My best friend lives in Salem, OR which is almost dead center in the path of the eclipse. He called me tonight to tell me how things are already stacking up out there:
One town near Salem has already run out of gasoline with people coming into town and needing to fill-up, he suggested you fill up at least 50 miles from your destination. Might be wise to use the restrooms at that time as lines are long in some places.
Highways are insane, he can’t imagine what it will be like after the eclipse and everyone is trying to get out at the same time. Traffic on I-5 is already worse than at Thanksgiving. That’s both directions, people coming from Washington and California.
There are so many visitors in town that some stores are running low food, hotels are all packed. He suggested you bring what you’ll need as there may be shortages. Probably should at least bring a lot of bottled water.
Anyway, for those going, have a safe trip. Just thought I’d pass this along so you can add some extra time and supplies too your trip and not get trapped for a while waiting for gasoline. This is what it’s like on Friday 3 days before. He said the news said people are arriving early and it is spread out, but after the event everyone will pretty much all be heading out at the same time so traffic will be bad.
I hear some some crazies as far away as DFW and everything between here and there.
Figure on most of Wichita, St. Louis, and Des Moines. Make your last stop Emporia or Topeka if you are going up I35 or taking the the Turnpike all the way to KC
Assuming I can’t locate any actual eclipse viewing glasses and don’t do pinhole viewer, the backup plan was welding goggles. Only, inexpensive goggles are only available in shade 5 while shade 14 is recommended; I gather that older advice was minimum shade 12. Harbor Freight’s inexpensive auto-darkening helmets go to shade 13 - a good plan (assuming sunlight is sufficient to trigger them)?
I found my glasses in a Sky and Telescope Eclipse 2017 edition magazine. They’re ISO compliant so it’d be worth looking out for them wherever magazines are sold. They’re about $9.
I was in Carbondale IL on Friday and they were opening incident command centers to deal with all the people and expected issues. Were expecting same issue with gas stations running out of gas by Sunday. Lucky me I get to watch the eclipse at home then rush to the airport to get to Dallas.
