Anybody doing anything specific prep wise? I've heard rumors of loss of cell service, traffic gridlock, etc.

We're traveling to a hotel in the band of totality.  No preps other than the usual going on the trip - guns, food, water, extraction/recovery gear.  Maybe a 5 gallon gas can or two.

Worst thing I've heard about or that I'm expecting is traffic.

Yeah, I bought eclipse sunglasses a couple of months ago.

Other than that, I found an out-of-the-way place in the path of totality to enjoy the show away from the crowds.

Eclipse glasses for my eyes and a sheet of solar filter for the camera lenses.

Frankly, I'm a little more worried about this sunspot I saw today.

Sun Spot 20170806 by FredMan, on Flickr

Teachers at my wife's school are pissed (actually the whole district).  The schools in the district are holding the kids an extra 30 minutes at the end of the school day so they can "observe" the eclipse.  Post-eclipse apocalyptic gridlock would be my only fear

ROCK6

Roads are likely to be a mess, stores and gas stations in the path of totality will be hoppin' if not sold out.  I plan to just do what I always do... make sure we have anything we might need well ahead of time, and sit at home while the masses bump heads.

Weather adds an interesting variable.  Depending on the forecast, could be massive crowds shifting from here to there in pursuit of a clear view.

I am where they say we will get a couple minutes of exclipse.

No biggy around here.  Gonna hang out at a friend's place, his gal wants to have people over and cook so we will wander there.

If I was not rural, yeah I would expect issues.

I plan on rearranging my N Korea Nucklar War preps on the 21th to prepare for an Eclipce SHTF

You "heard" or made up BULLSHIT  to start a thread?

This isn't GD...

The fact of the matter is, people will be FLOODING a 70 mile wide band across the country. Nothing was made-up. Primary travel corridors heading to/from those areas will be congested. With the influx of people cell towers will likely be overloaded and slow, it wouldn't be unreasonable that an antenna/amp failure could happen during that period and any surrounding towers are unable to pick up the extra load.

So what part of that do you think is BS?

FWIW, I'm not doing anything special except bringing my welding helmets to work with me. The path of totality for the 2024 eclipse will pass right over my house. If the school is being the nanny-school they are this year, I'll take my kids out of school so they can view it. Did that pique your interest? School administrators decided that the risk of kids damaging their eyes was too high so NO outside recess all day, because it wouldn't be fair to the kids that have recess during the eclipse if they had to stay in. The ONLY people allowed outside are those that are out specifically for a science related lesson to view the eclipse. My wife's school principal took the "risk aspect" emphasized by the administration overboard and decided that the eclipse in general is too risky so nobody is allowed outside at all that day. When I was in 1st grade I didn't have any trouble comprehending that the partial eclipse would damage my eyes, I didn't look at it. We ALL (the whole school) went outside to watch it..

@PhulesAu

This ain't GD...

I'm in St. Joe so we are golden.

Going to stay home and enjoy the whole 2 min and 38 seconds.

Hits right in the middle of my weekend.  I filled up my vehicles and gas cans.  Propane got filled a couple weeks ago.

Bought water bottles on sale to pass out to those in need.  Staying home and listening to the Emergency net freqs beyond that.


ETA: and then my well pump started pumping air

Not exactly.

Most of the band is in rural America. They will see nothing significant, maybe a few cars stopped on the highway to watch when it happens, kinda like a Space Launch. The area along I-5 in Oregon, will be hit the hard, as it is closest to the largest population centers on the left coast.

So unless you live along the band close to a major population center, this is a non-event.

I have huge plans.  I'll stop working for a couple of minutes, check the progress online and go back to work.  NASA will have great photos on their website in short order.

Oh, and for those that bought "eclipse" glasses, are you really going to trust your sight to a piece of plastic made in china?  I just wonder how many will end up suffering eye damage from these.

Our house is almost in the path. The center of the path will be about 70 miles NW from here. We are trying to decide whether to stay home or to drive to my friend's 400 acre ranch and watch it there through welding helmets.
Family can stay in touch with ham radios if cell networks get overloaded. No worries here.
I will bring my high end DSLR camera and make a video of the area getting dark. I have never seen an eclipse before. This will be interesting.

Im only going about 100 miles, so top off the tank, and have the ham radio on. Truck has maps a plenty so alternate routes are a breeze.
For good or bad the forcast is looking cloudy so gridlock may move to a sunny location. My plans are set though.

I'm building a shoe box viewer this afternoon.

And then tomorrow afternoon I'll go to work,  just like always.

Eta: l don't live in the path of totality if things are much different it'll because people have migrated away for a couple of days.

I'm just down the highway from you.

Things seem a bit busier, but nothing crazy.

Gona see about 70% of it from where I'm located, no need for plans, good enough for me.

Didn't get any glasses though

Interesting take on it, but I think you've got it wrong. JMO

I traveled south from a funeral in NE Indiana Saturday afternoon, a route I travel frequently due to family up that way. The southbound lanes were easily twice as congested as northbound lanes; a large number of the cars I saw were MI, Ontario, & a few Quebec. I'm sure a few of those were unrelated to the eclipse, but I will wager that the vast majority of them were headed towards the zone of totality.  Last night, at 10 pm, the wait to cross one of the few bridges (Interstate highways) across the Ohio River into KY (most were headed toward Hopkinsville area, where totality was the longest) was over 2 hours with traffic backed up nearly 20 miles on the interstate. This traffic has been building up for a few days as more and more people began their journey's south. A friend went to see it today, chose to take alternative routes (keeping away from the interstates), they are still on the road 6 hrs into a return trip from a place that took them 2 hours to get to... that's not a "non-event" in my books, but if it is to you then we'll agree to disagree. I don't yet have reports of bridge conditions crossing the Ohio River yet but I can assure you that it won't be easy heading north back out of KY.

To further add to what I said last night:

Babysitter's daughter & son (both college age) went to see it down in Kentucky. They waited a few hours after it was over to start heading north, thinking traffic would clear up by then. As of midnight they had travelled 40 miles on the interstate in the 4 hrs since they had gotten on. 10 miles per hour... sounds about like a hurricane evacuation... just as I predicted...

Eclipse?  When?

Drove up on Sunday to Ogalala, Nebraska.  Had dinner at the steak house, Spurs.  Went for the buffet which included roast beef, salmon and other things.  Salmon was not overcooked. It included a salad, corn, peas and homemade mash potatoes.  Anyway, for $20 it was slightly more than other dishes.  It was foggy in the morning and there was a 50% chance it would be clear by totality.  Drove up to Arthur where the local school gave us permission to set up our telescopes.  The fog did clear up one hour before totality and it was spectacular.  

Return traffic was heavy but moving smoothly.  Except for a brief jaunt on some interstate, it was a steady drive home.

I drove up to the 100% zone. Traffic on some roads was bad but I am willing to back road it and did fine with no real back ups coming home.

We drove right at 500miles to get to the north side of Columbia, SC. I can say with some certainty that there were MILLIONS of people travelling to the band of totality. There were NO hotel rooms available within that band, city or country. A huge number of people from the northeast drove down to SC and a siginificant number of people from Georgia and Florida drove up to SC. We went down to Raleigh on Saturday, then Charlotte on Sunday, drove to Columbia on Monday. Monday's traffic was bad. After the event, what had taken is roughly 3 hours to drive on the way down (when traffic was merely bad) took 7. We didn't get back to Raleigh until after 11. And, to make matters worse, there was construction going on during what was probably the highest road traffic event in years. Duh. Couldn't break for a couple of days until people got back to where they were going? Stupid, just stupid.

It was definitely worth the trip. Totally Awesome. (See what I did there?)

I will agree with that.

Out of my office of 16 people, 2 drove the 2-3 hrs to the band of totality. That's 12.5%. Figure that as you got close that percentage probably went up, and as you got further it went down, lets just say 10% went. 10% of the population is TENS OF MILLIONS. That sounds absurd, so lets divide that by ten to account for those that live in the band and those that couldn't travel to it so only 1% of the population went, that's still over 3 million people.

Went to see it from CMH to Gallatin TN (about 30 mins outside of Nashville).  Left Friday and spent the night in Louisville then when onto Nashville on Saturday.  Easy drive down.  Had hotel and glasses a year in advance.  No problems there saw the totality event (so awesome!) and left right after.

No problems getting out of Gallatin and thought it was going to be all hype.  Uhhh no.  Took 12 hrs to get back to CMH.  

Everyone seemed to be using WAZE as were we.  Made for crazy long back ups on single lane roads in the middle of nowhere til we got to I65.  Then it was bumper to bumper all the way home at mostly 25 mph.  

Cell service sucked as everyone was trying to use them.  Also Waze sucked and wouldn't connect.

It was an eyeopener to say the least.  paper maps are a must, we had drinks and snacks aplenty (made sure of that just in case).  Gas was full but that could have been a problem since all the stations were jammed.

I chalk it up to a good learning experience in a relatively safe environment.    

Would totally go thru it again to see it.  Glad it's close to me next time!

We visited my brother in law just north of Gallatin TN near White House and I saw the red lines of traffic on google maps after the eclipse.  We ventured to out White House a few hours later to look for souvenir tee shirts and country roads that generally had no traffic were moving but slow.  Glad that we were staying a few more days.