They were saying it was going to be 99.6% total where I live. Traffic predictions were at Y2K levels of panic. I lived on the east coast in 1979 so the best I had seen was an annular eclipse. My oldest daughter and I decided to make the drive 30 miles south into the path of totality. We took back roads to McMinville and ended up driving about two and a half hours total for 55 seconds of totality. It was completely worth it.

I was amazed at just how little of the sun peaking out of the shadow made it impossible to look at without the peril sensitive sunglasses. During the totality (and maybe not even all of it because it seemed like a lot less than 55 seconds to me) we were able to look directly at the sun and see the corona, which was pretty cool. As I remember it, I was watching through the lenses as the last spec of on the sun disappeared (and everyone around us cheered). I took off the glasses and looked at the ring. I looked at my daughter. I looked back and the ring. I took a picture of my daughter. I tried to look back at the ring but a single blast of light peaking out from behind the moon made it blinding.

We didn't wait long to get back on the road and being in a rural area at the northern edge of the path of totality we didn't really have a lot of problems with traffic. It did get backed up a bit as we drove through Dundee and Newberg. A handful of bikes passed us there. Overall it was not nearly the worst traffic I've experienced on that same road, not much worse than a typical Sunday afternoon with people coming back from the coast.