This was my first and only total eclipse, and it was impressive.  The 4 minute totality seemed to go quickly.  

I don’t think the Russellville area had nearly as many visitors as expected.  There were a lot, but I think most of them came this morning and brought their lunch.  It seemed that many here had unreal expectations of how much people would pay for a parking space and there seemed to be more than plenty of free spots.  They heard about crowds, raised prices, and food shortages in restaurants, so they brought their own peanut butter sandwich.  I still think the big winners were the porta-pottie rental people.  They didn’t even have to clean a lot of them afterwards.  

However, after totality, thousands (or maybe hundreds) streamed out of here and 90% of them headed West on I-40.  The traffic ran between 10 and 40 MPH all the way to Fort Smith at one time.  Going east, traffic was light and the normal 70+ MPH.  I guess everyone east of here went somewhere else, and everyone in Oklahoma came here this morning.  I don’t think it was nearly the economic boon that many expected, but hopefully the visitors left a little of their money behind.

It was an interesting day, for sure.

73,
Dennis/RZ

On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 3:27 PM <w5znjoel@gmail.com> wrote:

For the record, my issue is with the gov’t overhype and hysteria over an impending emergency management disaster, not with the eclipse!

 

Kim and I, along with our daughter, son-in-law, and youngest granddaughter, viewed the eclipse from our pool deck. Leading up to totality things were nice and routine. The real issue I experienced during totality was trying to fly my drone and grab motion video, still video from another camera, and still photographs. I needed a third hand, maybe four!!! The drone footage is neat as well as the still photographs but I forgot to take the filter off the video camera during totality, thus the video is not good during that time but very neat leading up to and after.

 

A nice still photograph is attached during totality without a filter on the still camera!

 

I hope everyone was able to ignore the drama and enjoy a nice, peaceful event.

 

73 Joel W5ZN

 

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