Solar Eclipse Expedition, August 20-22, 2017
A sketch of this trip was planned a year in advance, but the final eclipse observation site was not to be selected until the early morning hours on the day of the eclipse.
Generally, the plan was to drive to Louisville, KY on August 20th, and make a preliminary assessment that evening of weather and location for the best possible eclipse viewing conditions. The final decision would be made the next morning after another check of the weather. The possible decisions would be to either drive west into Missouri, or south and east into Tennessee in the hours before the eclipse. After the the eclipse, I would return to Lousiville for another night instead of trying to make it home amid eclipse traffic, and begin the journey home the next morning.
In the days prior to the trip, I conducted a map study and identified ten locations along the centerline of the eclipse path. The sites that I selected were typically large shopping center parking lots or church parking lots. Five were in Missouri and five were in Tennessee.
The trip went exactly as planned. Upon arrival in Louisville, the weather assessement was strongly in favor of Tennessee as the direction of my drive to an eclipse viewing site. That assessment held the next morning, and I selected a rest stop on I40 near Gordonsville, TN as the viewing site.
I woke up at 3am on the morning of the eclipse. After checking the weather I was on the road to Gordonsville. The trip down was about three hours, and completely uneventful.
I arrived at the rest stop at 0630 expecting that I would be the only eclipse viewer there, and that I would find an isolated corner of a parking lot away from the visitors center. Instead I found that about 30 people had already arrived to stake their claim and set up equipment. I selected a spot and did the same. Over the course of the morning about 2,500 other people arrived at the visitor center before the State Highway Patrol stopped admitting visitors at 1030.
The crowd was completely unexpected, but the TN DOT and Highway Patrol handled the situation very well. The restrooms remained open and functional the entire period.
The eclipse occured at its appointed time, and the crowds that had trickeled into the rest area, and hundreds of other viewing sites, were suddenly back on the road. Traffic was bumper to bumper, and moving slowly if at all. I considered heading home instead of back to Louisville, but that was about 11 hours away without any traffic. I stayed on plan and headed back to Louisville, probably hitting the road at about 1430.
I made it back to Louisville at 2230, sleep deprived after a very long and eventful day. I turned in for some much needed sleep without setting an alarm. The trip back home the next day was uneventful, and I carried with me memories that would never be forgotten.