Eclipse Two
Lots to accomplish outside of photography adventuring...drive home and prep for Linda's book club meeting, and attend a potential work meeting myself (I got the gig! More money for camera stuff!!).
So no time to chronicle the eclipse events. Until now, grabbing a moment.
At the outset, none of this is complaining or whining. I said on Facebook, I'd do it all over again. But what a challenge.
Travel
Linda has developed a freeway phobia. I respect it as a condition. I'm afraid of heights, and while there's no rationality to it, it's real. And it's harrowing. So, not only did she agree to go with me (there's a lot behind that), but she agreed to endure X hours of back road travel.
X = 24, in case you were wondering.
I can report that there is a shitload of corn in Indiana and Illinois.
I can also report, and will in greater detail when I start my Casual Ethnographer blog, that there is a universal social trend. It cuts across gender, ethnic, and social class lines, the inclusivity only ending when one considers age.
It is the "coffee group" at McDonalds. Everywhere. Rural. Urban. Upscale. Seedy.
As long as you are, what, 60? I lose perspective on age... but yeah. Greatest and Boomers. No Millennials. Which is odd, as there's free wifi...
I know this from field observation and could, should, have chronicled the phenomenon as yes, I did have a camera. But my field notes grew from the many, many stops I made because "gas station bathrooms? Eww!" was a common epithet in the front seat, shotty. That and, well, the Suburban will go 450 miles on a tank, and that's a full day at averaging 40 mph what with all the McDonalds stops...
So yes, it was on the brutal side. Eight hours from DeWitt to Terre Haute. Up at 5 a.m. to do the Final Four hours to Carbondale, to arrive at 9, to join in the hour queue to park. Return trip, similar shenanigans.
We altered the return route so I could, yes, get a picture:
Eclipse two
So no time to chronicle the eclipse events. Until now, grabbing a moment.
At the outset, none of this is complaining or whining. I said on Facebook, I'd do it all over again. But what a challenge.
Travel
Linda has developed a freeway phobia. I respect it as a condition. I'm afraid of heights, and while there's no rationality to it, it's real. And it's harrowing. So, not only did she agree to go with me (there's a lot behind that), but she agreed to endure X hours of back road travel.
X = 24, in case you were wondering.
I can report that there is a shitload of corn in Indiana and Illinois.
I can also report, and will in greater detail when I start my Casual Ethnographer blog, that there is a universal social trend. It cuts across gender, ethnic, and social class lines, the inclusivity only ending when one considers age.
It is the "coffee group" at McDonalds. Everywhere. Rural. Urban. Upscale. Seedy.
As long as you are, what, 60? I lose perspective on age... but yeah. Greatest and Boomers. No Millennials. Which is odd, as there's free wifi...
I know this from field observation and could, should, have chronicled the phenomenon as yes, I did have a camera. But my field notes grew from the many, many stops I made because "gas station bathrooms? Eww!" was a common epithet in the front seat, shotty. That and, well, the Suburban will go 450 miles on a tank, and that's a full day at averaging 40 mph what with all the McDonalds stops...
So yes, it was on the brutal side. Eight hours from DeWitt to Terre Haute. Up at 5 a.m. to do the Final Four hours to Carbondale, to arrive at 9, to join in the hour queue to park. Return trip, similar shenanigans.
We altered the return route so I could, yes, get a picture:
I put this on Facebook so feel free to check out the frivolity there.
In any event, we meandered the back roads and eventually, well after dark, arrived in Springfield IL, where, as I was parking the Suburban, Linda rode the elevator with a couple who were also in Carbondale, but who drove the freeway.
And they had just arrived too. Freeway was a parking lot.
Next installment: Carbondale details...
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