Total Eclipse - 2017

Total Eclipse - 2017

This is basically just my "Eclipse 2017" story. I have to start by saying that I had absolutely no interest whatsoever in seeing the eclipse. Don't get me wrong, I'll look up at something interesting for a few minutes just like the next guy, but it wasn't something that I considered to be an "event". We have friends - lots of them - who traveled far and wide for the sake of optimal viewing. More power to them - I've done the same to see dumber things - but this wasn't that interesting to me.

Then there's my wife. She's kind of a nerd, and a space nerd to make it worse. She definitely wanted to view the eclipse, but she wasn't desperate to be in the "path of totality" like others.......until I inadvertently put her about 15 minutes from it on eclipse day.

By sheer luck (bad luck in my opinion) we happened to be in the Carolinas traveling at the time. We had been in Asheville for a few days prior and everyone kept asking us "Are you here for the eclipse?" "No, just lucky I guess." The other thing everyone kept talking about was how bad the traffic was going to be. Seriously, the news would lead with it and made it sound like it was going to be hurricane evacuation-like traffic. 

The day of the event we were in Spartanburg, South Carolina and planning to drive to Charlotte. Branelle started trying to negotiate staying so we could actually see the total eclipse and that's the first time it clicked with me that it would make a difference. We were literally about 5 miles outside the "zone of totality", and I wanted to RUN the other way to avoid the armageddon-like traffic that was to come. Nel wanted to drive INTO the storm. 

In true "Husband of the Year" fashion, I came up with a plan to make the old ball and chain happy while trying to avoid starving to death on I85. It occurred to me that the BMW plant was in Greer, just inside the zone of totality. We drove over and scoped it out.

The plan was to watch the eclipse here at the edge of the zone and then as soon as we passed the total coverage period (the sun started to come back) we would make a break for it and hopefully be ahead of the wave of humanity heading to Charlotte. Compromise!

The plan was sound, but the location was perfect. The BMW plant was very hospitable. They have a small museum there, I've been before. It's not much, but you can take a plant tour as well, which is really cool. They weren't doing plant tours when we were there due to construction, but the museum was all in on the eclipse stuff. They were giving everyone glasses and even Moon Pies and generally just having a good time. 

We had some time to kill so we played around a bit. I learned that I will probably never buy an I8 - it's one of the most difficult cars to get in and out of that I've ever tried.

Messin' with Nel.  She's posing holding up her Moon Pie and wearing her viewing glasses and I just left her there like that. You can't see anything with those on. She thinks I'm still trying to get the shot.

We actually had a little too much time to kill, but they have a cafe and a gift shop and lots of neat cars so it could have been worse.

Another thing they had was air conditioning! When the eclipse started, we could just stare at it through the 50 foot wall of glass that is the museum in total air conditioned comfort.

The factory let everyone come out to watch. Most just used the glasses they provided but a few were more creative.

It actually couldn't have been more perfect for us (not that anything can be "more perfect" - I realize the fallacy, but hey, it's in the first line of the Declaration of Independence). We watched like this for most of the eclipse but when it got to the total part we headed outside. 

I have to admit that it was visually quite a unique sight. The gray light was pretty cool. I'm still not all that geeked about the astrological anomaly or anything like that - I'm not going to be booking a flight to Chile to see the next one - but it was interesting.

As soon as the sun peeked back out we bolted. We got to Charlotte with zero traffic issues. It was like nothing had happened. I'm not sure if we just beat it, or if it was over-hyped by the news (probably the latter, although I have a hard time believing news agencies would overhype anything). Regardless, we made it through the darkness.  A big thank you to BMW for being great hosts. It really was a very pleasant "viewing party".