Share Your Eclipse Experience (and beer)

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Brooothru

Brooothru

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So it’s April 8 and I’m assuming many of you are chasing the Moon’s shadow, and maybe even partaking of a cereal malt beverage or two. Just to keeps the Mods happy, yesterday was National Beer Day (see? On Topic).

SWMBO’d and I are on the road in San Antonio, TX, as we work our way slowly to the Desert Southwest and California vineyards, in the path of totality for the eclipse. Sadly we woke up this morning to high thin cirrus overcast in the upper tropopause with advancing lower altitude cloud cover and rain showers in the forecast for later in the day.

Staying on topic, this evening’s beer menu includes a Troeg’s Nugget Nectar and a Wicked Weed IPA. Wednesday will find us west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country at Jester King Brewery and Goat Farm where we’ll park the motorhome for a couple of days while I sample the local offerings and SWMBO’d practices Goat Yoga. Yeah, it’s really a thing.

And there will be pictures.
 
I see a lot of the country will be under cloud cover. That's unfortunate. Here where we live the skies should be clear, with the eclipse starting at 10:08 a.m. and go for approximately two hours and ten minutes. However, we should only see about a 40% of an eclipse.
 
I'm headed over to watch the local 99% totality with my son's kindergarten class. Sadly, it's a dry campus.

I'm not so worried about cloud cover impeding my view of the sun itself. I'm much more interested in the effects on the ground. Mid-day dark, quiet birds, etc, etc.
 
I'm am in the 93% range and it's cloudy af right now, my daughter is 12 and we have got into astronomy over the past 2 years. Got her a telescope a couple years ago and haven't looked back, we have a solar filter for it which is in place and ready so hopefully we'll get a little clearing to atleast get some kind of a glimpse at it. Her school is doing an early dismissal at noon and the eclipse will start just after 2pm here. Fingers crossed.
Screenshot_20240408_111523_Astrospheric.jpg
 
We’re up visiting the family in the Buffalo NY area. Fingers crossed that the clouds clear up since we’re in the path of totality. Local brewery has a special black IPA they brewed for the eclipse that we were able to snag a couple 6 packs of.
 
A little cloudy here in East Texas. Won't be partaking of any foamy beverages, but I'm almost in the middle of the "Path of Totality". Starting to dim a little here now.
 
12:27pm here in San Antonio, :58 until totality (at least, 99% at our geo position). Partial clearing of low “scud”, but still lots of high sirrus blocking the sun. Skies have cleared in Kerrville about an hour northwest, though the prospects are slim for here as afternoon heating and humid air coupled with temps in the 80F range will bring shower clouds.

If so, we’ll be zero for two on ellipses. We were in South Carolina for the 2017 annular eclipse. The skies clouded over about :15 minutes prior to totality, and of course cleared about half an hour after the event. Doubt that we’ll be around for the next one in 40 years, unless we get a “ringside seat.”
 
My house (near St. Louis) will be at 98%. Good enough for me as I saw the totality in 2017.

My son tried to get south of St. Louis for totality but the traffic was so backed up heading south on I-55 they turned around and went to a brewery that will be at 99% for their "Kinda Shady Eclipse Party."

Fortunately the sky is mostly clear.
 
We're in the 94% occlusion band and right now we're about 30-something percent on a spectacular day!
Happy viewing everyone! :mug:

 
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Well, it’s pretty much wrapping up here and tbh at 40% eclipse I couldn’t even tell a difference.

Taken from my back patio right before the eclipse started.
IMG_3880.jpeg


And this was taken around an hour into it, which should have been about at its peak.
IMG_3881.jpeg


*Edit: about 5 1/2 months ago, on October 14th we had a 78% eclipse “visible” in this part of the state. That one was more memorable for us.
 
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We were in the path. It was really touch and go with the cloud cover, but ended up clearing at just the right time. Got 2 and a half minutes of it. Only about 15 seconds was blocked by a cloud. We started inside soaking up the A/C watching through the skylight. When it came closer to total, we grabbed a couple Shiner Bocks and headed outside. I saw the one in 2017 near Portland and I forgot how absolutely amazing an experience this is. Words just cannot describe.
 
@lumpher great pics! I dare say that the cloud cover was very similar to what we had, but my cell camera was not up to the task to match your photos. Not sure what was going on with the pic, but can see the Corona behind the blob.

We hauled 8 kids 10-6 and 5 adults about an hour north to get into the path of totality. After about 2 hours hanging out on the edge of the feild we were all treated to a great veiw that even stopped my autistic boy and rendered him quite as we got 3 minutes in the shade during the afternoon. No beverages stronger than a coke as we were fully expecting a rough return trip.
1000003116.jpg
 
In 2017 we were expecting a partial eclipse. Had the dark glasses ready, out in the back yard. The moon started to edge over the sun. Then a wall of clouds moved in. Grrr...

Today, it was solid clouds all day. No sighting of the 74% eclipse coverage, though it got a lttle dark. Birds acting weird, a few thumped against the house.

I had a few drinks today -- a margarita and some HB cider, so not a complete wash. And we watched the eclipse activity on TV as it went from state to state. I'm glad many got to see it, including lots of kids.
 
Very last minute decision this AM to keep the 8 year old home from school, jump in the car, and head south from MN to IA. We broke free from the cloud cover in Ames about 15 minutes before peak, but she had the glasses and saw the previous 30 or so minutes as well, through the car glass roof. I got to see it the rest of the way to peak and then for the next hour or so afterwards, since we hung around and I was still interested while she went off to play. I think we were to be in about the 85% zone.

Lots of driving, from about 10 to 1:30, and then again from 3 to get back home. Pretty fun though, she was incredibly well behaved so that was a nice change! Got a few pictures but they're awful, the phone wasn't focusing on it and I didn't think to bring a real camera.
 
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FloppyKnockers said:
We were in the path. It was really touch and go with the cloud cover, but ended up clearing at just the right time. Got 2 and a half minutes of it. Only about 15 seconds was blocked by a cloud. We started inside soaking up the A/C watching through the skylight. When it came closer to total, we grabbed a couple Shiner Bocks and headed outside. I saw the one in 2017 near Portland and I forgot how absolutely amazing an experience this is. Words just cannot describe.
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Shiner Bock! Haven’t had one in 35 years, but since we’re in the backyard of where it originated I’ll have to put it on the beer menu.
 
Drove 7 hours Sunday to OH and arrived to find my hotel had cancelled my room without telling me. Found another (pricier) one and spent the eclipse on the shore of Erie. Got a few nice Pinhole effect pictures and was amazed to see totality, 360° twilight, and the "diamond ring". Worth the crazy trip home with a 2:30am arrival.
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Walked the dog during the eclipse. He didn't really seem to notice, but the neighbors' chickens were pretty squawky. Walking with eclipse glasses on is pretty much impossible in case anybody was wondering, but my dog tends to be a dawdler anyway so I got plenty of chances to stop, put the glasses back on, and look up for a while. Somebody should sell flip-down eclipse glasses.

Clouds rolled in just as it was getting to its peak and stuck around until it was back down to about 50%. But I'm not sure that I could really tell the difference between 84.3% and 86.7% anyway. Kinda like missing my gravity by three points, right?

Saw an annular when we lived in NH in 1994. We got pretty creative with eye protection back then.

Dog House Brew said:
Driving to 100% really worth it. The drive back however, never again!
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So next time you'll just stay wherever you end up, buy a new house and all that?
 
Figured it was going to be my only chance to see totality, the original plan was to head a few hours from me to the Lake Placid area.

Then that national weather service cloud map came out on Sunday and decided that little sliver of northeast Vermont was best option. Turns out everyone else in my area had the same idea.

Planned on getting to an area with 3-4 minutes of totality. Didn't quite make that but got to an area with 2 1/2. What should have taken about 6 hours was closer to 9 hours. Glad I gave myself couple hours of buffer to get there.

Was pretty dicey that I'd even make into totality during the drive. Watching your estimated arrival time just keep going up was not fun. Had mapped out some breweries I could hit up on way but it turned into a race just to get there.

Think it was close to 16 hours in the car for that 2 1/2 minutes but was worth it. Seeing totality is quite the experience. My pics and video are terrible but I'll always remember that glowing disc.
 

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Thanks for the pics! I'm still drinking beer because of it... (level 9 pain from tilting my head back twice...old injury and tilting my head back is a no-no)
:bigmug:
 
No eclipse pics, but here’s Jester King Brewery (and goat yoga venue) just outside of the Austin City Limits. Wednesday afternoon, not yet even 5 o’clock ’some here’, and the locals are starting to show up for some Blues and brews. Texas boogie style live band playing sounds reminiscent of Asleep at the Wheel. Real Hill Country vibe.

Goes well with a very authentic German pils, and the wafting aroma of bar-b-que done mesquite smoke.
 
Brooothru said:
So it’s April 8 and I’m assuming many of you are chasing the Moon’s shadow, and maybe even partaking of a cereal malt beverage or two. Just to keeps the Mods happy, yesterday was National Beer Day (see? On Topic).

SWMBO’d and I are on the road in San Antonio, TX, as we work our way slowly to the Desert Southwest and California vineyards, in the path of totality for the eclipse. Sadly we woke up this morning to high thin cirrus overcast in the upper tropopause with advancing lower altitude cloud cover and rain showers in the forecast for later in the day.

Staying on topic, this evening’s beer menu includes a Troeg’s Nugget Nectar and a Wicked Weed IPA. Wednesday will find us west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country at Jester King Brewery and Goat Farm where we’ll park the motorhome for a couple of days while I sample the local offerings and SWMBO’d practices Goat Yoga. Yeah, it’s really a thing.

And there will be pictures.
Click to expand...
What’s your route? If you’re driving through San Luis Obispo county on Rt.101 in CA and want to meet up for a beer let me know.
 

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