It’s going to be a disaster- eclipse traffic

Pfft, Try the I-10 Basin bridge at 5pm on a Friday

 

A rancher in WY is renting his land out to campers. $400 per person for the weekend. He has a dozen plus buses coming. By Monday he will be close to a millionaire.

 

Traffic heading east on US26 leaving Prineville (P-Ville USFS at the right). Traffic is normally pretty sparse the moment you pass that last gas station. Only one real grocery store in the area until you get to the mercantile in Fossil.


Locally our grocery stores are jam packed and have low inventory. People are still doing last minute shopping before they get on the road. Unless they are joining an already occupied camp site they are SOL. Mrs. 3M decided she HAD to go shopping today. I dropped her off at noon and didn't get a call to pick her and a half dozen plastic bags up until almost 4:00 PM.

 

The guy who originally came up with that old canard about "stores have three days of stock" never stood in one during the approach of a hurricane. I have, just to watch the floor show. It was "The Three Stooges Go Shopping". Soccer moms literally fighting college kids fighting softball dads, each grabbing canned and boxed food, flashlights and batteries, bread, milk, beer - anything their fevered brains could imagine they might need. It was utter chaos. That large store was stripped in hours.
I laughed all the way home. I was, as always, fully stocked.
Three days, maybe during "normal times". Not during any emergency.
I predict there will be a LOT of families stuck an extra day or three in various small towns, gas tanks dry, no food or water. It's going to look like a major refugee situation.

 

You people along the route, Time to rotate out your old stock!!!

I'm sure someone needs an old jar of peanut butter for 10.00 bucks?

 

Seems unlikely...as he'd need a lot more than a dozen buses. $1,000,000/400=2,500 people. 2500/estimated 60 people/bus = 42 buses

Obviously my estimate could be low.

 

auto darkening helmets DON'T work !!
I tested today , way to risky on the eyes .
Im using shade 10 & two lens in 5 for the total blackness !

I have many lenses for the kids were going with to view this on the Beach !!
Sloth

 

How to View a Solar Eclipse | Exploratorium

 

10 Shade is good enough , but the 5 is great as the eclipse is in full & just add a second when it gets brighter (Adults ) ,Kids= Plus I building the above post .
Sloth


edit add
Shade 8 is good for only old eyes , never kids under 25 , they are still in development or could be.
Also I use Glass with all the CSA ANSI stamps etc . I don't trust Asian (Harbour freight ) etc for my eyes , tools ~~~somewhat till skin is removed from junk tool.

JFI
Sloth

 

How to View a Solar Eclipse | Exploratorium
I built one of these & it's tricky to get the line view for it to work .
I did get it to work , but that's what Im using for the kids to see it.
I picked up another 4 shade's today

This will be my last time to view (Age) & I did see one when I was a kid .
We (Wife & friends will have a bunch of the 4H kids ) we going down to the Beach area due to were in a forest & 200' trees are in the way.

 

Well I have a great story for you all. I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Dubois, Idaho. Our drive, while long, was completely without incident. I have driven the I15 a number of times before and the traffic today was totally normal. However that isn't the great part.

I have been planning this trip for a year and booked my hotel in August 2016. I have been building up the excitement by sending my family weekly text messages with eclipse trivia...you get it, I just made a big deal of it. Anyway, after all that prep one of my daughters didn't realize until YESTERDAY that her passport had expired in April! Argghhhhh! I was so disappointed and she was devastated. Anyway, it was Friday at 6pm when she discovered the issue and even the emergency passport renewal option was not available as it takes 24 hours but has to be done in person and the office was now closed. Well, there were no options left except one...try anyway. My daughters travelled 5 hours Friday night to get to my town and early this morning I sent them off to the border, suggesting a crossing about 40 minutes from my house. This particular station is very lightly used and I was hoping that it might be better to try. So they got to the border immediately after it opened and got a very grumpy agent. He questioned why the eclipse was such a big deal but a great thing happened and after a 4 MINUTE stop he let all my girls go based on his discretion. They called me right after they left and told me the good news. Anyway, I would like to publicly thank the USBP for allowing them to enter the US!

Tomorrow I've been asked to give a presentation on the eclipse to local residents and visitors so that should be fun.

 

Spoke to a brother in Ga. today, The Eclipse junkies are in mass migration heading north!

 

We will have somewhere between 95 and 98% eclipse down my way... we had a program on the eclipse set up at the college every thing was running smoothly, eclipse glasses, speakers, NASA.org links 250 HS students + around 750 college students... refreshments lined up (Sundrop and MoonPies.... Then Disaster struck... the superintendent thought it was too dangerous ... then the school board atty got involved... long story short out learning event has been canceled... I guess I should set up a booth off I-40 and sell the glasses and refreshments to people stuck in cars... heck I can even safely demonstrate the eclipse using a Moonpie and a Sundrop....

 

I am treating this as a bug in event. I am well off the prime viewing track and it'll be cloudy/rainy here anyways. Just another day in paradise.