Although I am excited about it, especially since I live right on the edge of the "path of totality," I am also stressed out.
Don't judge me. There is a lot of pressure around here to make sure I'm in that path. I am told that if I miss it, I will regret it the rest of my life. But I can't look directly at the sun except for that very brief period of time where the moon is completely between the sun and me.
Had I planned better, I would have scheduled the day off tomorrow and headed north a few miles of Nashville where totality will be about two and a half minutes. But Wife and I are leaving on a ten-day vacation to Ireland next Thursday and a day away is not in the cards. We will, however, work from home, and take a break during the eclipse.
A few nights ago we downloaded an app on her phone that detects our location (of course it does) and tells us not only if we are in the path of totality, but how long it will last.
We are outside the path here at the house. A mile or so north of here, we can get to about 30 seconds, and in a few more miles we can get to over a minute.
So our plan tomorrow is to get in the car about 11 a.m. and head north a bit. We found some church parking lots with some "sweet spots" the other night when we went and tested the app, and we figure they will be OK to have us hang out (and I doubt we will be alone).
Downtown Nashville and north of downtown are likely to be crazy, and traffic is predicted to be nuts, so I want to stay as close to home as possible. As I said, I don't have time to devote the entire day to it.
We are equipped with our NASA-approved glasses for the partial, and will carefully remove them for that oh-so-brief time of the total. It's going to be surreal. The hype and excitement around this area are comparable to our big sporting events and the Country Music festivals.
I took a selfie of myself wearing the glasses but I'm doing all of you a favor and not posting it. I'm simply posting a pair of the glasses.
Happy Great Solar Eclipse to all.
6 comments:
I feel your stress as well. As of 6:30 p.m. there is only a 12% chance that the skies here will be free of clouds to actually see the eclipse. If I drive three hours south to the path of totality, my chances of seeing the eclipse increase to only 38%. I'm not sure what I'm going to do but I am packing like I'm hitting the road tomorrow and perhaps try to get a morning forecast to make the final decision. I just wish it was a clear skies forecast all along the path to make things easier.
Fortunately the weather forecast looks good here.
Right now it is sunny here, with puffy clouds that occasionally pass over the sun. I guess it's a good thing I'm only between 83-85% totality. I won't feel cheated if there's a cloud over the sun at the peak moment. I'll just be happy to view partial obscurity at any point. Now, the Lord willing I see 2024... I might have to make that effort for totality. I'll be so close.
We are now in place . . . Less than 30 minutes till partial starts.
My son and DIL left their home after the memorial of what would have been Keegan's first birthday and drove to Knoxville, to see the eclipse. They refer to it as one of the top ten moments of their lives. William wore his grandfather's welding helmet and watched the whole thing. The rest of us used two paper plates.
It was certainly worth the drive for them, Debby. I'll be posting soon about how it was oddly comforting to me in the midst of an unexpected loss I experienced that day.
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