Great American Eclipse 2017

Around the year 2010 a friend/co-worker, Jason, told me about an eclipse coming in 2017. He said he was going and I said I want to go too. We don't work at that same company but as luck would have it, we do work at another company together again. The time for the eclipse was coming and even though we said we were going 7 years in advance we didn't plan anything. So a month before we found a reasonable priced hotel 3.5 hours from where we live and it was within an 1 hour and 20 minutes from Hopkinsville KY, a great place to watch the eclipse. Hopkinsville had 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality, the longest in the totality path!

FYI: If you want to see good pictures of the eclipse this is not the place. I only have a point and shoot camera with 3x zoom and a pair of cheap eclipse glasses.

Speaking of those cheap but super important eclipse glasses. Jason thought it would be funny if we accidentally forgot them and left them in this Wendy's parking lot. I disagreed and we took them with us.

We were only going to be gone for one and a half days but I was worried about getting stuck in traffic. So, I might have over packed drinks for 3 people. This picture is of our hotel fridge the night before the eclipse.

We left Evansville, IN at 5:00 am because we were worried there would be a lot of traffic heading toward Hopkinsville, KY. The totality of the eclipse was not happening until 1:24 pm but estimates were saying there would be 100,000 people visiting a city with a population of 32,000. We were wrong and had zero traffic problems getting there.

I thought since we were going to see the sun disappear, I would take some pictures of it appearing that morning. 

As we rolled into Hopkinsville, we saw many lots turned into viewing and parking locations. 

The town was decorated for the eclipse crowd. 

The food trucks were getting ready for the crowds. 

Not only did we not run into traffic, our viewing location was far from full when we got there.

We found our 15'x15' square!

This is our square. Thankfully it was a sunny day, so the canopy came in handy. 

Me and my wife getting ready for the show!

And of course our baby had to be styling in the cool glasses too. (Disclaimer, She was in the shade the whole time and in no way could have seen the sun.) 

Here's what the sun looked like at the start of the eclipse without a filter. 

It starts! I'm not sure how I got this shot. The rest of them I had to hold the eclipse glasses over the camera lens to get anything. 

It's getting smaller!

This is a picture of the sun shining through the tree leaves. As you can see, it creates crescent shaped sun spots on this gravel walk way. 

Our viewing location never filled up, to my surprise. 

We are almost at totality! 

Right before totality the lighting was really odd. You can't tell in this picture and it was hard to tell what was wrong in real life too. We think it was the fact that shadows were almost straight under things and very defined, however the brightness was noticeably lower than it should have been. 

Then here it was, the moment we had all been waiting for! There was cheering and clapping. I have to say it was more amazing looking than I though it was going to be. I was in a sense of awe when I first saw it. Obviously you had to be there, as this picture just looks like a glowing doughnut. The pictures of totality were taken without the eclipse glasses over the lens. 

I wanted to be able to compare the change in brightness. I set my camera to manual mode and took a picture of our site during about 85-90% coverage. Then during 100% coverage I used those same settings and took another picture. They are both below to see how dark it got.

I read if you can see the horizon it should look like a sun set all the way around you. I have to say that is correct. One side of me was all trees so I couldn't see the full effect. But here's a few shots from around me. 

This is what happened when I tried to hold the camera instead of using the tripod. 

Just one more shot of totality.

And now the moon is heading away. 

Here's a map of Hopkinsville's traffic. The red is bad. It took us over an hour just to get out of the small town. All the traffic we didn't have in the morning was just waiting for us afterward. 

It only got worse as we got out of town. Slowly moving cars as far as the eye can see. And my eyes just got done looking at the sun which is really far away. 

Exit ramps were packed. Even this exit which didn't have any restaurants on it was packed. The restroom line was crazy!

As time when on, the slow moving traffic just came to a stop. I gained a headache from looking at brake lights for so long.  

Western Kentucky Parkway really was a 'Park'way. The direct route home should only have been a 4 hour drive, the path we took to avoid traffic should have only been 4 hours and 40 minutes with regular traffic. It took us 12 hours to get home! In the picture below we are the blue dot and it literally took us hours to get to I-65. 

I've been asked by many people if it was worth all the trouble to see it and my answer is yes. It was a truly awesome site to see.