Monthly Archives: July 2017

#SolarEclipse2017-welders goggles?!

Leave a reply

image

Vicki’s sister was a welder once- of cool gates and fancy doors to fancy places- and she recommended welders goggles for our solar eclipse viewing ease.

Which ones though? How do you know which ones won’t fry your eyes? NASA.gov provides much info and ratings for different “solar eclipse glasses”… Not so much on welders goggles.

With a little online research we were off to, where else, Home Depot. After going down two wrong aisles we had to ask an orange-apron wearing worker. She didn’t know where welders goggles were but pointed to a guy “way down there” who would know.

He was cute, Vicki is single, so thought I’d try and stir up a little more chat than just directions.

“We are looking for welders goggles to use when going to see the solar eclipse.”

“Goggles are on aisle (whatever, I don’t remember)”

“Do you know what kind are safe for a solar eclipse?”

He shrugs and walks away.

Oh well, play time over. We Internet-searched a couple of specifications on various brands and then just picked.

Next: We re-think where we are going to see the eclipse.

#SolarEclipse2017 Ten months before

Leave a reply

I didn’t know about the 2017 solar eclipse until my friend, Rob, told me about it in the fall of 2016.  It was almost a throw away comment he made during lunch with our spouses, but I pounced on it.

That night I found the path the eclipse will journey across America on August 21 and started my search for cheap hotels . I found none.  In desolate areas, the hotel equivalent of a “Motel Six” were already $3,000 per night.  Repeat that: “$3,000 per night.”  The eclipse was still ten months away and rates were already reflecting the # 1 American value: money. Ugh.

Camping was not an option for me because I have none of the equipment and really don’t know what I’m doing. So, throughout the fall, I’d hunt and peck on the internet now and then, trying to find some place to stay on the path.

Not unlike Rob’s casual mentioning of this event to me, I casually mentioned it to my adventurous friend, Vicki, who immediately said, “We have to do this somehow.”  It was December 2016, eight months to eclipse day, and rates were exceeding $6,000 per day.

So we decided we were going to drive from where she lived— about five hours to the center of one of the “best viewing sites” according to the NASA map. We will just drive there, see the eclipse, and drive back.

This was the plan back in December.

Wondering if this is going to be like Thelma and Louise, minus the bad stuff?

More to come…