OT: Eclipse, who’s going?

[lucieli]

We had an amazing experience viewing totality from our friends farm in Walden, VT. The weather was fantastic and we enjoyed being outside all day while waiting for the eclipse to begin. We had long range views (50+ miles) and we could see the shadow approaching on the distant hills just before totality, which was wild and unexpected. Like most everyone here, the pictures that we took are extremely disappointing as they are nothing like what we witnessed. For us, totality lasted a little over 2 minutes and the clarity was exceptional. The solar burst on the lower left was clearly visible as where at least two planets and the distant hills & mountains and hills were in silhouette. The surrounding landscape served as the perfect background for our experience.

It took us slightly more than 3 hours to drive up and approximately 8.5 hours to drive home, with the bulk of our delay trying to get through Franconia Notch (5 hours to go less than 10 miles!). As with all epic adventures, I expect the memories will only get better with the passing of time. For me and my son, it was definitely worth the trip.

Truly sorry that the weather was not as cooperative for many of you.

Mike

[darkmother]

I rode with some friends to Hamilton to get into the total shadow path. The day started out overcast, but miraculously the sky cleared just before the eclipse.

I wasn't expecting to be impressed, but the experience turned out to be really beautiful. I am thankful to have seen it.

[zmudshark]

This is from the Twitter link I posted earlier.
IMG_8105.jpg

[weisan]

A friend texted me this picture... and I promptly replied, "yeah very funny, clearly a fake, I could have set this up by pointing my camera right at one end of a PVC pipe..."

[LadyDog]

Live on the northside suburbs of Indianapolis. Which while typically is not great flat Indiana riding, was great for this event as we were right in the totality path.

Here are a few photos I took. One showing how dark the neighborhood got.

[NHAero]

I was also surprised at how it didn't get as dark as nighttime where I was in northern NH. This shot is one minute into totality.

[BumbleBeeDave]

It was a long day, but it was worth it!

I headed north at 5:15am and had no traffic at all up to Keeseville at exit 34, then headed west on my prepared route on back roads to reach the Paul Smith’s College Visitor Interpretive Center (VIC) where I was pretty sure there would be a good spot to photograph this immense event. I stopped at a couple of places along the way–Franklin Ford Pond and Jones Pond–and used my handy Lumos iPhone app ($2–what a deal!) to scope out where the sun would be for totality at 3:25. It turned out it would still be pretty high in the sky at then, so I quickly realized to get a good shot I’d need some foreground, so shooting either through or from beneath some trees. I didn’t have filters for my lenses, so my only real interest was in a great totality shot.

Once I had reviewed all the options, I decided on a spot right next to the visitor center at the VIC. The view would include trees, mountains, and water and be easy to get to from the car. No climbing mountains! Plus having a bathroom nearby and other folks to talk with and photograph didn’t hurt the situation. It was fun getting to meet some other people from all over the map. One couple had been to the 2017 eclipse in Arizona, and he was wearing his souvenir baseball cap. Sadly, though, the rumors of a “massive human sacrifice event” were just that. Only rumors! Oh, well . . .

Once totality had passed, I packed up leisurely and headed out, leaving the VIC about 4:15 and the REAL adventure began! I got back over to Keeseville with no problems, stopped for some coffee, and got onto the I-87 where the traffic was gridlocked heading south. License plates from Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Connecticut . . . I think half the population of New Jersey had headed north. Not much to do for backroads short cuts until Exit 30, so just relax. Once I got to 30, I got onto Route 9 south, which was a bit less congested until I got to Schroon Lake, but by then every restaurant along the way was either closed on Monday night anyway or totally jammed, so just keep driving.

Finally, I got to Warrensburg and grabbed “dinner” of a sub sandwich at a Stewart’s convenience store and “dined” while standing in line for the bathroom. Things didn’t get a lot better even with three lanes south of Lake George, but I finally got off at exit 11 in Round Lake and threaded my way home for a total of three hours going north and seven hours to get back home south. But fortunately, the drivers were unusually friendly yesterday. Perhaps they were all calmed by the mystical experience of the eclipse?

(Photos with Nikon D500 with Sigma 150-600mm with 1.4x converter [corona close-up] and Nikon D850 with Nikkor 28-300mm zoom, plus some with iPhone 13 Pro.)

BBD

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by BumbleBeeDave

BBD

Great photo framing, it's pretty clear who is the pro around here

[zmudshark]

The thing I learned is that there is no reason not to have mass transit between cities like Detroit and Toledo or Ann Arbor and Toledo or Columbus. We need to do better.

[dgauthier]

Originally Posted by NHAero

Great photo framing, it's pretty clear who is the pro around here

+1!

That "black hole sun" over the trees is tremendous, and the closeup captures the roughness of the moon's terrain as well as some solar flares. The spectator shots tell a photojournalistic story too. Beautifully done, BumbleBeeDave!

A tip 'o the hat to snguyen268 and LadyDog, too. Nice work! Thank you everyone for posting these great pics!

[David in Maine]

Here is a great photo by my favorite Maine photographer Ben Williamson. Eclipse over Katadin.

[JMT3]

From Brown County Sate Park in Indiana. I was on a camping MTB trip there. Froze the first night since I was tent camping. Did have a heater which work great with a small tent. Didn’t work so well with a three times larger tent. Do have lots of space in the tent!

[BumbleBeeDave]

Originally Posted by David in Maine

Here is a great photo by my favorite Maine photographer Ben Williamson. Eclipse over Katadin.

. . . REALLY nice.

[Bob Ross]

Just got back home after our trip to Austin TX for the eclipse. The eclipse itself was wonderful...awe-inspiring, surreal, spectacular. Austin was meh, although the cycling around Hudson Bend and Lake Travis was scenic (and punchy!). Driving 13+ hours each way from Tucson AZ to Austin TX sucked, I never need to do that trip again.

[Mr. Pink]

Since this is a bike forum, I have to say that the roads I used in the Adirondack park driving from Saratoga Springs to Tupper Lake and back, taking a different way back to Saratoga, were in generally excellent condition surface wise. NY has been spending a lot on paving in a place that has harsh winters (compare those surfaces to western Maine, which are horrible).