topaz119 | (no subject)

Is it the weekend yet?

(And I basically had a 3-day weekend last week for the solar eclipse. That lottery win could happen any time now.)

So let’s talk about that eclipse…

For something that had elements completely out of my control (hello cloud cover) it all worked out really well, YAY. In the 2 years since someone on my lj flist first mentioned that oh, hey, there’s this total eclipse coming and I realized it was basically in my back yard, I cycled through a couple of plans: first, we could hang out at my mom’s house, which was about a mile away from totality (talk about in your back yard), but that (obvs) wasn’t going to happen; and then, the thought of a long weekend in Charleston (hello cute, colonial-era B&B reservation & excellent foodie-ing), but the cost kinda spiraled into the stratosphere, plus it meant a 5 hour drive there and another one back; for a while, I thought about just getting up on Monday and driving north, but then decided that was a little too dicey; and finally, I just sat with hotels.com in one tab and the eclipse map in another and went through every small town in the Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina totality zone. I thought I had a serious winner with the Embassy Suites in Greenville – 2 rooms, free breakfast, good wifi (I actually worked), right on the river and right on the max totality line… Except it was $900USD/night, 2 night minimum.

Um. That’s more than 2 months of my mortgage (on my 5000+ sq ft house.)

Yeah, no.

I finally ended up with that looked like a crappy Days Inn in a little town in northern Georgia, that was right inside the totality line + did not appear to be jacking up prices (srsly, less than $200 for 2 rooms, no minimum stay.) It turned out to be actually fairly new and reasonable, plus they had one of those make-your-own waffle irons as part of their continental breakfast, so that was awesome. The cell reception and wifi sucked, but I managed to sit out in the car and do a couple of work-related calls before we left to go find the eclipse party at a state park on Lake Hartwell, right near the dam. *That* turned out to be excellent—picnic tables in pavilions, actual bathrooms, food trucks and plenty of parking nearby, plus trees and shade and kids swimming in the lake. I actually got work done until my laptop battery died (new job==no vacation, but I wasn’t going to miss this), which was right about the time things started happening in the sky.

I gotta say: it was really cool, and if there’s a total eclipse near you, you should definitely go find someplace in the totality zone (and buy your eclipse glasses early!) I’m also glad I was able to achieve said coolness without spending a fortune, so that was extra good. I wish Oldest had been with us, but he was off with a friend, doing an American Gods sightseeing loop (Lookout Mountain, Rock City) and then going up into the Great Smokies to do their eclipse-viewing, so that was good, too.

I don’t have any amazing pictures of the sun, but I do like this one of #2Son during totality, with the 'sunset' reflecting off the lake. (Click to embiggen.)

Now I just need to go for the aurora. :)

This weekend is going to be getting ready for both DragonCon and the zoom-zoom trip to NYC that D & I are taking the weekend after. Very exciting! (Can I see you either weekend? Let me know if we can link up!)