had committed ourselves to attending this years event way back then and only later discovered that this year there would be an added attraction in that the venue would be perfectly positioned under the path of the eclipse and as a result the event had been officially extended to include the morning of Monday 21st.

There is always a degree of uncertainty about attending a well established event for the first time as one does not know the traditions and informal rules of the group and certainly there is always the question of how one will click (or not) with the people. Thus I am pleased to report that for us NWMF 2017 was an entertaining success. After a little false start (trying to enter the venue by the wrong road) we parked in a field amongst a bunch of other Mogs and almost immediately were engaged in conversations about mogs, campers, building of campers, traveling, software, and other nerdy stuff. I am not sure why it was this way but by the end of the event Nina and I were convinced that we had attended a nerds convention as there seemed to be an unusually high concentration of people with high tech backgrounds.

This is the only place Nina and I have ever been where a tour of our yellow Camper started by crawling under the truck to inspect the mechanical components.

The icing on the cake was that Monday morning dawned to bright sunshine and clear skies which was just perfect for viewing the progression of the eclipse through those geeky eclipse glasses we bought from Amazon.

To Jim and Emily (the hosts), and all of those who befriended us NWMF-newbies, thank you.

As a final comment, note the crescent shaped bright spots on the ground in the final photo. They are a result of light from the partially covered sun passing through the leaves of trees. The gaps between the leaves act like pin-holes lenses and project the image of the partially covered sun onto the ground.