Knoxville is just north of totality. I plan to ride south on back roads to get the full experience.

They must have all been New Yorkers (as in NYC)! :innocent: Who else would wait two hours "on" line?!?! :roflmao2:

I'm at my daughter's apartment near Nashville. Their airport was nuts yesterday! Tomorrow morning we head to my undisclosed location on the Cumberland plateau. It will be interesting to see if I've planned well and will miss the crowds, or if I'm just a fool from NH who doesn't know what I'm doing. In any event, look for my pictures in this thread sometime late on Monday or on Tuesday morning.

Most of our school districts locally have purchased glasses for all the kids and staff, but at least one district I know of has had to put 'em all away because they turned out to be forgeries of the real thing. With no idea what people would actually be looking through, the offer had to be rescinded. Our eye doctor was giving away glasses for Monday, great because I've heard they're almost impossible to come by today. (After all, what are stores gonna do with any unsold stock after 1pm tomorrow???) But it might all be academic, at least on the Kansas City side of the state, considering the forecast for tomorrow:

Cloudy with periods of showers and thunderstorms. Chance of rain 80%.

Could wind up being the local non-event of the year, presuming you're not watching the Royals play.

[MENTION=152773]noglider[/MENTION]...where are you?

Weather in StL area looking okay. Be sure your glasses are the proper ISO. Missouri State Parks has told the people who bought their glasses to not use them. Their provider suddenly can't provide proof they meet standards. Ouch.

Where I work is going to get a 80 seconds of totality. As with [MENTION=201510]AZORCH[/MENTION], many school districts bought glasses or else have dismissed classes. Some due to the potential of traffic preventing emergency vehicles getting to the schools should there be an emergency.

Listening to NPR and heard a hotelier say he got his first reservation for this in 2011.

Should be interesting. I had planned to be on the Katy Trail but my co-worker took his honeymoon this week, so I was SOL.

[MENTION=43980]CV-6[/MENTION], we are in Independence. I checked, and it's ISO12312.2-2015. Carol googled that and said it's good.

We may not ride tomorrow (Eclipse Day) but today, our hosts are loaning Carol and me their vintage Santana tandem. I'm excited to try it. It's beautiful and lightweight.

Save them for 2024. :thumb:

Here's our ride, complete with pictures. The heartland is just like in the pictures. And drivers are very gentle around here.

The Santana tandem was extremely difficult to ride for me. Keeping it upright took a lot of work, and I didn't get my position on it right. Carol liked it better than our Burley, but it wasn't as big a difference for her. My shoulders are killing me. Also, the front pedals were seized in the cranks, so I couldn't screw in my SPD pedals. I used toe clips for half of the ride, but I couldn't get my feet in all the way, so I took them off. That didn't help my foot pain. It seems nowadays I can't ride without pain unless I have my SPDs.

And it turns out I stood on line for three hours, not two. Yes, [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION], on line. I am a Noo Yawka. Waddya want? And boy, am I hearing some interesting regionalisms here!

Just talked to my cuz' in Lincoln City, he says it's a ghost town.

I'm near Portland, OR and we will see 99% totality. Have some NASA approved eclipse glasses, took the day off. We will simply stroll into an open spot in the park behind the house and watch.
It takes about 2 hours for the entire eclipse, from beginning to end.
I may go ride later in the day.

yep we are fortunate as we get to see it again in 2024. In 2024, Carlyle is on the northern edge of total eclipse

Like farty highway for highway 40? I kind of know the are you rode having lived in Independence for 17 years from late 70s to mid 90s. I like the area, but the job was in St Louis. Be sure to get some cue while you are there.

Friday night I took a bus down to Greenville SC, rode over a lot of hills to near Sylva NC. The people I stayed with there had about five sets of eclipse glasses. The local paper included one eclipse glasses with their free "survive the eclipse" special insert on Sunday. I bought one at a restaurant where I stopped for an ice cream cone.

Now camped out about 50 miles from Greenville. Tomorrow I'll ride back in to the city and stop somewhere where it looks about right. I have plenty of time and there are a lot of events. Today's weather was gorgeous, if tomorrow is like this I'll be thrilled.

I might get about 200 miles of riding in, all told. Then a bus north. Ugh.

I'll be commuting to work as the AZ partial eclipse is getting underway, then heading in the door just after we hit max coverage. Not what I'd hoped for, but my request for the day off was met with a big fat "no dice." Grumble.

Gonna keep my head on a swivel for the ride, though. Anticipating many drivers with only partial attention to the road. (Okay, I guess we always anticipate that. But even more than usual. Could be exciting...)

Pretty cool at 92% totality. The reflections off the lens at 3 o'clock show the extent of the eclipse here in the Seattle area.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4333/3...2c1b84de_b.jpg

I took some pics of some tree shadows, too, because of a suggestion in this thread:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4378/3...e639af0b_b.jpg

I hope everyone posts their pics here - I'd love to see what was going on in some other places, plus y'all's pics will be lots better than mine and I can steal 'em ;)

DD

We had over two minutes of totality at our spot today. It was pretty amazing and I can see why people travel long distances for the experience. It was really, really cool.

Shoot, no pix, so perhaps the eclipse didn't happen here.

My day job is maybe 30 miles north of totality, but we had plenty of glasses to share. Outside it was maybe brighter than dusk. Looking at the sun through the glasses was kinda cool, but not something I couldn't look up on the internet.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4390/3...25fc03ba_b.jpg
Just seconds before totality, five miles from the line of totality. We didn't get much work accomplished between about noon and 1:15 today. I'm not sure our students got anything done at all today.

A little eclipse viewing with the kiddos. A nice ride after...


http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9utqjjkf.jpg

I did go for an Eclipse Ride today. Managed to see about 20% of our 80% projected, before clouds and rain moved in.:rolleyes:

The zone of totality for 2024 is just 45 min. south in Toledo, OH. :thumb:

My excursion from the cloudy skies of central Illinois to St. Clair, Missouri (a bit SW of St. Louis) turned out quite well! I got to the St. Louis area a few hours early, put some gas in the car, picked up some O'Fallon beer at the Schnucks grocery store, and found a nice viewing spot at the high school grounds. The school had decided to not hold class that day, and it was probably a very wise decision!

It was exciting to watch the moon slowly march across the face of the sun, and it did a wonderful job of taking the edge off of a hot August day! :)

Totality itself was just amazing to watch! The "diamond ring" and Bailey's Beads phases came and went very fast... a few seconds at most. I did manage to get some shots with the camera while experimenting with the exposure and still get looks at the event with my own eyes.
Here's my shot taken during totality.... if you look closely, you can see a star (or planet?) to the left of the sun...

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4367/3...5c2661_c_d.jpg

I didn't get any wide views of the event, though. I had my little point & shoot camera set up to do a movie, but it seemed to have shut itself off while waiting for the event. rats.
For that reason, I do like the photo from AZORCH! It hints at how dark it really was, while showing the ring of light sneaking around the moon.

Traffic afterwards was pretty nuts! I hung around to finish out the eclipse, chatting with others. After traffic started to thin a bit, I went up to Babler Park and did a 25 mile ride around the scenic and hilly roads in the immediate area. I used to ride these roads a lot, but that was 23 years ago. Development has really made the area east of the park less attractive for cycling, but on the west side, it seemed little changed from the early 90's. Lovely!
And just like I remembered from the 90's, I was quickly drenched with sweat and dripping. Hey, this is August in St. Louis... some things will never change! ;) It was still a great ride!


Steve, back in Peoria

Yep. That transition from "almost totality" to totality is an amazing, eerie experienced. Not to be missed!

You should've gone the little ways south - totality is an experience not to be missed. It's not just seeing the corona etc. The entire experience is awe-inspiring and eerie when totality hits. It's like Someone flipped a switch.


SP
OC, OR

I'm still working on pictures I can post. But a 4+ minute video is up on my church website.

http://www.kcpcnlnh.com/presbytube-videos-etc.html

You need to scroll down a little bit.

I had planned to bike to work and deviate just far enough south to get to totality. I awoke at 4am with chest pain so I went to E.R. instead. Thankfully pericarditis not a heart attack. I did get to see the eclipse just not the total.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...psxpcjbbxj.jpg

I took this one. Unfortunately there was no riding on eclipse day.