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We stayed in Maggie Valley and drove down to Franklin. No traffic at all on the way down at 9:00am. Had an excellent location next to the chamber of commerce and in an old Walmart parking lot that had a grocery store. We had food, drink, bathroom access so we were sitting pretty. Then, to top it off, an astro-photographer parked next to us and we had great conversation and all kinds of camera imagery to watch throughout the eclipse. He set up a homemade contraption to display the eclipse through a lense that set an image on cardboard so we could alternate by looking directly at the sun or by taking off the glasses and watching his image on the ground. My point and shoot camera was able to grab a shot of some solar flares in the corona during totality. Not great shots, but good enough to see red colorations in a few areas.
The coolest thing was that we had some cloud cover coming in at totality and during the last few seconds before totality we could see darkness coming in from a full 360 around the sun due to the shading hitting the clouds above. Incredibly fast and the suddenly more darkness. Hard to explain but it was pretty awesome to see. Like a lightbulb growing dim and then totally out.
By the way, our hotel had tons of eclipse glasses as did the chamber of commerce in Franklin. $3/pair.
Edit: 50 minute drive down the Franklin. 4 hours back up! The first 10 miles took 3+ hours.
Hope you did that, the Rest Stop was a terrific place to be.
Life got in the way so watched in Durham. Made a pinhole viewer and enjoyed the temporary drop in temperature. Watched a spider and a few ants not react to the eclipse.
Yeah, she loved it. She saw the one in 1970 and remembers it being a really amazing awe-inspiring experience so she was really really wanting to go to this one.
Drove down to Sumter, SC the day before and stayed at the Hampton Inn. Traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I was with a bunch of friends who'd never seen one, and their reactions were worth the price of the trip. One is now an official eclipse junkie and is planning for the 2024 event. Here's a pic I took at totality.
OK, I messed up with this one (did not heed my own screaming gut warning), so 2024 it is:-D
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