OT: The April 8th Eclipse - Put in Zip Code to See How Much You'll (not) See
- Thread starter Source
- Start date
Agree. This was still noticeable and weird looking outside. Still think last year's smoke was more strange because it lasted longer, it stunk and it was pretty dark. Those were supposed to be sunny days.
So at my house in SW New Hampshire, at 96%,, it became like dusk such that all my outside lights turned on for a while.
I don't know about everyone else, but our human sacrifice went well and seemed to have brought back the sun.
Pretty, pretty cool.
Pretty, pretty cool.
Less dangerous too.
I saw a guy on YT who lost vision in one eye after 20 seconds of eclipse watching.
Locally we had businesses giving away free "eclipse glasses" which where just garbage.
Don’t stare at the eclipse or you may cause irreparable damage to your eyes. But if you wear these cardboard glasses I bought at the gas station you’ll be fine. Yeah, sure.
That's pretty good. I was looking for some bird and squirrel activity by me, but nothing big. The birds flew around a bit like scattering before a storm, but the fat squirrels went about their business.
What you don't believe that? I mean, you can get good fried chicken at Royal Farms, so gas stations must have the eclipse glasses thing down by now.
Are you still getting them? Outside of that one on Friday at about 6 p.m. I haven't noticed any. Now, watch another quake on the way...
Exciting! It was like Al Capone's vault and Y2K all at the same time! I can't wait for "My Dinner With Andre 2: The Next Course".
There have been 44 so far including 4 today. The last one I felt was 2.5 on Saturday morning at about 7am.
Thanks to climate change apparently
The View's Sunny Hostin blames eclipse, earthquake and cicadas on 'climate change'
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin said the events indicated either 'climate change exists' or 'something is really going on'
Just another dolt of the clueless crew on the view.Thanks to climate change apparently
The View's Sunny Hostin blames eclipse, earthquake and cicadas on 'climate change'
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin said the events indicated either 'climate change exists' or 'something is really going on'www.foxnews.com
You're not kidding. We were in Oregon in 2017 and were braced for the traffic but I didn't expect 91 to be as bad as it was for so long. Construction lane closures didn't help. Stopped for gas after 5 hrs but really had not gone far so there wasn't much to add lol. Diverted to Newport in the am from original Burlington plan and the weather and skies were great. There was an astronomy group set up in a park letting people take a look through a telescope. Newport wasn't expecting that many people but they absorbed it well. Phone companies were less able to cope. No data for most of our time there and couldn't map route options for the first hour leaving. I had downloaded a 3+GB of maps to Apple Maps but now I have to figure out why they weren't available. It has worked well in the past. Overall it was awesome. Being in a crowd as the event reached totality was fun and the effect is spectacular. I didn't attempt any serious photography and I'm kind of glad I didn't have the distraction. thx for the weather reports and cloud maps.
Where in Newport did you go? My buddy and I were originally planning on going to the viewing area that was set up at the high school, but that was full. Our backup plan was a nearby Walmart parking lot, but that was full too. We kept going down the road and found plenty of space at a grocery store called Price Chopper. I brought a large telescope (recently handmade by Rutgers alumnus and premium telescope maker Rob Teeter), but immediately had an endless stream of people asking about it and wanting to take a look. I didn't mind doing it before the eclipse and during the partial eclipse, and people thought it was cool to see a few sunspots, but the last thing I wanted was to drive all that way to have a crowd of people asking to look through it during totality while I either miss out because I'm too nice or have to deny everyone and then feel bad about it. I also noticed we set up near an LED streetlight and we considered that it could be set to turn on automatically when it gets dark, so we moved it across the street to a different grass area with no lights and only a handful of people.
The view through the telescope and with the naked eye were both incredible in different ways. With the naked eye it was something else to just see it hanging up there in the dark blue sky flanked by Venus and Jupiter, but through the scope we were able to clearly see a number of solar prominences, which was a nice surprise. To see those through a telescope when there's not an eclipse going on requires a very expensive special filter.
I took a few quick photos through the telescope with my phone, tried to get a pic of it in the sky but after two failed attempts decided not to miss any more of the moment. You can see some of the prominences in the last pic at roughly 2:00 and 6:00.
Last edited:
And it’s made of gas apparently.
Spaced out: Sheila Jackson Lee tells Texas students 'planet' moon is 'made up of mostly of gases'
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a democrat from Texas, told students the moon was a planet and that it was made up of gases, while speaking to them before the solar eclipse on April 8.
I parked and had my equipment set up in the long driveway leading into the Walmart parking lot. Arrived there around 1:00pm.
Ok, it's later much later - more on that below. So, let's talk about eclipse day. Long post (surprise!). After a nice homemade breakfast at our B&B in central NH (Coppertoppe), my wife and I left around 8:30 am and while heading up 93 we could see that a nice delay had started 20 miles N of us on 93 at the dreaded Franconia Notch area, where 93 goes to one lane in each direction. So we ditched off onto 112 (NW) then 116 (NE) to 93 north of the Notch and then traffic wasn't bad the rest of the way up to Pittsburg, NH, the northernmost town in NH, just about guaranteed to have clear skies and well into totality (3:15 seconds of it). Ride took about 3 hours vs. 2:20 on a typical day.
We filled up the gas tank (important for later on) and headed to Buck Rub Pub & Lodge, which had great food (poutine was awesome) and had set up a viewing area outside for the event, where everyone set up their lawn chairs and blankets - with drink service! Last pic is of my wife and I and the event area on their lawn. Met some very nice people from MA/NH who were there including one who was playing a great eclipse playlist on the outdoor speaker they had and her nephew had an amazing photo/video setup and allowed us to take a few pics of his viewfinder. Shared the best one here, below, which shows the "diamond ring" feature and shared one of my crappy pics of the eclipse near 75% - can't really even tell as the light "filled in" what was missing - pics weren't my main goal, though - being enveloped in the experience was.
And then the main event. It was simply mind blowing watching the moon blocking more and more of the sun's rays, filling the sky with an eerie, high contrast light that kept dwindling and slowly lowering the ambient temperature. I had experienced about 75% totality in 2017 and that was cool, but not "amazing" - however, "amazing" can't hold a candle to what we saw, especially at that moment the eclipse went from 99.9% to 100.0% and everything went mostly dark (not pitch black, but like 25-30 minutes after sunset) and it was about 10F cooler than the ~55F temp before the eclipse with everything becoming quite still and silent. It was breathtaking, including the otherworldly pink prominence, made of hot plasma extending several "Earths" from the sun's surface - the pic below shows it and we hope the guy we met will share his photos of that soon. Totality >>>>>>> Partial.
We decided to hang out with our new friends for awhile after the eclipse was over, including an impromptu karaoke eclipse session, featuring my wife belting out "Me and My Bobby McGee" with the our new friends. Was actually quite well done! With things winding down by about 5:30 pm we left for our B&B, hoping waiting would allow traffic to clear some. Nope.
Then began our 8.25 hour odyssey across NH/VT - there's an entertaining Reddit thread linked below on this. We were expecting it to be maybe 4-6 hours given the huge numbers of people heading back to wherever they came from , but this became a serious cluster, as the NHDOT really screwed things up from I've heard and read. It took maybe 3 hours to get down towards Bethlehem, NH, via 120/2/135/116/142 - all back roads since US3 and I-93 were parking lots, partly due to the old Franconia Notch bottleneck. It then got worse as they closed exits 39 and 38 off of 93 because they supposedly didn't want some of the rural side roads being overrun and even closed some of those small roads all of which led to it taking some people 5-6 hours to navigate <5 miles of 93 at the Notch and led us to waste 3 more hours moving about 5 miles, just trying to even get to 93 near there - with cell service being largely out due to overload, greatly exacerbating the problem, as one couldn't figure out what alternates were closed/open/moving. People were reportedly peeing anywhere off the road they could (or in cups) and many simply got out of their cars to stroll around, while others eventually ran out of gas. Complete shitshow - that ~3 hour segment was the worst traffic I've ever been stuck in. Ever. And luck played a huge role, given the lack of cell service, as one couple staying at our B&B only took about 5 hours to get back from Pittsburg (they went more west through VT staying further from 93), while another couple at our B&B took over 9 hours to get back from Coleyville which is15 miles south of Pittsburg, plus they left right after the eclipse. Fortunately, we did hit an open gas station after about 4 hours of slow driving and were able to use their bathroom (with a line of about 20 in it) and then made one good decision 6 hours into our ordeal, as we decided, after moving 2 miles in 2 hours approaching 142, that we would take 142N just to be moving instead of trying to brave 142S to 93S, which we heard took people 3-4 hours to negotiate - and then we get into the clear got some cell service and noticed that we might be able to take 302E then 116S, then 113W (all through the White Mountain National Forest) to bypass 93 and get to our B&B in Hebron. It actually worked with my wife doing yeoman work on the navigation and me somehow surviving that much driving and it "only" took 2.25 hrs vs. the 3-4 it likely would've taken if we had tried to get through on 93. They should've implemented "contraflow" like they do in hurricane evacuations, reversing flow on 93N (for about 8 miles) to give 2 lanes heading south - would've likely averted at least some of the mess and 93 and the side roads. Oh well. Fortunately, we made it home in ~6.25 hrs this afternoon (vs. 5 hrs heading up on Sunday). Having said all that, I'm sure we'll get over that crappy drive and always treasure experiencing a total eclipse. See you all in Spain (or Greenland) in 2026 for the next one or in Alaska in 2033.
One last tidbit. It turns out that the "lucky" couple staying at the same B&B as us weren't there by accident, as the husband is a board lurker/RU fan who lives on LI and actually ended up at our B&B after reading my post from a few days ago in this thread (they weren't having luck finding a place); they also went to Pittsburg, hoping the cloud forecasts I posted would be correct - they were for New England and many other areas, but fortunately were wrong in the "right" way for parts of TX/AR/OH and upstate NY, all of which had much less cloud cover than forecast. The rest of NY and PA were quite cloudy though. Didn't meet them until this morning at breakfast when he said, "hey are you Numbers?" I was floored, lol. Nice folks.
Last edited:
From looking at Google maps traffic a few times through the evening, it appeared that the interstates in VT, as well as I87 in NY, were even worse than I93 through the notch.Ok, it's later much later - more on that below. So, let's talk about eclipse day. Long post (surprise!). After a nice homemade breakfast at our B&B in central NH (Coppertoppe), my wife and I left around 8:30 am and while heading up 93 we could see that a nice delay had started 20 miles N of us on 93 at the dreaded Franconia Notch area, where 93 goes to one lane in each direction. So we ditched off onto 112 (NW) then 116 (NE) to 93 north of the Notch and then traffic wasn't bad the rest of the way up to Pittsburg, NH, the northernmost town in NH, just about guaranteed to have clear skies and well into totality (3:15 seconds of it). Ride took about 3 hours vs. 2:20 on a typical day.
We filled up the gas tank (important for later on) and headed to Buck Rub Pub & Lodge, which had great food (poutine was awesome) and had set up a viewing area outside for the event, where everyone set up their lawn chairs and blankets - with drink service! Last pic is of my wife and I and the event area on their lawn. Met some very nice people from MA/NH who were there including one who was playing a great eclipse playlist on the outdoor speaker they had and her nephew had an amazing photo/video setup and allowed us to take a few pics of his viewfinder. Shared the best one here, below, which shows the "diamond ring" feature and shared one of my crappy pics of the eclipse near 75% - can't really even tell as the light "filled in" what was missing - pics weren't my main goal, though - being enveloped in the experience was.
And then the main event. It was simply mind blowing watching the moon blocking more and more of the sun's rays, filling the sky with an eerie, high contrast light that kept dwindling and slowly lowering the ambient temperature. I had experienced about 75% totality in 2017 and that was cool, but not "amazing" - however, "amazing" can't hold a candle to what we saw, especially at that moment the eclipse went from 99.9% to 100.0% and everything went mostly dark (not pitch black, but like 25-30 minutes after sunset) and it was about 10F cooler than the ~55F temp before the eclipse with everything becoming quite still and silent. It was breathtaking, including the otherworldly pink prominence, made of hot plasma extending several "Earths" from the sun's surface - the pic below shows it and we hope the guy we met will share his photos of that soon. Totality >>>>>>> Partial.
We decided to hang out with our new friends for awhile after the eclipse was over, including an impromptu karaoke eclipse session, featuring my wife belting out "Me and My Bobby McGee" with the our new friends. Was actually quite well done! With things winding down by about 5:30 pm we left for our B&B, hoping waiting would allow traffic to clear some. Nope.
Then began our 8.25 hour odyssey across NH/VT - there's an entertaining Reddit thread linked below on this. We were expecting it to be maybe 4-6 hours given the huge numbers of people heading back to wherever they came from , but this became a serious cluster, as the NHDOT really screwed things up from I've heard and read. It took maybe 3 hours to get down towards Bethlehem, NH, via 120/2/135/116/142 - all back roads since US3 and I-93 were parking lots, partly due to the old Franconia Notch bottleneck. It then got worse as they closed exits 39 and 38 off of 93 because they supposedly didn't want some of the rural side roads being overrun and even closed some of those small roads all of which led to it taking some people 5-6 hours to navigate <5 miles of 93 at the Notch and led us to waste 3 more hours moving about 5 miles, just trying to even get to 93 near there - with cell service being largely out due to overload, greatly exacerbating the problem, as one couldn't figure out what alternates were closed/open/moving. People were reportedly peeing anywhere off the road they could (or in cups) and many simply got out of their cars to stroll around, while others eventually ran out of gas. Complete shitshow - that ~3 hour segment was the worst traffic I've ever been stuck in. Ever. And luck played a huge role, given the lack of cell service, as one couple staying at our B&B only took about 5 hours to get back from Pittsburg (they went more west through VT staying further from 93), while another couple at our B&B took over 9 hours to get back from Coleyville which is15 miles south of Pittsburg, plus they left right after the eclipse. Fortunately, we did hit an open gas station after about 4 hours of slow driving and were able to use their bathroom (with a line of about 20 in it) and then made one good decision 6 hours into our ordeal, as we decided, after moving 2 miles in 2 hours approaching 142, that we would take 142N just to be moving instead of trying to brave 142S to 93S, which we heard took people 3-4 hours to negotiate - and then we get into the clear got some cell service and noticed that we might be able to take 302E then 116S, then 113W (all through the White Mountain National Forest) to bypass 93 and get to our B&B in Hebron. It actually worked with my wife doing yeoman work on the navigation and me somehow surviving that much driving and it "only" took 2.25 hrs vs. the 3-4 it likely would've taken if we had tried to get through on 93. They should've implemented "contraflow" like they do in hurricane evacuations, reversing flow on 93N (for about 8 miles) to give 2 lanes heading south - would've likely averted at least some of the mess and 93 and the side roads. Oh well. Fortunately, we made it home in ~6.25 hrs this afternoon (vs. 5 hrs heading up on Sunday). Having said all that, I'm sure we'll get over that crappy drive and always treasure experiencing a total eclipse. See you all in Spain (or Greenland) in 2026 for the next one or in Alaska in 2033.
One last tidbit. It turns out that the "lucky" couple staying at the same B&B as us weren't there by accident, as the husband is a board lurker/RU fan who lives on LI and actually ended up at our B&B after reading my post from a few days ago in this thread (they weren't having luck finding a place); they also went to Pittsburg, hoping the cloud forecasts I posted would be correct - they were for New England and many other areas, but fortunately were wrong in the "right" way for parts of TX/AR/OH and upstate NY, all of which had much less cloud cover than forecast. The rest of NY and PA were quite cloudy though. Didn't meet them until this morning at breakfast when he said, "hey are you Numbers?" I was floored, lol. Nice folks.
So glad that I fought off the impulsive thought I had in the morning to take a quick drive up to Lancaster lol.
Turns out the “smart” move would have been to head south through Gorham and down The East side of NH on Rt 16.
Problem was very little cell service and we did get it for a bit nearing Lancaster, about 3 hours into the drive and it showed 2W to 135 then 302 and 112 to North Woodstock, past the Franconia Notch mess, looked slow but ok and that's close to the way we went up to the eclipse, so figured it might be ok. Didn't count on NHDOT closing part of 135 and 142 in the area near Franconia, which just killed our route.
We kind of eventually went the way you had mentioned on 302E to 116 around Franconia Notch, after wasting 3 more hours, lol - if only we had gone on 2E to 116 when we hit Lancaster instead of 2W. We had debated the eastern route all the way from Pittsburg, but they had closed 145 east from Pittsburg so we were forced to go down 3S in NH or 120S in VT across the CT river (we went on 120, which was better than 3). Pretty sure 26E thru Dixville Notch was also closed from 3S.
I still think NHDOT totally dropped the ball in not implementing contraflow for the 7-8 miles where 93 goes to 1 lane in each direction - would've helped hugely, plus nobody was going north. There was certainly a bit of attitude many got from some locals of "too bad city folks" (can see it in the reddit page I linked above) and I wonder if that even was part of why the NJDOT didn't seem to do much to try to anticipate and alleviate the situation.
Also, on some other social media sites, I haven't heard anyone describing the other interstates and side roads being as bad as 93 where people were moving at less than 1 mile per hour for 6+ hours and some forced to do their business on the side of the road (no cutouts or rest stops) - we came close to that but were lucky to hit an open gas station on one of the side roads. By the way, you likely would've been fine in Lancaster, as that was close enough to the Notch that you probably would've gotten through it before it became a horror.
If you weren't in totality, I I'd totalityly agree, lol. But totality was way more exciting than the earthquake - not even a contest.
Contra flow seems an obvious thing to do through the notch. But im guessing that the DOT wanted to keep the northbound lane open for emergency vehicles???
Also don’t like that they closed exits. Local businesses could have profited from the weary travelers, but not if they couldn’t exit the interstate.
Gov Sununu put out a release suggesting that all the visitors skip the traffic and stay a while longer in that vein.
The emergency created by the traffic jam was far greater than any that contraflow would've led to. Plenty of reports of people running across 93N (which had few cars on it, but the ones that were were going fast) to get a little privacy to do their business - didn't hear of anyone getting hit, but probably some close calls. Did Sununu also suggest that all the hotel/B&B owners quadruple their rates? Luckily ours didn't and many of us stayed multiple nights in NH, but not in the totality region as it was nearly 100% booked (and gouged) so we stayed an hour or two south of totality. Not his finest hour managing this and that always goes to the top, whether fair or not.
I have some family members up in Maine and CT and the few who made the trek to totality regions said the same about the traffic going home. cool pics thoOk, it's later much later - more on that below. So, let's talk about eclipse day. Long post (surprise!). After a nice homemade breakfast at our B&B in central NH (Coppertoppe), my wife and I left around 8:30 am and while heading up 93 we could see that a nice delay had started 20 miles N of us on 93 at the dreaded Franconia Notch area, where 93 goes to one lane in each direction. So we ditched off onto 112 (NW) then 116 (NE) to 93 north of the Notch and then traffic wasn't bad the rest of the way up to Pittsburg, NH, the northernmost town in NH, just about guaranteed to have clear skies and well into totality (3:15 seconds of it). Ride took about 3 hours vs. 2:20 on a typical day.
We filled up the gas tank (important for later on) and headed to Buck Rub Pub & Lodge, which had great food (poutine was awesome) and had set up a viewing area outside for the event, where everyone set up their lawn chairs and blankets - with drink service! Last pic is of my wife and I and the event area on their lawn. Met some very nice people from MA/NH who were there including one who was playing a great eclipse playlist on the outdoor speaker they had and her nephew had an amazing photo/video setup and allowed us to take a few pics of his viewfinder. Shared the best one here, below, which shows the "diamond ring" feature and shared one of my crappy pics of the eclipse near 75% - can't really even tell as the light "filled in" what was missing - pics weren't my main goal, though - being enveloped in the experience was.
And then the main event. It was simply mind blowing watching the moon blocking more and more of the sun's rays, filling the sky with an eerie, high contrast light that kept dwindling and slowly lowering the ambient temperature. I had experienced about 75% totality in 2017 and that was cool, but not "amazing" - however, "amazing" can't hold a candle to what we saw, especially at that moment the eclipse went from 99.9% to 100.0% and everything went mostly dark (not pitch black, but like 25-30 minutes after sunset) and it was about 10F cooler than the ~55F temp before the eclipse with everything becoming quite still and silent. It was breathtaking, including the otherworldly pink prominence, made of hot plasma extending several "Earths" from the sun's surface - the pic below shows it and we hope the guy we met will share his photos of that soon. Totality >>>>>>> Partial.
We decided to hang out with our new friends for awhile after the eclipse was over, including an impromptu karaoke eclipse session, featuring my wife belting out "Me and My Bobby McGee" with the our new friends. Was actually quite well done! With things winding down by about 5:30 pm we left for our B&B, hoping waiting would allow traffic to clear some. Nope.
Then began our 8.25 hour odyssey across NH/VT - there's an entertaining Reddit thread linked below on this. We were expecting it to be maybe 4-6 hours given the huge numbers of people heading back to wherever they came from , but this became a serious cluster, as the NHDOT really screwed things up from I've heard and read. It took maybe 3 hours to get down towards Bethlehem, NH, via 120/2/135/116/142 - all back roads since US3 and I-93 were parking lots, partly due to the old Franconia Notch bottleneck. It then got worse as they closed exits 39 and 38 off of 93 because they supposedly didn't want some of the rural side roads being overrun and even closed some of those small roads all of which led to it taking some people 5-6 hours to navigate <5 miles of 93 at the Notch and led us to waste 3 more hours moving about 5 miles, just trying to even get to 93 near there - with cell service being largely out due to overload, greatly exacerbating the problem, as one couldn't figure out what alternates were closed/open/moving. People were reportedly peeing anywhere off the road they could (or in cups) and many simply got out of their cars to stroll around, while others eventually ran out of gas. Complete shitshow - that ~3 hour segment was the worst traffic I've ever been stuck in. Ever. And luck played a huge role, given the lack of cell service, as one couple staying at our B&B only took about 5 hours to get back from Pittsburg (they went more west through VT staying further from 93), while another couple at our B&B took over 9 hours to get back from Coleyville which is15 miles south of Pittsburg, plus they left right after the eclipse. Fortunately, we did hit an open gas station after about 4 hours of slow driving and were able to use their bathroom (with a line of about 20 in it) and then made one good decision 6 hours into our ordeal, as we decided, after moving 2 miles in 2 hours approaching 142, that we would take 142N just to be moving instead of trying to brave 142S to 93S, which we heard took people 3-4 hours to negotiate - and then we get into the clear got some cell service and noticed that we might be able to take 302E then 116S, then 113W (all through the White Mountain National Forest) to bypass 93 and get to our B&B in Hebron. It actually worked with my wife doing yeoman work on the navigation and me somehow surviving that much driving and it "only" took 2.25 hrs vs. the 3-4 it likely would've taken if we had tried to get through on 93. They should've implemented "contraflow" like they do in hurricane evacuations, reversing flow on 93N (for about 8 miles) to give 2 lanes heading south - would've likely averted at least some of the mess and 93 and the side roads. Oh well. Fortunately, we made it home in ~6.25 hrs this afternoon (vs. 5 hrs heading up on Sunday). Having said all that, I'm sure we'll get over that crappy drive and always treasure experiencing a total eclipse. See you all in Spain (or Greenland) in 2026 for the next one or in Alaska in 2033.
One last tidbit. It turns out that the "lucky" couple staying at the same B&B as us weren't there by accident, as the husband is a board lurker/RU fan who lives on LI and actually ended up at our B&B after reading my post from a few days ago in this thread (they weren't having luck finding a place); they also went to Pittsburg, hoping the cloud forecasts I posted would be correct - they were for New England and many other areas, but fortunately were wrong in the "right" way for parts of TX/AR/OH and upstate NY, all of which had much less cloud cover than forecast. The rest of NY and PA were quite cloudy though. Didn't meet them until this morning at breakfast when he said, "hey are you Numbers?" I was floored, lol. Nice folks.
I will take exception to the gouging comment, which I’m sure was the same in he entire eclipse path.
People who traveled to see this were coming of their own free will. The free market applies to lodging prices. This was not like overcharging victims of a natural disaster. This was increased pricing for leisure travel based on demand.
It was as I checked other states too - I was being a bit tongue in cheek on that comment, but it didn't come through in the post. Still annoyed with the NJDOT though - they obviously had a plan to close some side/county roads, so at the very least they could've published that plan and perhaps saved people some heartache, especially given that cell service simply wasn't viable with so many users. If I know those roads were going to be closed near the Notch, I probably would've planned differently.
We lucked out with a parking spot downtown and walked to Prouty Park on the water. Nice of you to share the view. The guy in front of me took more then a reasonable amount under the circumstances and I can appreciate the mixed feelings. If it had occurred to me that the total eclipse would have been camera safe without a filter I might have set something up. I had by hands full though with family stuff.Where in Newport did you go?
lol no. it helped that totality occurred in places we wanted to or likely to visit.
Oregon did a better job preparing people in 2017 to be in their cars for a long time and to stock up on food/water/fuel.
91 was bad but doesn't sound as bad as 93. My wife was supposed to teach a class Tuesday so I was committed to plowing through. Otherwise we would have stayed over. I got a decent hotel Sunday late in the game for $130 a few hours south of the center, which was fine.
Google maps gave me a few suggested routes, but after driving over some of the worst potholes on dirt roads I have ever seen I said screw it and stayed on 91, getting stuck in a big mess later. Family enjoyed it so all good. I've gotten in bigger trouble for wanting to drive an extra half hour on a school night then for this.
Did you see the fireball? Bright meteor reported in sky over N.J., N.Y., Pa.
Some residents described a bright green or bright blue flash in the sky.
