Cuz we can’t go to Kokomo!
Pulled out our Rand McNally World Atlas (large scale) and poured over the maps of Illinois and Indiana, something we are not wont to do here at Stately Blaska Manor except that Monday 04-08-24 a total eclipse of the sun sweeps across the North American continent from Mexico to Newfoundland. On its journey, it darkens a path 115 miles wide — that’s the “Totality” — for up to 4½ minutes if you are in the middle of the path.
What does it say that the Great Eclipse (I believe! I believe!) enters the USA at 12:06 pm CST over Eagle Pass TX, like so many illegal immigrants! Amazing the big cities it visits: from San Antonio and Dallas TX, through Little Rock, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto, and Montreal. We here in Madison WI get 87% of the eclipse, not the Totality. For that, we would have to drive, he said.
Map of Indiana at my side, opened a wonderful website out of the National Solar Observatory. Pick any location and it gives you this kind of lowdown:
Eyeballing the Rand McNally, looks like Kokomo IN is the shortest drive — 314 miles. Apple’s Maps computer app estimates we’d be on the road for 4 hours and 40 minutes. (For reference, takes 3:52 to drive 255 miles north to Land O’ Lakes WI on the N. Michigan border.) Actually, Kokomo is just outside the Totality, but driving another 9.7 miles due east to a place called Greentown gets you there. The entirety of the eclipse experience there would last 2 hours 31 minutes and 54 seconds. (Don’t you just love scientific precision!) The totality kicks in at 3:08 EST and lasts for 1 minute 37.2 seconds. (Point two! Again, science!)
An essay written by an astrophysicist out of Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the Sunday New York Times got me jazzed.
A total solar eclipse is not something that you see — it’s something that you experience. You can feel the temperature around you begin to drop by as much as 15 degrees over the five to 10 minutes that lead up to the eclipse. The birds and other animals go silent. The light becomes eerie and morphs into a dusky, muted twilight, and you begin to see stark, misplaced shadows abound. A column of darkness in the sky hurtles toward you at over 1,000 miles per hour as the moon’s shadow falls neatly over the sun, turning day into temporary night — nothing like the calming sunset we take for granted every day. …
The hairs stand up on the back of your neck … A total eclipse elicits a unique, visceral, primeval feeling that cannot be evoked by a photograph or a video or a newspaper article.
xxx xxx
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Blaska’s Bottom Line: We have a wake to attend Monday, the Lovely Lisa has a doctor’s appointment, Number #1 Son has a radio interview. Means Blaska will try to score welders goggles at shade level 14, walk out the backyard to Orchard Ridge park and look up at the partial eclipse. Will miss the experience of a lifetime. Hairs won’t stand up on back of neck. Won’t run up and down the hill beating the ground like gorillas in the wild. We missed Vietnam and Woodstock, too.
9 responses to “We’ll have to settle for just some of the eclipse”
C’mon Blaska, it’s a ONCE_IN_A_LIFETIME_EVENT…which it is…if you were born after August 21, 2017 and die before August 23, 2044.
Not too much of a stretch to suggest it’s being mega-hyped to siphon the focus off’n the DementiaJoKe’s administration’s manifest EPIC FAILS.
The Gotch
87% obscuring of daylight won’t hold a candle (heh, heh) to the Monday darkness here in the Emerald City when the President visits and proudly again defies the Supreme Court by buying millions of votes by illegally “cancelling” student debt.
The 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality will see DementiaJoKe’s…um…illegal largesse for illegals…and raise it $700 large…ALSO_ILLEGAL_FOR_ILLEGALS
The Gotch
Kamala just visited NC to promise to lower our energy bills then Duke Energy asked for a 15% increase.
I wish someone would ask her why Joe won’t replenish our strategic petroleum reserve.
Dear Lord, were that our only worry on the CATACLYSMIC INEPTITUDE of VPOTUS, am I right?
Anywho, “One has to conclude that despite the mainstream media protecting Biden and Harris, reality is still getting through.”
Ya think? FF‘sS…you read her unhinged…um…treatise on Women’s BB?
“Do you know — OK, a bit of a history lesson — do you know that the women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022?” Harris told Spectrum News. “Think about that, and talk about progress, ya know, better late than never, but progress.”
Ann Althouse (no Righty, she!): “[T]his display of the Vice President’s mental capacity and self-awareness is a warning that extends beyond basketball. It’s deeply disturbing…”
To paraphrase Don Corleone: “Now listen, whoever comes to you claiming this d!p phuque is competent, they’re the traitor. Don’t forget that“
The Gotch
As a follower of MTG’s Church Of Darkness I thought all you people would be outside looking at God’s signal that the end is near. Repent you sinners; time is short. Hold your trump bibles tight; it’s your only hope. A large donation to his legal fund would help you too.
I’ve had an ear worm for days:
”Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun”
You’re so vain you probably think this post is about you.
A Tomato Ranching pal smack dab in the middle of the Totality Zone said a local hotel that normally charges $69 a night bumped it over a grand this weekend.
A Fool And Their Money Are Lucky Enough To Get Together In The First Place G. Gekko
The Gotch
The Gotch