Our 98% here in Charlotte was very cool. Glad I went out to look ^

Our adventure turned out great. We had a 90 min. drive to Teton Village this morning-2 1/2 mins of totality. Allowed for three hours. We hit NO traffic. On arrival, they set up a HUGE parking lot for viewing. Perfect setting. Free glasses-although we had our own. Probably 10% full at time of eclipse. I had purchased a solar lens for the photos below-except for totality.

Watched the eclipse from Kingston, TN. Totally worth it. There were some clouds during the lead-up to totality but skies were completely clear at totality. The only traffic I hit on the way in was locals going to the park by the lake. The only negative part was the ~1hr traffic jam going back the 7mi or so to I-40 due to a car accident. (Hopefully the parties involved will be okay.)

It was spectacular. To those who sniffed at the notion that anyone would travel to see something so "inconsequential" ... I'll just say I'm grateful the world is full of so many different types of people. It takes all kinds to make a world!

^ The corona was overwhelmingly beautiful (in Spring City, TN, that is; YMMV ).

Same in Columbia SC. Absolutely incredible corona.

Was worried, we had patches of heavy clouds off and on during the partial phases as late as 15 min before totality (at times the sun was completely obscured), but fortunately had a clear sky during totality itself!

The drive home on I-95 north was not so pleasant, however. At times Google Maps/Traffic showed solid red from Florence SC to Fayetteville NC (80+ miles)!

But I'd do it again in a second!

It was definitely worth the trip. Ended up watching from Sweetwater Valley Farm in Philadelphia, TN. Definitely was a good decision to spend the night by TYS and take back roads further into totality.

Going down on I-81 the night before, it felt like traffic was lighter than it should have been. There was plenty of parking around (the farms offering $20 parking were still completely empty at 12:30), which made me wonder if some of the more dire predictions concerning crowds and traffic missed the mark - perhaps not everyone enjoys the flexibility we have in academia? However, getting out was a total mess... it took nearly five hours to get to Asheville, which would have normally been a two hour drive.

My family was not interested or too busy so I took a friend on Companion Pass. We flew into Portland late Sunday afternoon. National Emerald Aisle had plenty of cars! I chose a minivan, using my free day to knock the price down by $169, for a $6 net cost. We spent the night in the minivan in a quiet countryside spot.

In the morning we had time for a sit-down breakfast in Slayton, then we chose a viewing location east of Sublimity with half a mile open space in all directions. The roads there were sparsely populated with viewers. Viewing conditions were perfect: no clouds anywhere.

I doubt anything can prepare you for the disquieting emotion you feel seeing the last little bit of sun blink out, as if someone had just turned it off. We could hear the cheers from town half a mile away. That corona was MUCH larger than I had expected from photos of other eclipses. The picture upthread is exactly what it looked like.

I spent some time the day before choosing possible tertiary roads for the escape back to PDX. That worked well, augmented by Waze and Google Maps which routed us parallel to 213 on small roads for more than 10 miles. Our delay compared to a normal drive was only about 30 minutes. We were able to catch a return flight 2 hours earlier than what we had booked.

I was prepared for trouble but everything went completely perfectly. I'm very grateful to National and Southwest for their crucial parts in creating a lifetime memory.

Relying on the sky cover prediction map at https://digital.weather.gov/ I went to Metropolis IL yesterday morning and had a clear view of totality. An amazing sight. Looking forward to 2024.

I live in Southern IL, and from the amount of traffic and people that came for the eclipse (including an additional Chicago <-> Carbondale day roundtrip Amtrak, that sold out in under 24 hours) -- why didn't the Airlines consider adding temporary Commercial and/or Charter service to either SIU airport in Carbondale or MWA airport in Marion?

I would have thought the planes would have sold, especially selling trips from either ORD or MDW (a lot of Chicago area people were in town), if not MKE and MSN (there were a lot of Cheese Heads too that came down) -- much shorter round-trip via Air for day-trippers. Amtrak sold out at $160/roundtrip/person for Train service

Perhaps something that may be considered for the 2024 Eclipse?

MWA does have 8-seater turbo-prop regularly scheduled Commercial service to STL, so I guess there was (very limited) space connecting thru STL (Cape Air, and the codeshare with AA out of STL)

It looked great from Maryville, TN. A few clouds at about 50% coverage had us concerned but it completely cleared for the last 20 minutes.

My daughter was a bit worn out after 8 hours driving down Sunday night and another 8 hours back afterwards. The eclipse ended at 2:36, we were on the road at 2:40, home just before 11. Traffic was crowded but moving at a very good clip - I wonder if it jammed up behind us.

We're glad we went. And glad to know that 2024 totality is under an hour away. And a college fraternity brother who works for NASA is 2 hours away, nearly dead center, with 3:51 of totality. I've already told him we'll be there.

I would agree with the above - it's worth the effort to make a trip to see it. Especially if you're close. The difference between 100% and 99% is like, well, literally night and day....

We're just outside of the path of totality, school started a day late so parents could travel to totality with their kids. The effort to see totality was SO worth it!

The one in 2019 is not far away either... Argentina and Chile. And again in 2020.

So much for once in a lifetime. At least the airlines and hotels made a boatload of money off that phrase though.

Most Americans don't travel overseas (or sometimes even go farther than a state or two over) so it's probably still once in a lifetime for some.

Absolutely worth the 12-hour-each-way drive from New York City to just south of Spartanburg for 2 minutes of totality (the clouds came in 5 minutes later; whew!). No eclipse-related traffic delays at all either before or after; in fact, we wondered where everyone was. Watched it in a cemetery joined by 3 other cars.

It might be "once in a lifetime" in that I don't know if I'd make the same effort again, having done it once, but I'm sure glad I did it once.

Seth