Eclipse adventure part 2: the main event

Having come all this way, of course we had to make sure we were as close as possible to the centre of full totality, so the morning of eclipse day (Monday 21st August) saw us collecting a rental car and hitting the road to Greenville, South Carolina. As always we’d pre-booked our car, and I was particularly glad on this occasion since apparently no spare cars were available. The roads were correspondingly crammed with eclipse-chasers, and we spent a boring couple of hours in heavy traffic before the satnav took pity and re-routed us via a series of much emptier minor roads, but happily we’d set out in more-than-plenty of time.

Eclipse adventure part 1: the build-up

Tom started considering possible viewing options as soon as he found out that a full solar eclipse was occurring over North America this year, but as the date drew nearer and nothing was booked I assumed he’d decided against it (or just forgotten). Then, a mere two weeks out, he came up with a plan – a thirteen hour Amtrak ride to Charlotte in North Carolina, then a Greyhound bus into South Carolina to experience the total eclipse. I was welcome to join him, or not, but he was going regardless!

Subway series

No one was more surprised than I was when I won tickets to one of the subway series baseball games. I’d entered a raffle mainly to support the friend who was running it, but I never usually win these things, so it was particularly gratifying to learn that my name was first out of the hat.