And The Sun Disappeared

Were you in the path of the eclipse... or travel to see it?

I was amazed and dubious at all the tourist predictions that were being touted for both Clarksville, TN (population about 150, 00 with a predicted 500,00 tourist) and my hometown in MO (population about 6200 with a predicted 90,000 tourist) which happened to be almost dead center.

Seriously??

A local highway sign.

In "the swath" residents were told to get their groceries early and STAY OFF THE ROADS on Monday.  You'd thought we were going to have an ice storm.  No... they are calmer for an ice storm.  

Driving past Clarksville hotels on Sunday night, the parking lots were mostly full.  But not completely full.  

The next morning I pulled up the C'ville street department traffic camera that are installed at major intersections.  Expecting to see the predicted bumper-to-bumper traffic I was surprised to see it was quieter than a Sunday morning.  So much for hoards of tourists.  Same with my home town in MO.

We were comfortably at home, sitting out on our deck.

Unfortunately, a bunch of drunken red-necks decided to park their boats right below our house.  They were wasted.  About halfway thru totality, as they partied hardy - one of them yelled "HEY!!  The sun is gone!!!"

Really??

I was extremely scientific in my eclipse photography... I held my viewing glasses over my camera lens!  It worked great.

Next time I'll have a better set up tho (next time being April 2024 in the SE Missouri area).

Moments before totality!

I love this photo!!

Beautiful corona and 'Bailey's Beads'.

And yes, the stars did come out.  (Actually, I think that was Jupiter...)

And with this ring... it was over.

Incredible.

As it disappeared Himself fixed up a viewing for us using his binoculars turned backwards.  WAY better than the pinhole cereal box.

See that dip?  That is the temperature drop during totality.

I didn't see or hear any odd animal behavior, except the katydids starting to chirp.  They quit when the sun came back out.  Otherwise birds continued to sing and the cicada kept trilling.  No dogs howled (and there are a lot around here).

Oh... wait... the red-necks did get quiet...