Yesterday's big adventure

[Guzzistajohn]

The Eclipse was spectacular, anyone else? Good excuse for a ride I thought. 

[guzzisteve]

I came out of the grocery store and the managers were looking up, I asked "Chicken Little is the sky falling?"
I rode home emptied saddlebags & grabbed welding goggles and mask together looking at the crescent sun.

[Chuck in Indiana]

We had an eclipse party/ cookout, etc. Right after totality, I thought, "Hmm, I wonder what it looks like from the air?" The breeze we had been having had gone dead calm, and the temp had dropped 12 degrees. Shadows were like they were cut out of black poster board. Opened the hanger door, did a pre flight, grabbed my aviator jacket, silk scarf and flying cap.  It was awesome. The spring greens were a different color, the air dead smooth, and it looked like it was raining cats and dogs about 2 miles west. Going west, however, it just kept looking like is was 2 miles west. Weird.
A good time, and really memorable experience. 

[cliffrod]

We were southeast of the big show this time, only reaching approx 84% totality here.  Still enjoyable to watch it from the studio while I was carving.  The variation in the light made me think of how it looks when a tornado is in the area.  not quite the same greenish color but a comparable darkness-while-the-lights-are-on experience.  Very cool.

 In 2017, we drove about 15-20 miles and watched 100% totality from canoes & paddleboards on the lake.  That was much, much more very cool….

[twowheeladdict]

Twas raining here.  My wife watched it on the boob tube.

[Stretch]

I headed out for Height of Lands on Rte 17 in Maine - which is spectacular on an average day.

I was running late - had to work -  and I think I just missed totality. I was between Dixfield and
Mexico on Rte 2 when it got the darkest. Things were getting dimmer and dimmer, and then suddenly
there was a deep blue twilight - yet the horizon was lighter all around. Beautiful! It lasted less than a minute
before things got brighter.

I rode up to Height of Lands anyway. At the top, the snow banks were 2 feet high and the view was gorgeous.
The sun was mostly visible by that point. Traffic was epic - they've never, ever seen traffic like that in
those parts! An hour-and-a-half up, and three hours home!

                                                                      -Stretch

[Guzzistajohn]

I was near Thayer, mo. just N of the Arkansas line at a conservation area. Not a soul in sight. The 1st ray of light that appeared after totality was absolutely spectacular. 

[LowRyter]

[/url]
[/img]




my oldest son took the photo and my youngest provided tickets to 6 Flags.  We spent the night in Dallas to avoid the traffic.

The photo is just more a commemoration rather than an accurate portrayal of the experience. The appearance to the eye was a completely black dot with a bright narrow white ring around it. The ring was almost like round neon or fluorescent light. Totally bright white with sharp edges (no yellow). It got cool for perhaps a half hour as the sun was shadowed and it was dark enough that stars were visible. At full eclipse you could look at it with the naked eye, in fact you couldn't see with dark glasses regardless of the bright ring.  I might add that bright spec at the 5 o'clock on John's photo actually appeared red from my vision for a brief moment. 

This was my second try. I had gone to Kansas City in '17 and we got cloud cover that obscured totality. Finally got to see it this time in Dallas.

The amusement park shot fireworks, played 2001 theme, the Floyd (Eclipse) and then 5th Dimension (Let the Sunshine In).

[moto]

Attaboy, Chuck.

I had already seen two total eclipses so this time I just drove an hour or so southeast to Belvidere, Illinois, where the sky forecast was better. I figured it should have a good view, given its name (Italian content 😃). The sky was perfectly clear. I set my camera to a fixed exposure and took these six pictures of the Kishwaukee River about five minutes apart, leading up to the time of maximum occultation, 90%.:



The photos show that the amount of darkening is really quite large, even for a 90% eclipse, though our eyes/brains don't recognize it. I surprised three geese taking an unexpected nap in the darkness:




I saw my first total eclipse in the summer of 1972, camping on the beach northwest of Antgonish, Nova Scotia, with my girlfriend. The wind and temperature dropped, the sea calmed, and shorebirds swooped low gobbling up insects. There was roughly 180° of reddish "sunset" on the horizon over the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. I never found out whether Warren Beatty was stuck with the other celebrities in clouded-over Antigonish, or whether he had the good fortune to be up in his Learjet at the right time. Carly Simon could have been clearer. (For example, by singing "and saw the total eclipse of the sun" instead of "to see....")

My second total eclipse was in 2017 in Hopkinsville, KY, with my teenage son, standing in a parking lot with lots of other people, still enjoyable.

Yesterday was fun too.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Gratuitous pix..

Kicked the tires and lit the fires..


Another successful sortie in the log books. No cows were harmed on this flight. 

[Guzzistajohn]

Gratuitous pix..

Kicked the tires and lit the fires..


Another successful sortie in the log books. No cows were harmed on this flight. 

Like to the 10th power : )

[nortryder]

We were right in the path and there were no clouds, (for once) Spectacular!

[1wild1]

10.5 hours on the V85TT that day. Traffic was crazy from St. Louis going south on hwy55. Got some good shots though.