It’s that or nothing. Every campground and motel within the totality band in OR has been booked for six months. I’m hoping we get there a few days early, plop down in the middle of nowhere and not be bothered. I’m truly curious to see how it goes. Could be the clusterfuck that’s predicted, could be a bust when less than hardcore folks decide it’s not worth the hassle.
Cloud cover in the OR high desert in August? How many times have I wished for such while on the motorcycle in OR? If that rare event were to happen on eclipse day, then God truly hates us. YMMV in other parts of the country.
We will probably try and find a nice open field and hang out during the event, then head back to Bend sometime the same day.
We may also wind up heading east from Bend, then north, again depending on traffic and weather.
Anyway, if you see an old yellow VW Westfalia with its top popped way up on a hill northeast of Madras, honk as you go by.
I have heard Carbondale[1] may see more than 200 airplanes. With that much traffic, a control tower would be a good thing, but there aren’t a ton of Class D airports in the region.
I'll also be launching a weather balloon before the event in hopes of catching some video of totality from >100k feet. A disc shadow 60 miles wide traveling at 1,500 mph as viewed from 20 miles up should be pretty cool. :)
My fears are cloud coverage, and way, way too many people in general. I'm worried about my parent's drive home after the eclipse.
- Paper film eclipse glasses
- Welding goggles
- Solar binoculars
- Pinhole reflector
...
My original accommodations fell through (over-booked), and now I'm driving the family 12 hours west to camp in a friend's backyard in Nashville the night before the event (much lower chance of cloud-coverage west of the appalachians). At this point, everything along the path of the totality, hotels and camping, is completely booked.
The day of the eclipse, my biggest fear is cloud-coverage. So I'll be checking the weather and planning to hit the road at a moment's notice. I worked landscaping in college, and it's not hard to drive one town over to avoid clouds, but with so many people attending this thing, I anticipate a high-probability of traffic congestion.