Total Eclipse of the …

We are currently about six hours away from the total eclipse of the sun in my part of the country. Currently, the skies are clear with no clouds in sight and the sun is brightly shining – unaware that it will moon blocked for a few minutes later today. The up to the minute weather forecast (yes, they are doing that) suggest some cloud cover but probably not enough to disrupt all the viewing parties and things going on around here.

We were out to eat last night in the suburbs just north of us. They had lined the streets with signs proclaiming an “eclipse public safety corridor”. Guessing that just means they wanted to keep the roads clear in case emergency vehicles needed to get through but “public safety corridor” has a more impressive ring.

In between those were plenty of signs saying absolutely no parking on the street at any time today. Guess parking on the streets tomorrow would be fine. I’m sure it wasn’t a lot of money but the city did have to spend to have the signs printed and assembled and then people had to put them in the ground every six feet or so.

The number of signs seemed like overkill but I’m sure they figured if they didn’t have signs every five to six feet, stupid people would just park between the signs claiming they couldn’t see them. The area we drove through was the standard suburban office park/shopping area so no trees and lots of unimpeded views that the city must suspect people are going to take advantage of.

Here in the big city, we saw a guy on a busy corner with a tent up selling “official” glasses. My wife wanted to know what made them “official” and I had no idea. If it were me, I’d be a little leery of some guy on the side of the road selling glasses. He did have some t-shirts as well.

There are several viewing parties around the city. Every attraction with a big parking lot and lots of open space seemed to be selling tickets to allow people to gather and look at the eclipse. We’ve got our glasses and are just going to watch it from our driveway. If there are clouds, we might go a little bit down the road but I would not want to be in the middle of a crowd.

I get that it is a cool thing to see but if it wasn’t in our backyard, I don’t think I’d be spending time driving to see it. We were on vacation during the last one and ended up in a fast food parking lot borrowing someone’s glass to look at it. Although it was only partial where we were. On the other hand, they are rare and if it was a short drive to get into the path of totality, I can see the reason to want to be here.

So we just hope the clouds hold off and we get a good show.