Agreed. I’m flying to another country and spending a ton of money for this. I want to be present and enjoy it.
Same. I bought filter for my phone am & will shoot one or two pix.
But I don’t intend to watch 4+ minutes of totality on my phone screen. That’s for experiencing first hand.
I did the same thing as you did in 2017: because I knew that I wouldn’t get really great pictures, while waiting before and during the eclipse I recorded video of the surroundings and of our group of eight. It’s fun to watch the final darkening skies, plus how our group was responding. The six-year old granddaughter adamantly refused to look up (she finally did); we’ll see if she has a different reaction this year now that she’s 13.
I’ve always done the same thing, basically I take my compact camera and just “point and click” a few times during totality, but for me the experience is just to stand and stare and marvel. I take a few seconds to look around at the landscape, you get some amazing effects if e.g. you are in a mountainous area (like I was in Jackson in 2017) and to watch out for the approach of the moon shadow (not forgetting to look back at the sun to see Bailly’s Beads and the Diamond Ring). Also try to look out for the elusive “shadow bands” rippling across the landscape as totality begins and ends.
I don’t think these have been listed yet in this thread. The states and provinces that will be touched by totality are:
◆ In Mexico, 5 states — Nayarit, Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua (barely), and Coahuila.
In quick abbreviations that’s MEX, 5 states — NA SI DG CI CH
◆ In the US, 15 states — Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee (barely), Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan (barely), Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine
That’s USA, 15 — TX OK AR MO TN KY IL IN OH MI PA NY VT NH ME
◆ In Canada, 6 provinces — Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia (barely, at Cape Breton Island), and Newfoundland and Labrador (Newfoundland Island only)
That’s CAN, 6 — ON QC NB PE NS NL
For Tennessee, totality will barely touch its northwest corner, where the Kentucky exclave is (at the “Kentucky Bend“, or New Madrid Bend). I was there last summer with my son.
My reservation for a hotel room “near” the path of totality was canceled because the building won’t actually have it’s grand opening (renovation) until May 1st 
Luckily found another place that’s a half hour closer but 3x the price at $300+. Can afford it but it’s quite annoying. The only grace is that this reservation can be canceled up to the day before in case weather forecasts call for thunderstorms all day.
I’ve noticed a lack of decent glasses with plastic frames. That’s what I had last time and liked them but the reputable ones seem to either be all paper frames or else some dumb combo with one “good” pair and three paper pairs.
I reserved a room in Waco a year ago. About six months ago, I got notified that the place had new owners who would honor my reservation, but the price had changed. A whole lot. Greedy bastids!
I remember a bunch of stories about that in 2017 – places had no idea that the eclipse would be “a thing” and rented out all their rooms for standard rates. Then some hotels realized they could get a lot more and canceled everyone’s reservations to put the same rooms back up for 5x the price.
In this case, I think Choice hotels was just incompetent in allowing me to make a reservation in a closed down hotel.
About nine months ago I booked at a Holiday Inn in Richfield, Ohio, near some college friends. I just called to confirm the reservation yesterday, in case something like that had happened, or some other “mistake” had occurred. Fortunately, I’m good.
I just checked, and that hotel is sold out. The nearest Holiday Inn with rooms, also in the path, is charging $330 per night during the eclipse, well over twice what they’re charging a week later, and $140 over what I’m paying.
It pays to book well in advance.
I’d sooner bet the construction company had promised the place would re-open in Feb then “stuff” happened. The hotel, not wanting to be vacant the first weeks after construction finishes, had booked folks starting from whenever the construction was supposed to be finished, then has been cancelling reservations one week at a time as the delays mount. The eclipse just happens to be in teh middle of that rolling delay.
I am dealing with this right now as to a new apartment building I want to rent in. The grand opening has already slid 3 months and is now pencilled in for April … maybe.
(Re-)Construction project completion dates have always had large variance vs target. Since COVID it’s been a lot worse.
I booked my hotel about a month ago and got one of the last rooms. The difference in price between eclipse week and the next week was 3 to 1 then.
Yes but AirBNB can still screw you. My brother is handling our accommodations, for my wife and me, and his wife and kids. He secured a good AirBNB many months ago, and at a good rate, but 3-4 months ago the host notified him that he was jacking up the price on him. Se we got screwed.
We scrambled and hustled, and got a good reservation at a hotel where we can use miles for the rooms, and at a decent rate. So we lucked out.
Does Airbnb have any rules about that kind of thing? Isn’t a booking a contract? Did you look into whether you had any recourse? Were you able to leave a bad review?
Of course, a devious host could simply claim he had to cancel to do repairs or some other excuse, but they should be subject to some kind of penalty.
He’s choosing to not pursue that. And apparently hosts can always do that. I’ve stayed at AirBNBs for years and never heard of that. It’s never been done to me before. My brother made this reservation over a year ago, we’ve been planning this trip for some time, and we thought we were set!
Maybe if you prepay, that locks you into the rate but that’s just a guess and I haven’t looked into it.
Raising rates due to “surge pricing”? Color me surprised. I wonder what Wendy’s prices will be that day.
I found the plastic frame glasses on Amazon, but I needed only four for our group even though they came in bundles of six. But know what? Even people not in the path of totality can use my extras; the sun will still be 80%+ covered at my house. BEWARE: one company with the plastic frames had a good price, but they would get delivered April 11th. Oh my!
Okay, I’m in for this. As may have been mentioned before (it’s a long thread) the Syracuse AAA minor league team is playing a game at 5 pm on Eclipse Day, and they are opening the gates way early to fans who want to watch the eclipse. I got tickets for me and my 7-yr-old grandson.
Totality is about a minute and a half, less than it might be if we went further north or west, but a) this is a guaranteed seat; b) it comes with a ballgame and I like baseball; and c) by the time the game is over traffic back home should have thinned out.
Of course, Syracuse is one of the cloudiest cities in the US, especially in the spring, so who knows. If it’s pouring rain that day we just won’t go and I’ll just be out the $30 or so for the tickets. If it’s just projected to be cloudy, well, we’ll probably go anyway; as I said earlier, we live in hope.
Probably leave early from home in the am and go for a hike somewhere along the way.
They say they will give out glasses at the ballpark, but I’m thinking I might get some online just to be sure. Any particular qualities I should be looking for? Guess I’ll need kid and adult sizes…
Fingers crossed!
I’ve been to 7 TSEs and I’ve always found the cardboard/plastic ones just fine. You don’t need them all that long anyway, just to check occasionally on the progress of the moon. When totality starts you don’t need them of course.
The only thing you need to check is that the lenses aren’t scratched.
Just thought though… if your grandson is only 7, you of course know that you need to emphasise that you must NOT look at the sun AT ANY TIME without the glasses until complete totality. And you need one hand to hold the glasses on at all times, if it’s windy (or a lively child) you need to ensure they don’t fall off or blow away.
Glasses ON again of course as soon as totality ends (the Diamond Ring).
I’m looking for binocular filters, and these are on Amazon. But I do not see any certification to ISO 12312-2:2015. I do not see any CE Mark on them. I looked 3x. Did I miss it?
I’m a little surprised that Amazon would sell something that may not be safe. Shop carefully, people.
Rainbow Symphony Solar Filter 101mm Black Polymer
Amazon? YGBSM!
They sell a hundred tons of Chinese knock-off stuff of every description every day. I have no doubt a sizeable fraction of their “certified” products of every nature have the words printed on them but that’s it.
I see no reason to expect disposable eclipse glasses to be any more carefully vetted by Amazon than any other “certified” product.
Undoubtedly true, but the last remaining hope that one might place one’s faith in is brand name, though certainly not in Amazon as a reseller. The eclipse glasses I got are from Celestron, the well-known telescope company. In addition to carrying the ISO 12312-2 certification, the packages state “made in USA” and the accompanying booklet is written in English (not “Chinglish”). So I think it’s safe to assume the glasses are legit.
On a different note, just a little over a month away from the Great Event, it is currently bright and sunny outside under a cloudless sky. This is Mother Nature taunting me: “Yo, Wolfpup! Look what I can do when I feel like it. But sometimes I don’t feel like it. Especially in early April! Ha, ha!”.
Yeah I guess I was being quite naive.
I just dropped da wife off at her hairdresser appointment and am sitting in the car, waiting like a chauffeur. So I pulled out my small stash of eclipse glasses to check what I’d bought. I may have thought to check before making the purchase, I’d like to think I did!, but wasn’t sure. Thankfully they are rated to the ISO standard and are also CE marked. Made in Dublin Ireland and I know the beer there is good quality, so I feel confident in my purchase. 
I keep some in the car for giveaways for some family and friends.