4 ms·

BTW your eclipse adventure doesn't necessarily end when the eclipse does. If you are driving home your navigation apps might try to send you on more adventures.

by tzs 3y ago

BTW your eclipse adventure doesn't necessarily end when the eclipse does. If you are driving home your navigation apps might try to send you on more adventures. The main roads and the reasonable alternates might all be slow over a wide area, leading to the apps thinking that various roads that would never normally be suggested would be better. Here is what a friend told my happened when he was trying to get from the middle or Oregon to the Bay Area after the 2017 eclipse: > Google kept sending us onto logging roads: we bailed on the first when we were told to turn onto a non-existent road; we bailed on the second when a van came out and told us that ~5 cars were stuck axle-deep in mud; we bailed on the third when we got to a sign informing us that we were about to enter an off-road-vehicle trail.

el_nahual 3y ago
I drove down to Carbondale, IL last eclipse from Chicago, usually a 5 hour drive. It took 8. Not too bad! Pulled over in some country rode with a patch of clear sky. It doesn't really matter where you are: the show is up there. The moment the eclipse ended we drove back to the interstate, which minutes prior had been empty. It was bumper-to-bumper. Like something out of a cartoon. The drive back to Chicago took 14 hours. I decided to follow Waze, which took me (and an endless line of cars with the same idea) through a one-lane dirt road through a bunch of farms. The people who lived there took lawn chairs out and sat down to drink beers and watch the strange procession. Stopped for lunch at a crossroads Panda Express. It was bedlam. Thousands of people all looking to eat something in rest stop that usually feeds dozens. The crew of pimply highschoolers resorted to slapping spoonfuls of random faux Chinese food into Styrofoam containers and giving it out for free. "Just take it!" The only scary part was being caught by one of those Midwestern thunderstorms about two hour out from Chicago--at 2am, after diving for about 18 hours straight, sticking my hand out of the window to wet it before slapping myself on the face to stay awake (no way to pull over--not when visibility is ~zero). Adventure indeed!

by tzs 3y ago

el_nahual 3y ago

I drove down to Carbondale, IL last eclipse from Chicago, usually a 5 hour drive. It took 8. Not too bad! Pulled over in some country rode with a patch of clear sky. It doesn't really matter where you are: the show is up there. The moment the eclipse ended we drove back to the interstate, which minutes prior had been empty. It was bumper-to-bumper. Like something out of a cartoon. The drive back to Chicago took 14 hours. I decided to follow Waze, which took me (and an endless line of cars with the same idea) through a one-lane dirt road through a bunch of farms. The people who lived there took lawn chairs out and sat down to drink beers and watch the strange procession. Stopped for lunch at a crossroads Panda Express. It was bedlam. Thousands of people all looking to eat something in rest stop that usually feeds dozens. The crew of pimply highschoolers resorted to slapping spoonfuls of random faux Chinese food into Styrofoam containers and giving it out for free. "Just take it!" The only scary part was being caught by one of those Midwestern thunderstorms about two hour out from Chicago--at 2am, after diving for about 18 hours straight, sticking my hand out of the window to wet it before slapping myself on the face to stay awake (no way to pull over--not when visibility is ~zero). Adventure indeed!