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Driving 12 hours for the eclipse?

Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2017 4:47 pm
by DDolan1075
So the solar eclipse peaked my interest in solar imaging and I decided to drive from Houston to Nebraska to try to get some images of the show. I like photography in general and have tried to do some Astrophotography and wide field Milky Way images have been my most recent favorite subjects before this new endeavor. The problem with night photography is light pollution and recovery time after staying up all night imaging.

Anyways, I am driving my RV up to Nebraska to image the eclipse and was wondering what kind of a circus I am going to be involved in with the millions of people hitting the road to see it. I am going west to Nebraska because it is hopefully too far for people from Chicago and St. Louis to drive to. Hopefully I can find a farmer who will take a couple of hundred dollars to let me park on his land from Saturday till Tuesday morning when I will head back to Houston. My concerns are the unknowns of traffic, gasoline supply, finding a landowner, etc. Anybody have any experience or thoughts about this type of craziness?

Re: Driving 12 hours for the eclipse?

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:00 am
by Montana
No, but good luck and set off in plenty of time :) have you ever driven in the UK? I am guessing it will be only as bad as my usual morning commute into Manchester :lol: The last eclipse I went to was in Cornwall, it only has one major road in and out and the whole of the UK population squashed down there that morning and we had no problem getting in, took a while to get out but that was OK. So if the whole of the UK population can fit in Cornwall I guess the USA in it's huge size and small population density should have no problem? but I have never been to the US before and I have no idea how you folks react to things, so be on the safe side and leave early :)
Alexandra

Re: Driving 12 hours for the eclipse?

Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:30 am
by rbenton
I shot an eclipse in Kenya in 1980. I hired a driver to take me from Nairobi to Voi the morning of the eclipse. There was just a two-lane road and as far as I could see to the horizon was bumper-to-bumper traffic. The driver moved into the opposite lane and drove full speed in the wrong lane to arrive in time.
I expected the same sort of mayhem for the 1991 eclipse in Mexico, but it was smooth sailing the whole way. So, you never know. Leave very early to be safe.

Re: Driving 12 hours for the eclipse?

Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:39 pm
by MapleRidge
As Alexandra say, leave plenty of time.

I traveled across Missouri and Kansas earlier int he week and all the digital billboards have notices to be prepared for extra traffic on account of the eclipse. I even saw them in Colorado on Thursday. News say that Georgia has called the National Guard to help deal with crowd and traffic control. truth is, I don't think anyone has any firm idea what to expect.

Good luck with your travels and enjoy the eclipse!

Brian

Re: Driving 12 hours for the eclipse?

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:12 pm
by DDolan1075
My friend and I drove from Houston to Hastings Nebraska in 14 hours. The weather report changed overnight! It was getting better as we drove and then this morning the numbers for precipitation escalated to 50+% chance of rain. We were thinking of driving to Wyoming but it seemed that numbers were jumping around so we decided to stay in Hastings because things were starting to get better as we were planning. Crazy!