The Great American Eclipse of 2017

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to see the total solar eclipse that will be happening here in the United States on Monday, August 21st. I’ve been reading and studying weather maps and places to go to. I came to a conclusion late last night that I think Tennessee will be a good place to setup “home base” if you will. So I will be flying tomorrow out of PWM to CLT with a short layer then flying into TYS. I have a car rental and hotel in Knoxville for Sunday and Monday night. If weather and traffic is good, I’ll head south about an hour to around Athens or possibly Tellico Plains for the eclipse. If I need to, I’ll head west closer to Nashville if weather or traffic reports are bad. I’ll be flying back Tuesday morning. Clear skies!

Update: I did make it to Knoxville. Drove to Tellico Plains in Eastern TN, about an hour from my hotel. Found a great town event held in a field. There was a really nice museum next to the field too, had a nice antique telephone company collection, classic toys, currency, and guns. The eclipse was really stunning. Words can’t express how neat it was to see and experience. Once totality occurred, I was able to use my binoculars to look at the diamond ring as well as some quick dark sky observations. All of the birds and daytime wildlife quieted down, and nighttime bugs came starting making their noises. The cell phone tower light switched to red. The light was very odd, a very brownish tint to everything. Wasn’t like dusk. Very weird. Cell service worked very well, which surprised me, as I thought it would fall over from everyone tweeting and posting to Facebook or Instagram. As it turns out, a friend and colleague had driven his family down from Maine, unknown to both of us, and they were in a nearby town. We both were staying in Knoxville also. So we drove back, in bumper to bumper traffic, 3+ hours back to Knoxville and had dinner in his hotel room. What an unexpected turn of events.


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