Eclipse festivities?


 
Timothy F. Lewis

Timothy F. Lewis

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
Does anyone have any plans for eclipse fun? Jon? You will be up to your armpits in tax work I’m sure but, who else is in the “Zone of Totality”?
SWMBO wants to see it almost as much as I do so, we will get a little “cruise time” in to celebrate her first week of retirement. She will be still on the hook for training her replacement for a couple of weeks but, they will have to work around her some!
 
I've seen eclipses before, don't know anyone really under this path of totality, and flat out refuse to pay the horribly inflated lodging rates.
 
Here in Maryland, I'm in the 78% zone which isn't bad but I've already got hotel reservations at Canton. Two nights, Sunday April 7 and Monday April 8. $90/night including taxes. I paid a few dollars extra for a small suite. Five and a half hour drive. Canton is like in the 99% zone. That'll be our home base. From there we'll drive an hour on Monday to 100% dead center and see it at a park, haven't decided which park. But we'll be in four mins of totality. The show starts around 2 PM, totality is around 4 mins starting around 3:15 PM, and the show is over at around 4:30 PM. Might bring my camp stove and make smash burgers or something. The cool thing is, if the weather forecast for Monday is bad, we can cancel the reservations by midnight Friday for a 100% refund. I was in totality for the last one in 2017 anyway, so no biggy. The next one is in North Dakota in 2044 - I'll probably miss that one. :)

It's a once in a lifetime experience. Actually, it's more like a once every 400 years experience unless you travel to one, because a total eclipse only comes to a random spot on earth on average about once every 400 years. That's what they say.

Edit: Here is a vid of our last one. We rented a high mountain cabin in the far west corner of NC. That mountain in the background is in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You could see 100 miles from the deck. We rented it seven months earlier and the guy messed up and charged us the normal price, neglecting to add a premium for the eclipse week, so we got real lucky with that. I think the cabin owner fired him because the cabin was never available for rent from him again. Anyway, it got very dark, but not as dark as night. The camera does not do the darkness justice because the camera adjusts automatically for the lack of light, so it was darker than what it appears in the vid. Not a great camera, Sony Handycam, only 1080p. With the moon blocking, you can look directly towards the sun with your unprotected eyes and no eclipse glasses. If you turn the volume up, you should be able to hear the crickets chirping because they think night has fallen.

 
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Nice video, including the little dancer ;)

We're a cat's whisker from Dayton, Ohio. I'll be at work during the eclipse but I wish we would consider closing as I envision mayhem on the roads.

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I had a childhood eye injury that left me paranoid and I will not make any attempt to view the sky even though I recognize there are safe means by which to do so.
 
BFletcher said:
Nice video, including the little dancer ;)

We're a cat's whisker from Dayton, Ohio. I'll be at work during the eclipse but I wish we would consider closing as I envision mayhem on the roads.

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I had a childhood eye injury that left me paranoid and I will not make any attempt to view the sky even though I recognize there are safe means by which to do so.
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I can appreciate the concern about one’s eyesight. Perfectly rational. All my contacts in Indianapolis have died so, the free overnight there is off the table, drat!
 
BFletcher said:
I had a childhood eye injury that left me paranoid and I will not make any attempt to view the sky even though I recognize there are safe means by which to do so.
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Gotta agree with @Timothy F. Lewis , I'm paranoid about my eyes.

Oh, and just for the record, please do not rely on an auto-darkening welding lens. Those may not clamp down fast enough, nor far enough. Use a fixed shade lens.
 
Been there done that. That was before Murphy came into my life. Now if I went to a hot zone to view this thing it would be (pick one) raining, overcast, foggy, smoky or some other thing to screw up the view.
So Murph and I will have a cold one together and watch it on the news.
 
Same as Rich, but wouldn't do it anyway. The prices they are charging is way out of line. Anything to hike the prices up.
 
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I think we will “day sail” that morning a few hours southeast? Somewhere between Muncie and Dayton? Maybe se what’s happening wherever we go?!
 
I’ve seen a couple solar eclipses.
Once when I was a kid and once when my kid was young.
When my daughter saw it I grabbed some welding lenses and a hood so she could see it.
I had an assortment of lenses so I tried some out to see what shade would be safe to look at the sun.
I found that a #12 stacked with a #7 worked fine for us so I put them in the welding hood for her but I’m not a licensed optometrist so your milage may vary.
I do know that a regular arc welding lens does no offer the required protection so an increase of shade is required.
 
Well I am in the "Nope" zone, but my daughter and IL said they're going to drive down to Southern IL. to view it.
 
LMichaels said:
Well I am in the "Nope" zone, but my daughter and IL said they're going to drive down to Southern IL. to view it.
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I'm in Cleveland Ohio. Schools, Cleveland City Hall etc closed for the day. A million + people expected to show up on April 8th to view a solar eclipse that in all likelihood will be a rainy day.
 
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