Solar Eclipse August 21st 2017
So ... I was first reminded of the upcoming solar eclipse by reading a news article in early August about how emergency personnel were preparing for possible problems due to the millions of people "migrating" to go see the eclipse in the path of totality. The "path of totality" being where the solar eclipse will be complete and day will turn to night. That path crossed the United States from Oregon to South Carolina on August 21st 2017.
Below is my adventure traveling to see the solar eclipse of August 21st 2017...
After a 14 hour work day Saturday August 19th I went home to shower and finish packing for the trip to South Carolina. I had done lots of planning in the weeks prior, and was planning to either go to Lake Santeetlah or Pinewood both locations in South Carolina, depending on which had the better weather forecast. The least clouds the better obviously.
After checking the forecast and finishing packing I set the GPS for Pinewood South Carolina and embarked on my journey. I was well supplied with two changes of cloths (which I never bothered to use), toilet paper, toothbrush and olive oil, lots of water bottles, coconut water boxes, snacks (including cliff bars which do great as far as helping to keep you awake), lots of bananas and apples (because it's important to increase potassium intake when depriving one's self of sleep) and Guarana seed powder (for when needed to stay awake), a tent, a sleeping bag, other miscellaneous items and a few pairs of "eclipse viewing" glasses. The glasses I got for free since amazon could not verify that they were real, so I was reimbursed. Though I compared them to the view of the sun through someone else's "real" glasses and my "unverified eclipse viewing glasses" actually blocked more light than the real ones, so I dubbed them "real enough" for my purposes.
My last stop at my hometown before departure was McDonald's, my second favorite restaurant, where I bought 2 large coffee's "Black"...(You have to tell them "Black" or they will try to put cream and sugar and all sorts of junk in there) and just 2 McDoubles (as opposed to my regular 4) because too much food will make you more tired. I also filled up the gas tank right before I left. The Crown Vic did surprisingly well, and thanks to the relatively cheap gas (cheap after I got out of Pennsylvania with their ridiculous taxes on fuel) I averaged 8.96946565 miles per dollar for fuel costs and got as good as 22 mpg. I drove a total of 1,504 miles on $167.68 worth of fuel from a total of 8 stops for refueling plus a ninth to including the gas I got right before I left. Got fuel in Petersburg VA, Newberry SC, Florence SC, Pickens, SC, Dublin VA, Johnson City TN, Harrisonburg VA, and Campbelltown, PA .
Back to the story....left at 12:55 am Sunday morning the 20th after not sleeping since 7am Saturday morning...and I didn't sleep again until about 10pm Sunday the 20th....with the exception of a 5 minute nap on break at work Saturday afternoon and an almost hour nap Sunday morning around 11:00am. Driving from 1am until 3am was very difficult, hard to stay awake, then around 3 until about 6:30 I wasn't tired. I reached North Carolina at 5:51am and South Carolina at 8:38am. I had also stopped at a rest stop I believe it was upon entering south carolina, I was so tired at this point and really there is no way to describe it other than to say it was painful to stay awake. But I didn't want to stop and so I keep going. I was afraid that if I stopped I just might sleep for hours and be behind on my planned schedule. I wanted to not only view the eclipse, but be well rested before viewing it, also wanted to scout out the area. Eventually I reached Pinewood South Carolina and boy was that town like nothing. I then searched nearby parks in my GPS and proceeded on my way to Poinsetta state park, which wasn't were I wanted to go, but my GPS didn't have the place I was looking for and I didn't have a good map otherwise. Also by this time cell phone reception was poor, especially data, so looking up information was very slow at best. Fortunately the road to Pointsetta state park took me in the right direction where I found Mill Creek park (Sumter county SC) so I parked there and scouted out the area and relaxed first under a pavilion and later slept on a picnic table in the late morning sun. The park was deserted and so peaceful and quite, with sand roads which were fun to slip around on in my rear wheel drive crown vic. I only saw two or three cars drive through the park road the whole time I was there. The birds and insects were my lullaby as I took my nap and attempted for the longest time to send emails, texts, and calls (calls were unsuccessful, as were emails with pictures due to the poor cell phone reception, but texts and emails with just text still worked). Then Tim tried to call me, so I text him and discovered he was near Pickens, SC at a mountain top, and the weather there was forcast to be slightly more cloudless than where I was so I decided to drive over there to meet him....which was about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive. In total for this trip I drove about 24 to 25 hours! So I drove over there and then had quite the time finding the trailhead to Sassafrass mountain. Finally I was able to find an old address that my GPS knew by searching online at a time when I finally got data service faster than a snail. I was about to give up finding him and just go to some random local park of which there were many, which would not have been bad. The directions he gave me were useless, it may have been he came from a different way into the town. Of course it didn't help that my GPS was old, and this place was so out in the country, and none of the places he mentioned had addresses that my GPS knew. So finally I met Tim, and the other friend he had driven with, and we talked with some other people who were also there from Pennsylvania. I then went for a walk/hike with Tim and boy was that area so beautiful. Amazing scenery, reminded me of the North Carolina mountains, which I later discovered some of them were, because there was actually a sign in a rock up on the mountain which was the North Carolina/South Carolina border which a person up there pointed out to me. By this time already there were people Camping all over the place, so there were fires and people drinking (more than water), and kids running around. Not a place I would choose to be normally because of all the people, but the people were all nice and well behaved despite some of their obvious inebriation, and the view of all the mountains was spectacular. Driving up to the trailhead was so much fun, though I wouldn't have liked it if I wasn't in a powerful car. It was very steep and very curvey, and very long as it meandered around and up the mountain. The parking lot nearly atop the mountain was fairly large, compared to what I was expecting, perhaps enough for 25 cars normally parked. From there the top of the mountain was only a short walk up the trail. Tim informed me that he had spoken to a ranger and camping was allowed along the trail. There was a lot of rhododendrons, at places they were thick and formed areas which would be good for hiding or for wild animals to hide. It was rumered that mountain lions were in the area, so the multitude of people was perhaps a good thing for that reason. There were many large flat rocks atop the mountain from which we later viewed the eclipse. The trees were also small and few at the mountain top which helped the good view. That night, despite my tiredness I stayed up to see the stars as we planned to do, which means you have to stay up till at least 10:00 till it's truly dark. The starlit sky was impressive, much better than at home, but still not as good as the starlit sky in potter county Pennsylvania. Here on the North/South Carolina border there were city lights to the east/southeast as well as other lights you could see. I never bothered to set up my tent, and the mosquitos were just a tad too bad to just sleep outside, but worse was the creatures crawling across the rocks at night in the starlight...they looked like giant spiders to me, but could have been crickets or mice for all I know. I sleep in my car that night, was cool enough to only have the window open a crack, which limited any trouble with mosquitos. Around midnight then I awoke to bright lights and talking, thought it was cops at first because of the fires and drinking, but it was just somebody leaving. I had set my alarm for 4:30am the night before, to go to Walmart to buy extra food and water, and to park my car upon return to the mountain at a location which I thought it less likely to be parked in by the masses of people I imagined coming in the morning. I set my gps to a Walmart super center, thinking it more likely to be open at 5am than a regular Walmart, with the poor phone reception I couldn't check hours for stores. On the way to that Walmart I past another which was open so I went there and first freshened up a bit in the bathroom, cause I hadn't taken the time to find any other water to wash up in. That's the worst thing to me now about traveling cheap...no shower. I got some bottled water and a pack of cliff bars, and more ice for my cooler so I could keep some drinks and food cold until I got home. Was hungry for hot food so on the way back to Sassafrass mountain I stopped and bought 3 sandwiches at McDonald's (my second favorite restaurant) which I proptly consumed. As I drove up the mountain I kept an eye out for pull offs (places to park) along the narrow winding road. I found one 4/10ths of a mile from the top and parked my car there perpendicular to the road so I could pull right out when I was ready to leave after the eclipse. I had intended to sleep in my car again that morning till noon, so I would be well rested for the eclipse and the following drive home, but other people were already starting to park around me. There was a trail there so I went hiking in the woods and shortly found a good spot to sleep, flat, slightly sunny and breezy (to minimize mosquitos) and between the trail and the road (so I felt it relatively safe from animals). I noted the direction to the trail with a compass and wrote myself a note on my phone, so that I knew which direction to go to find the trail once I woke up. Always have a compass for hiking in the woods! It is easy to be disoriented especially after waking up in unfamiliar woods. I laid took off my backpack and took out my sleeping bag and laid it out on the leaf covered forest floor. Between myself and the trail was a rohdadendrin thicket. Along with the brush and the incline of the mountain side I was invisible from the trail. I slept fairly well, occasionally awakening to ants crawling on me, or a mosquito, though the mosquitos seemed unusually dumb, I caught and killed many and many others sat on my shirt and tried to suck blood through the cotton. It was a little too warm to go into my sleeping bag, so I just laid on top with my feet only inside to hide my skin from the mosquitos since I was barefoot, having taken off my slippers when I laid down for the nap. I heard voices from the trail below occasionally. In the very late morning I awoke and it had become cloudy and dreary and the mosquitos were terrible and it rained very lightly and very briefly. I made my way back to the trail, then to my car and the road and then up to the mountain top. It was packed with people and cars as I walked up the road. They were even parked along the road so badly they were nearly blocking it. I saw people moving their cars off the road and others saying that the Rangers were making people who had parked on the road move their vehicles. So glad I had bought the extra water and parked a half mile away. At the top the parking lot was packed full with people parked everywhere there was clear enough space and terrain. I saw North Carolina Law Enforcement trucks at the top. I met Tim and the others up there on the rock we had claimed the day before. I gave a couple of them some water and we watched as the eclipse started. It was partly cloudy now, not clear as forecast the day before, but fortunately no longer raining. However we were still able to see the eclipse in all its stages with momentary interruptions. Interestingly two of the people on the rock from which we viewed the eclipse were religious Jews turned atheists. The talked a lot and were very knowledgable yet very foolish. They talked about a Jewish prayer from the Talmud, that ha to do with happenings in the heavens. They discussed much of history and a theology of sorts and how from what they knew an eclipse was a sign of God's coming judgement. As I said though, they were now supposed atheists, and it was so telling how they said that since they have weed to smoke and can sit on their sofa watching TV they need nothing else in life. Wow! I do suppose an atheist philosophy would be needed to support such a life outlook. Had they believed something more they might be compelled to do something more worth while with their life. So knowledgable, yet so foolish. The eclipse viewing glasses were good because without them you couldn't even see the eclipse, at least I couldn't cause of the brightness. At 1:49pm the sun appeared 1/3 blocked, by 2:21 pm it was cooler and darker and the sun appeared 3/4 blocked. Finally, as the eclipse happened there seemed to be sunset from 360 degrees (on the horizon in every direction) and then sunrise from 360 degrees as it ended (sky was pink and orange). It was neat to see the sun blacked out with the ring of light around it. The darkness seemed to come in waves that you could see. It visibly got darker and darker... At 2:37 it was dark, and the "night" lasted until 2:39. It was cooler yet, and for those 2 minutes the crickets started and finished singing. We didn't actually see stars (at least I didn't, I think in part because of the clouds, and perhaps we were slightly north/north east of the totality center line. But it was amazing! A couple minutes after the eclipse I left quickly, running much of the way to my car as were some others. I wanted to beat the traffic rush as much as possible. Once I got out of the countryside the traffic came to a standstill anyway you tried to go. There were police at almost every intersection for many miles. Glad I had an ice chest with drinks and food and a full tank of gas! I left at perhaps a few minutes after 3:00, and didn't get home until 4:00am the following morning. Went into work at 10:40 after a few hours sleep. That drive back was long in large part due to heavy traffic. At one point I tried driving off the main highway to avoid traffic, but that was much to slow. Fortunately coming more from the west I avoided Washington, don't like to drive through there unless it's very early morning hours like when I left. At one point around maybe 10:30pm there was a cerebrally impaired driver with a Washington, D.C. license plate, probably a politician, who was driving without any lights on! I spotted them from behind me somehow. Seeing as this was an accident waiting to happen I ended up following them for a long time (probably a mile or more) as closely as safely possible, with my hand on the horn until they finally figured out what was going on and turned on their lights. Ah! Good adrenaline rush from that! And possibly someone's life saved! Hard to see a car without any lights at night! I continued my drive home, eating, drinking coffee and probably guarana seed powder, don't remember for certain. Also finished my last apple and bananas. I stopped of course to refuel and use the bathroom and for one McDonald's (my second favorite restaurant) drive through for coffee and burgers. I had predicted soon after leaving and seeing the traffic that I probably wouldn't get home till 4:00, which was true. When I left my Gps thought I'd be home before 1:00.
Well that's all folks,
- Hans
Below is my adventure traveling to see the solar eclipse of August 21st 2017...
After a 14 hour work day Saturday August 19th I went home to shower and finish packing for the trip to South Carolina. I had done lots of planning in the weeks prior, and was planning to either go to Lake Santeetlah or Pinewood both locations in South Carolina, depending on which had the better weather forecast. The least clouds the better obviously.
After checking the forecast and finishing packing I set the GPS for Pinewood South Carolina and embarked on my journey. I was well supplied with two changes of cloths (which I never bothered to use), toilet paper, toothbrush and olive oil, lots of water bottles, coconut water boxes, snacks (including cliff bars which do great as far as helping to keep you awake), lots of bananas and apples (because it's important to increase potassium intake when depriving one's self of sleep) and Guarana seed powder (for when needed to stay awake), a tent, a sleeping bag, other miscellaneous items and a few pairs of "eclipse viewing" glasses. The glasses I got for free since amazon could not verify that they were real, so I was reimbursed. Though I compared them to the view of the sun through someone else's "real" glasses and my "unverified eclipse viewing glasses" actually blocked more light than the real ones, so I dubbed them "real enough" for my purposes.
My last stop at my hometown before departure was McDonald's, my second favorite restaurant, where I bought 2 large coffee's "Black"...(You have to tell them "Black" or they will try to put cream and sugar and all sorts of junk in there) and just 2 McDoubles (as opposed to my regular 4) because too much food will make you more tired. I also filled up the gas tank right before I left. The Crown Vic did surprisingly well, and thanks to the relatively cheap gas (cheap after I got out of Pennsylvania with their ridiculous taxes on fuel) I averaged 8.96946565 miles per dollar for fuel costs and got as good as 22 mpg. I drove a total of 1,504 miles on $167.68 worth of fuel from a total of 8 stops for refueling plus a ninth to including the gas I got right before I left. Got fuel in Petersburg VA, Newberry SC, Florence SC, Pickens, SC, Dublin VA, Johnson City TN, Harrisonburg VA, and Campbelltown, PA .
Back to the story....left at 12:55 am Sunday morning the 20th after not sleeping since 7am Saturday morning...and I didn't sleep again until about 10pm Sunday the 20th....with the exception of a 5 minute nap on break at work Saturday afternoon and an almost hour nap Sunday morning around 11:00am. Driving from 1am until 3am was very difficult, hard to stay awake, then around 3 until about 6:30 I wasn't tired. I reached North Carolina at 5:51am and South Carolina at 8:38am. I had also stopped at a rest stop I believe it was upon entering south carolina, I was so tired at this point and really there is no way to describe it other than to say it was painful to stay awake. But I didn't want to stop and so I keep going. I was afraid that if I stopped I just might sleep for hours and be behind on my planned schedule. I wanted to not only view the eclipse, but be well rested before viewing it, also wanted to scout out the area. Eventually I reached Pinewood South Carolina and boy was that town like nothing. I then searched nearby parks in my GPS and proceeded on my way to Poinsetta state park, which wasn't were I wanted to go, but my GPS didn't have the place I was looking for and I didn't have a good map otherwise. Also by this time cell phone reception was poor, especially data, so looking up information was very slow at best. Fortunately the road to Pointsetta state park took me in the right direction where I found Mill Creek park (Sumter county SC) so I parked there and scouted out the area and relaxed first under a pavilion and later slept on a picnic table in the late morning sun. The park was deserted and so peaceful and quite, with sand roads which were fun to slip around on in my rear wheel drive crown vic. I only saw two or three cars drive through the park road the whole time I was there. The birds and insects were my lullaby as I took my nap and attempted for the longest time to send emails, texts, and calls (calls were unsuccessful, as were emails with pictures due to the poor cell phone reception, but texts and emails with just text still worked). Then Tim tried to call me, so I text him and discovered he was near Pickens, SC at a mountain top, and the weather there was forcast to be slightly more cloudless than where I was so I decided to drive over there to meet him....which was about a 2 and 1/2 hour drive. In total for this trip I drove about 24 to 25 hours! So I drove over there and then had quite the time finding the trailhead to Sassafrass mountain. Finally I was able to find an old address that my GPS knew by searching online at a time when I finally got data service faster than a snail. I was about to give up finding him and just go to some random local park of which there were many, which would not have been bad. The directions he gave me were useless, it may have been he came from a different way into the town. Of course it didn't help that my GPS was old, and this place was so out in the country, and none of the places he mentioned had addresses that my GPS knew. So finally I met Tim, and the other friend he had driven with, and we talked with some other people who were also there from Pennsylvania. I then went for a walk/hike with Tim and boy was that area so beautiful. Amazing scenery, reminded me of the North Carolina mountains, which I later discovered some of them were, because there was actually a sign in a rock up on the mountain which was the North Carolina/South Carolina border which a person up there pointed out to me. By this time already there were people Camping all over the place, so there were fires and people drinking (more than water), and kids running around. Not a place I would choose to be normally because of all the people, but the people were all nice and well behaved despite some of their obvious inebriation, and the view of all the mountains was spectacular. Driving up to the trailhead was so much fun, though I wouldn't have liked it if I wasn't in a powerful car. It was very steep and very curvey, and very long as it meandered around and up the mountain. The parking lot nearly atop the mountain was fairly large, compared to what I was expecting, perhaps enough for 25 cars normally parked. From there the top of the mountain was only a short walk up the trail. Tim informed me that he had spoken to a ranger and camping was allowed along the trail. There was a lot of rhododendrons, at places they were thick and formed areas which would be good for hiding or for wild animals to hide. It was rumered that mountain lions were in the area, so the multitude of people was perhaps a good thing for that reason. There were many large flat rocks atop the mountain from which we later viewed the eclipse. The trees were also small and few at the mountain top which helped the good view. That night, despite my tiredness I stayed up to see the stars as we planned to do, which means you have to stay up till at least 10:00 till it's truly dark. The starlit sky was impressive, much better than at home, but still not as good as the starlit sky in potter county Pennsylvania. Here on the North/South Carolina border there were city lights to the east/southeast as well as other lights you could see. I never bothered to set up my tent, and the mosquitos were just a tad too bad to just sleep outside, but worse was the creatures crawling across the rocks at night in the starlight...they looked like giant spiders to me, but could have been crickets or mice for all I know. I sleep in my car that night, was cool enough to only have the window open a crack, which limited any trouble with mosquitos. Around midnight then I awoke to bright lights and talking, thought it was cops at first because of the fires and drinking, but it was just somebody leaving. I had set my alarm for 4:30am the night before, to go to Walmart to buy extra food and water, and to park my car upon return to the mountain at a location which I thought it less likely to be parked in by the masses of people I imagined coming in the morning. I set my gps to a Walmart super center, thinking it more likely to be open at 5am than a regular Walmart, with the poor phone reception I couldn't check hours for stores. On the way to that Walmart I past another which was open so I went there and first freshened up a bit in the bathroom, cause I hadn't taken the time to find any other water to wash up in. That's the worst thing to me now about traveling cheap...no shower. I got some bottled water and a pack of cliff bars, and more ice for my cooler so I could keep some drinks and food cold until I got home. Was hungry for hot food so on the way back to Sassafrass mountain I stopped and bought 3 sandwiches at McDonald's (my second favorite restaurant) which I proptly consumed. As I drove up the mountain I kept an eye out for pull offs (places to park) along the narrow winding road. I found one 4/10ths of a mile from the top and parked my car there perpendicular to the road so I could pull right out when I was ready to leave after the eclipse. I had intended to sleep in my car again that morning till noon, so I would be well rested for the eclipse and the following drive home, but other people were already starting to park around me. There was a trail there so I went hiking in the woods and shortly found a good spot to sleep, flat, slightly sunny and breezy (to minimize mosquitos) and between the trail and the road (so I felt it relatively safe from animals). I noted the direction to the trail with a compass and wrote myself a note on my phone, so that I knew which direction to go to find the trail once I woke up. Always have a compass for hiking in the woods! It is easy to be disoriented especially after waking up in unfamiliar woods. I laid took off my backpack and took out my sleeping bag and laid it out on the leaf covered forest floor. Between myself and the trail was a rohdadendrin thicket. Along with the brush and the incline of the mountain side I was invisible from the trail. I slept fairly well, occasionally awakening to ants crawling on me, or a mosquito, though the mosquitos seemed unusually dumb, I caught and killed many and many others sat on my shirt and tried to suck blood through the cotton. It was a little too warm to go into my sleeping bag, so I just laid on top with my feet only inside to hide my skin from the mosquitos since I was barefoot, having taken off my slippers when I laid down for the nap. I heard voices from the trail below occasionally. In the very late morning I awoke and it had become cloudy and dreary and the mosquitos were terrible and it rained very lightly and very briefly. I made my way back to the trail, then to my car and the road and then up to the mountain top. It was packed with people and cars as I walked up the road. They were even parked along the road so badly they were nearly blocking it. I saw people moving their cars off the road and others saying that the Rangers were making people who had parked on the road move their vehicles. So glad I had bought the extra water and parked a half mile away. At the top the parking lot was packed full with people parked everywhere there was clear enough space and terrain. I saw North Carolina Law Enforcement trucks at the top. I met Tim and the others up there on the rock we had claimed the day before. I gave a couple of them some water and we watched as the eclipse started. It was partly cloudy now, not clear as forecast the day before, but fortunately no longer raining. However we were still able to see the eclipse in all its stages with momentary interruptions. Interestingly two of the people on the rock from which we viewed the eclipse were religious Jews turned atheists. The talked a lot and were very knowledgable yet very foolish. They talked about a Jewish prayer from the Talmud, that ha to do with happenings in the heavens. They discussed much of history and a theology of sorts and how from what they knew an eclipse was a sign of God's coming judgement. As I said though, they were now supposed atheists, and it was so telling how they said that since they have weed to smoke and can sit on their sofa watching TV they need nothing else in life. Wow! I do suppose an atheist philosophy would be needed to support such a life outlook. Had they believed something more they might be compelled to do something more worth while with their life. So knowledgable, yet so foolish. The eclipse viewing glasses were good because without them you couldn't even see the eclipse, at least I couldn't cause of the brightness. At 1:49pm the sun appeared 1/3 blocked, by 2:21 pm it was cooler and darker and the sun appeared 3/4 blocked. Finally, as the eclipse happened there seemed to be sunset from 360 degrees (on the horizon in every direction) and then sunrise from 360 degrees as it ended (sky was pink and orange). It was neat to see the sun blacked out with the ring of light around it. The darkness seemed to come in waves that you could see. It visibly got darker and darker... At 2:37 it was dark, and the "night" lasted until 2:39. It was cooler yet, and for those 2 minutes the crickets started and finished singing. We didn't actually see stars (at least I didn't, I think in part because of the clouds, and perhaps we were slightly north/north east of the totality center line. But it was amazing! A couple minutes after the eclipse I left quickly, running much of the way to my car as were some others. I wanted to beat the traffic rush as much as possible. Once I got out of the countryside the traffic came to a standstill anyway you tried to go. There were police at almost every intersection for many miles. Glad I had an ice chest with drinks and food and a full tank of gas! I left at perhaps a few minutes after 3:00, and didn't get home until 4:00am the following morning. Went into work at 10:40 after a few hours sleep. That drive back was long in large part due to heavy traffic. At one point I tried driving off the main highway to avoid traffic, but that was much to slow. Fortunately coming more from the west I avoided Washington, don't like to drive through there unless it's very early morning hours like when I left. At one point around maybe 10:30pm there was a cerebrally impaired driver with a Washington, D.C. license plate, probably a politician, who was driving without any lights on! I spotted them from behind me somehow. Seeing as this was an accident waiting to happen I ended up following them for a long time (probably a mile or more) as closely as safely possible, with my hand on the horn until they finally figured out what was going on and turned on their lights. Ah! Good adrenaline rush from that! And possibly someone's life saved! Hard to see a car without any lights at night! I continued my drive home, eating, drinking coffee and probably guarana seed powder, don't remember for certain. Also finished my last apple and bananas. I stopped of course to refuel and use the bathroom and for one McDonald's (my second favorite restaurant) drive through for coffee and burgers. I had predicted soon after leaving and seeing the traffic that I probably wouldn't get home till 4:00, which was true. When I left my Gps thought I'd be home before 1:00.
Well that's all folks,
- Hans
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