I've got a bucket list, as do many of you. October 24, 2005, Hurricane Wilma came across South Florida from the west to the east. The eye of the storm came right across Palm Beach County. It was AWESOME!!! For years and years, I wanted to be in the "eye" of a hurricane. I had heard / read that the eye of a hurricane is beautiful, dead calm, totally blue skies, and somewhat cool with low humidity. It was!!! Pretty much the entire neighborhood came out of their houses to check it out. (I was already outside, as I am for EVERY hurricane. Believe me, hurricanes are soooo cool to watch from outside!) Anyway, a bunch of us neighbors started walking down the street to check out any damage. My house did just fine, as it always does, but our very large front yard tree had been pushed against the house from the 100+ mph winds. My wife was all worried about that. I assured her that the back part of the storm would blow the tree off of the house. It did. About 5 houses down the street a neighbor's carport roof had been blown completely off of the house. (Turns out the house had a lot of termite damage which weakened the roof.) After about 10 minutes of checking out the neighborhood I turned and looked to the west. Oh boy! The darkest, black sky you ever saw was fast approaching. Not fast enough that you had to run, or even walk fast though. Being the wind was going to come out of the west for the 2nd half of the storm we opened up my garage door and commenced partying! My wife and I, our 2 boys, and neighbor John and his wife were all in the garage fixing and drinking bloody Mary's. (No, my 2 boys were not drinking.) The back half of the storm lasted less than 45 minutes. The storm was GREAT!!! The mess it left... not so great. I've got lots of shade trees, so I had LOTS of branches, large and small to clean up. Bummer. We also went 17 days without electricity. It was still worth the big check mark on my bucket list. A total solar eclipse is coming this April 8th to parts of the U.S. (I'll include a map from my phone after I post this.) Yes, being in total darkness for 8 minutes, and looking at the Sun during this event has been on my bucket list since I was a little kid. (Yes, I am buying the right glasses so you can look directly at the Sun during this event.) My wife and I, along with our youngest son and his family are going to travel up to the great penguin nest in Cincinatti. Cincinatti will NOT be in the path of totality, but just a short hour drive northwest will be in the direct path. I'm looking forward to this big time!!! So, my question, are any of you people planning on viewing this event?
The first picture is the path going across the entire United States, and the second path is the Midwest where I will travel to see it.
Not going to be near me. BTW: I still have tree damage from Irma. It isn't that I'm too lazy to clean up, but I found that trees can be weakened by root damage from the tree moving too much in the wind. I have two dead Pines in the front yard that I'll get to this year. Other then pool enclosure screens, I have never had any house damage from a hurricane here.
The total sol;ar eclipse of August 21 2017 had ets epicenter within 1/4 mile from my niece's house in Lexington SC. The widest area covered was centered near Cerulean, Kentucky, about 80 miles west of Bowling Green.
I was at work when the 2017 eclipse came over. Work provided eclipse glasses and we all went outside to watch it. It was very cool. One of the coolest things was that every little gap in the trees became a pinhole camera and the eclipse was showing on the concrete. Also, there was a ripple effect right before totality. I this is all part of what they called shadow bands. We won't get totality this time but we'll get a partial. I'm tempted to drive west or north to hit it but not that worried about it.
It’s going to go straight over our ranch just west of San Antonio. I’ve got friends and family I haven’t seen in years wanting to come out to see it. I also have photos like the one above from the last partial eclipse last year.
My house is in the center of the path. Drove up to north east Georgia to see the one in 2017. Nothing like totality. Having seen many partial eclipses over my lifetime, and now I get to see two full eclipses now. What's not to like? And if you are in totality, you can look at the eclipse once the moon is fully occulting the sun. It's the coolest thing.
Went out and visited our kids in Oregon for the 2017 eclipse. May head upstate NY and catch this one. Amazing thing was that all birds, bugs etc went totally quiet when it happened.
John, You are welcome to come and hang out at my place in "west" Arkansas, near Ft. Smith, if it is the least drive for you from Florida. 20 acres, if you want to camp. Zero dollars... PM me if you are interested. TM
I live in mansfield ohio we are right in the path, planning to go to Norwalk Ohio only because it's a longer viewing........my.luck it's going to be cloudy and it will be the last chance in my lifetime to see it. Luckily my kids already had that day off from school for spring break
Hotels in Hot Springs Arkansas were book up a year ago for people supposed to flood in to see it. I can go out every night and see a dark sky so I'm not sure what the big deal is. We had a partial eclipse a year or 2 ago. I was out working in the yard and all of a sudden everything got real dim. I thought my vision was going out since I had forgotten about the eclipse, then I noticed all the little sickle moons on the ground and I said, oh yeah, eclipse.
We are located in the totality of darkness. I am just outside of Shelbyville IN. All the hotels around here are 1000 a night, two night minimum. My wife wants to charge and allow campers to use our front field. Troy
I drove from OH to SC for the 2017 event. It was SO worth it. Don't it figure I'm now living in Va and this time my old home is in the path of totality.I'll be driving to see this one as well. Some neat options for gear heads. The Indianapolis motor speedway will be hosting A eclipse party with a NASA rep there. Roger Penskie will always figure a way to make a buck and put on a class event. Norwalk raceway is right in the path as well. Remember if you're making plans Ohio weather tends to be cloudy at this time of year but if weather cooperates that big parking lot at Norwalk raceway would be great. As I had clear skies and A great view in 2017 I'm not too concerned about clouds and plan to be on Kellies island for this one, my second home. We will be working to open the 4-H camp up for the season. The Island chamber of commerce is planing some events as well.
