Eclipse travelers, what are you seeing?

[KittySlayer]

View attachment 58370

The next one will be closer.

That resembles a Confederate Flag. I think I am offended by the sun and moon.

 

[DRob]

Bubba if you ain't there now you ain't gonna be. Just saying.

No doubt. A friend near Nashville says they were estimating there were 200K "tourists" in town as of yesterday. Populations of some smaller towns along the path of totality are expected to triple or quadruple. Dang thing is right in the middle of my nap time, anyway.

 

[snorko]

I'm heading to Adairville, KY. On the line of totality but off the beaten path. I figure folks from the north will feed down hwy 41/Pennyrile or down I65 and the Natcher Prkwy. Ky 431 is a smaller route, we'll see. That area will likely get a lot of people from the south but that shouldn't have too much affect coming from the north.

 

[K_W]

Well, we made it there and back safely. It was a great experience. It took us about 5 hours to get from Carmel to Dawson Springs Kentucky. After it was over we kayaked for a couple hours and left around 4:30 (ET) in the evening. We hit traffic primarily at the Western Kentucky Highway / I-69 split and at Hendersonville just before u.s. 41 Bridge over the Ohio. We had stopped maybe 2 1/2 hr. combined for bathrooms, dinner, and drop off Sister in law, we got back home to Carmel at 2:20 am. It's normally a four and a half hour drive without stops. It took at least that long just to get across the Ohio River.

The crazy thing was when we hit trafgic at the I-69 / Western Kentucky split, traffic was shown by our GPS to be backed up for around 35 miles to the east. Fortunatly we did not have to fight through all of that, but we were stuck in part of it for over an hour.

 

[snorko]

I had no traffic issues going down or coming back north from Adairville, KY using KY Hwy 431 and IN Hwy 66. An employee of mine took a chartered Evv museum bus trip. An hour and a half going south to Hopkinsville in the a.m., 6.5 hours to get home.

 

[cosermann]

I had reserved a hotel room in the Bowling Green area - last year - for something like $125. They kept asking, "do you still want your room?" Obviously, they wanted to resell it for $600 plus.

Anyway, some weeks ago after reviewing population estimates and "trafficshed" data, we let the room go. Left yesterday morning at 8:30 AM. Rolled into Marion, KY with an hour + to spare, found a nice spot behind a Baptist Church all to ourselves, and had a great time. 2:31 sec of totality. Home by 6:45 PM.

Heavy traffic to/from around the Ohio River, but once we were on rural KY roads, nothing to speak of.

Love it when a plan comes together. Amazing!

Turns out my town is just about on the max line of totality for 2024. Hope the weather cooperates!

 

[myhightechsec]

A quick report on our eclipse adventure.


We drove down to Cerulean, Ky, which was right on the greatest totality line. 180 seconds of total eclipse. A ministry down there with a number of churches backing them had worked for a year to pull of Solquest 2017. 350 volunteers staffed the festival. It was on a beautiful 70 acre farm. While driving there we saw many signs on lawns and farms where they were renting an overnight parking space anywhere from $25 up to $100.

We left NWI at 1:30 AM on Saturday night so there was no traffic at all. Where we were at was fairly free from any traffic jams. We came back along Hwy 41 on the west side of the state. Stopped in Kentland for a potty/gas break about midnight and the clerk was asking why there were so many people on the road. He said he never before had seen a line to use the bathroom but for several hours there was a constant line for the one room BR. We explained to him it was all the eclipse chasers coming home.


Solquest was completely free. No parking fees the whole three days, no camping fees, and they even provided all the ice cold water you could drink. And we drank a lot in the 104 degree temps. There were about a dozen bounce houses for the kids. Friday and Saturday nights were full of Gospel concerts and the days were full of other events. . They even had free eclipse glasses. The So. Baptist had their emergency showers set up so we could even take hot showers each morning and evening.


There were food vendors serving smoked baloney, alligator on a stick, Nashville hot chicken, and much more. Food prices were quite reasonable.


There were volunteers with golf carts everywhere and when they saw my cane they were quick to give us a ride to where we wanted.


On leaving Solquest we saw many people who were parked at those places charging mucho money for watching the event. If they had just driving a few blocks or few miles more they could have done it for free.
All in all a wonderful time and one we’ll always treasure.

 

[Ericpwp]

I went down I57 to the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois around midnight on Monday. Traffic was not bad at all. I left just after the totality and got home around 9pm cdt. I took 145 to 45, then over to 41 all the way up the state. The 41-63-41 ride was a breeze. It was the one-lane, one stop light towns that were hard to get through.