Anyone going to travel to Texas to see the total eclipse? Our place is in the area of totality, over 4 minutes of darkness predicted, the nearby towns are expecting thousands of visitors. There are many billboards on I-45 touting this-or-that town as being the best viewing location, hotels are reportedly booked solid. Local Sheriff and Cattle Raisers Assn. are cautioning landowners about trespassers (possibly unknowing, but trespassers none the less) entering pastures for viewing. Sheriff has warned that county road at our place may be blocked by viewers, but he will try and keep roads open. Guess this is a bigger deal than I imagined.

When the last one happened (2017?) here, there were so many people that came into the state that they clogged just about every road right after the event.

Looked like something out of a horror movie.

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When the last one happened (2017?) here, there were so many people that came into the state that they clogged just about every road right after the event.
Looked like something out of a horror movie.

Pretty sure the same thing will happen around here. It’ll be interesting to see people trying to navigate some of our county roads, wrecker companies will be busy if it rains within 3-4 days of the event.

I live in the country between Liberty Hill + Leander + the eclipse is supposed to be right overhead here. Travis County has issued a form of disaster awareness scenario; meaning that local residents would be well advised to fill up your gas tanks, get groceries + water + STAY AT HOME! I intended to do that anyway. I have had requests from friends wanting to come out to my place to experience it here, but I'm not sure if I want a bunch of folks out here. Furthermore, I prefer a low profile.

I’ve seen where the two towns closest to me, Ennis and Corsicana, are expecting a combined total of nearly 400,000 visitors on solar eclipse day. If that happens there will be gridlock and people unfamiliar with our county roads stuck and stranded all over the place, especially since rain is predicted around that date. Phone maps show lots of roads around here that either are not maintained or dead end at some creek or fence, one of the main county roads crosses a big creek at a low water bridge that has been closed for about a week and will be closed on that date if it rains again before then, maps don’t show closure, will be interesting.

I had thought I might drive down to Burnet for the day and get in some research on the murder of my great-great grandfather between Burnet and San Saba in 1855, but looking at the Weather Undergound 10-day, they are showing cloudy and thunderstorms on the 8th.

https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/tx/burnet

A cloudy day for towns where this will happen is a blessing.

I'd be more inclined to see it from Houlton...

Saw something today put out by the City of Ennis that they were the City with the longest time of totality in the entire path 4’23”, I think. Ennis Police are posting on social media for residents to please be understanding of all of the “visitors”. Might be a really big deal.

It certainly might be. There is a good chance of rain, but there will still be a lot of traffic. A good day to stay at home.

Well, it's fixing to turn into a madhouse around here. Right down the road from me in Burnet, there is supposed to be a big eclipse festival at some ranch + they didn't put a cap on ticket sales. They have already sold 50K tickets + the highways will be gridlocked. There has also been the word out that there will most likely be no internet or phone service due to the vast overload. Should be interesting. The traffic is already horrendous with folks getting an early start, + it's only Friday.

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Originally posted by Norman Conquest:
Well, it's fixing to turn into a madhouse around here. Right down the road from me in Burnet, there is supposed to be a big eclipse festival at some ranch + they didn't put a cap on ticket sales. They have already sold 50K tickets + the highways will be gridlocked. There has also been the word out that there will most likely be no internet or phone service due to the vast overload. Should be interesting. The traffic is already horrendous with folks getting an early start, + it's only Friday.

Same up here in Ellis/Navarro counties, RV’s are parked in most of the Hwy dept material storage areas along the roads, people are “renting” their backyards for camping, lots of people are allowing camping and RV’s in their pastures, for a fee, of course (not me), including some of my neighbors. I’ll bet these campers don’t take their trash with them when they leave.
I have one big hayfield that isn’t fenced along a county road, it’s properly posted, but I’m concerned these idiots will think they can park in my field and screw up my hay.

Good luck. It is not going to be fun when they all decide to go home.

I am already seeing more out of state tags than normal and longer lines for gas and food.
I locked the gates yesterday on both my places and am staying in.

Lots of slow-rolling traffic on the county road west of us, I came back from checking cows on my UTV and there was a car from Louisiana parked at one of our driveway gates. They left when I pulled up. I think it’s going to be a circus.

Hope they have umbrellas and rain gear to go with their sunglasses.
From the Dallas NWS office:

Minimal changes were necessary to Monday`s forecast, with
consistent trends present in overnight short-term guidance
regarding conditions for tomorrow`s eclipse. The main takeaways
are that the potential for dense high cirrus seems to have
decreased, while areas near and south of I-20 still appear to be
impacted by a dense swath of low stratus prior to or approaching
eclipse time. While some partial scattering could occur, it would
be a matter of luck if a break in the clouds happens to perfectly
coincide with the eclipse time for those areas in Central Texas.
The most favorable area that could remain devoid of significant
cloud cover will be areas north of Highway 380, where stratus may
not be able to reach prior to the eclipse. The DFW area will
likely be right on the brink of the low stratus intrusion around
eclipse time, with some cloud breaks possibly offering decent
viewability. Attention must quickly turn to the threat for severe
weather beginning shortly after the eclipse Monday afternoon and
evening when large hail and some tornadoes are possible.

One of the residents here in town posted a reel on FB of the traffic on Hwy. 29 here in liberty hill + it was at a standstill going west, + this was just Friday evening. I understand that it was a gridlock all the way to Burnet (about 20+ miles). I have just stayed at home. Reminded me of when Willie Nelson had his 4th of July picnic here in 1975. Cars parked on the side of the road + folks walking for more than 5 miles to the festival site. And yes, K. Evans, there were all kinds of trash the next day, but a lot of good stuff too left behind. There were more ice chests, quilts, + who knows what else left behind, not to mention 3 weeks later quite a few little pot plants coming up all over that pasture. I got a new pair of boots out of the deal. Some guy took them off before walking across a mud puddle + never came back for them. Good boots, too. Tony Llamas, as I recall, + just my size.

At its peak, the eclipse was pretty cool looking, but I wouldn't have traveled five miles to have seen it.

There were signs all around the Baylor, Scott & White hospital parking lots saying, "NO ECLIPSE VIEWING OR PARKING".

I found it funny watching people move around, maybe ten feet that way, or fifty yards the other way thinking they were getting a better view. There were people we watched that even climbed on a one story building to get a better view, like fifteen feet made a difference for an object that is 238,856 miles away.

Just imagine all those folks who flew over from Europe.

Where I'm at, weather was perfect and I got to see about 95% of the total eclipse.

It wasn’t as bad as predicted in Dallas. I wasn’t that into it, but decided to pick up my nearly 85 year old mother in Frisco and watch with close friends. I’m glad I did.

It was a really cool experience. The street lights were sensored came on during the totality. It did seem cooler.

There were many DPS Troopers on the tollway. The electronic signs warned people not to stop in the middle of the tollway to view.

Over the past few days, I did notice plenty of people with trekking backpacks. An ex girlfriend tried to rent a car while hers went in the shop, but all the rentals were gone.

It was a neat event, but no way would I travel to view it.

I was in the totality zone. There was a flock of 60-70 wild turkeys in one of my fields I could watch, hens eating, Toms strutting. I thought they would head for their roost when it darkened. Nope, they didnt react at all, just kept doing their thing. Same with my dog, same with the cattle, none of them cared.

It was overcast most of the day at our place, figured we wouldn’t be able to see it but about 30 min before it started, the clouds went away and we had a perfect view from our lake dam. It was pretty neat, almost completely dark at one point, ducks and blackbirds flew in to roost at lake and my wife’s chickens roosted. Quite a few people camped in tents around, we had storms a couple of hours after the eclipse and bet those people had a bad time unless they had packed up. Like Marcus, we saw people decked out with backpacks and orange hi-viz vests hiking the nearby roads. No idea how bad traffic was after the event.

I saw one guy on the news describe it as "life changing". Seriously? I thought Jimmy Kimmel had a funny take on it, he said something to the effect that, "if you thought the eclipse was something, just wait until you experience this thing we call 'night', it is like the eclipse but it lasts for like 8 hours".

I was out at my pond feeding the fish when it occurred. They didn't care. Catfish seemed quite hungry though. Dogs didn't care. Birds didn't care. My area was only 90% but it did get significantly dark/dim for a few minutes. In the end, I didn't care either.

I know; much ado about nothing. At least the traffic has gone back to some semblance of normalcy (still crazy). Prior to the event, a friend's wife had kept posting on FB about how everything would be chaos + telling everyone to stock up on everything. I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I didn't say it, but I wanted to call her Chicken Little.

By now all of the flotsam has floated downstream.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/t...lar-eclipse/60448157

While I like the concept of an EV I will never buy one. The above link tells all. Besides, aren't the charging stations fossil fueled? Makes no sense at all.

My son had his name on the list + his number just came up, but now he's not so sure that he wants it. He thought about just buying it + reselling it immediately, however they have a clause in the buying contract that you can't resell it for a year. I think he would be better off just selling his place in line.

Randy, is he the one moving to Wisconsin? If so, he should opt out. The winters are long and shitty there.