Thursday, August 27, 2026
By Danny Kato
Participants/Vehicles: Ralph Nobbe in Jeep JL Willys; Danny Kato in Annabelle the LJ; Brad Burk in Lexus 470 GX; Brian and Tiffany Slattery in Chub Chub; Peter Green and family in the Bug; Sebastian and Julie Fishburn, plus their friend David in the Nissan.
We met at the Winchester Gun Club at around 6:45pm. There had been cloud cover all day, and it continued to be there as we departed down West Camino Cielo; however, there was a break in the clouds to the west. We hoped that the clouds would break before the 9:18pm peak of the lunar eclipse.
We went to the first play area, and all except Brad went down and up to the flat area on top. The GX470 was on street tires, so Brad opted to stay on the main road. We gathered at the flat area, and were disappointed to find a truck parked at the prime spot. So we parked in a different spot.
Brad and I drove in Annabelle across the main road and up the hill to the west, as I had been up there before, and remembered a fairly big flat spot at the top, where I thought we could all hang out while waiting for the eclipse. Unfortunately, the flat area at the top was quite small, so we came back down.
Peter had been flying his drone, following us up the hill, when he lost contact with his drone, and it didn’t return to home base, as he expected it to. I gave him a ride up to the top of the hill, so he could go look for it. Bryan, Tiffany, Sebastian and David followed in Chub Chub. We couldn’t see the drone, but eventually, Peter figured out how to make the drone make noise and flash lights. Bryan and David found it almost immediately after it started making noise.
We drove/walked down the hill, and gathered on the flat spot. I broke out Darrell’s propane firepit, and we all sat around, shooting the shit, like you do. It was warm enough to sit around in shorts and t-shirts, even without the fire. The clouds were slowly clearing from the west, so we just waited. Peter and family left, as it was a school night, and the kids needed to get to bed.
We saw the moon at around 8:45pm, but the clouds quickly covered it up again. So we waited, and watched the clouds slowly move to the east. At around 9:17, the clouds broke up, and we had a mostly full view of the full lunar eclipse, and could watch the line of Earth’s shadow slowly move across the moon form the 10 o’clock position towards the 4 o’clock position. Clouds would come and go, partially obscuring the moon.
At around 10pm, we packed up and went back towards the gun club. All the way back to Santa Barbara, you could look up at the moon, and see that it was still in partial eclipse. So beautiful.
A great and fun time was had by all.