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You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Readership Capture / Oregon Eclipse Mini-Meet-Up?

Oregon Eclipse Mini-Meet-Up?

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Just looked at my email, and found this message from Balloon Juice commentor / party promoter Lahke, currently on the opposite coast:

I just made an offer of two parking permits for the eclipse viewing at Madras Airport, free to first Juicers who respond. Is it possible for you to facilitate that?

The numbers are TRBPK 34 and 35. If it’s okay with you, could you post a comment to that effect? I’m spending the day in the Columbia River gorge, and don’t know if I’ll have phone service.

If you’re interested, leave a note in the comment below, or contact me at [email protected]

Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    Anne Laurie, maybe you could consider changing the title to 2 free parking permits for eclipse viewing at Madras airport?

  2. 2.

    CarolPW

    Oh good, I was hoping for an opportunity to express an opinion to Lahke (and any other out-of-towners that may be coming from Portland) – I’ve driven all the routes from Interstate 84 to Madras. If I were driving in the dark I wouldn’t take Hwy 197 out of The Dalles. I would go to Biggs Junction (about 20 mi east of The Dalles) and take Hwy 97 south to Madras. It’s wider, straighter, can handle more traffic, and I suspect a lot of people coming from points west of The Dalles will not go that far but go south earlier. People coming from places east of The Dalles are likely to be watching the eclipse in places other than Madras, as there are no big airports in that direction and the locals have lots of choices.

    Watch out for speed traps though (no matter which route you take). Sometimes they have a speed limit sign on the outskirts of one of the tiny towns and then stick a much lower speed limit sign about 30 ft beyond the first – tomorrow they are probably expecting to really clean up, at least until they need to actually spend their time dealing with traffic jams.

  3. 3.

    Tom Levenson

    Writing from Madras–took the Mt. Hood highway from Portland into town. No traffic until Madras itself. Solartown looks like hell on earth, but, though the locals look exhausted, Madras is much easier to navigate than I had feared. Just hoping the high cirrus goes away by morning.

  4. 4.

    Chrome agnomen

    I’ll be there. I may not get one of the parking spots, but how about some sort of a meet-up anyway?

  5. 5.

    JPL

    @Tom Levenson: Moonbat Karen mentioned in the previous thread that she is ready with her camera in No. GA. Maybe a front pager (hint) can arrange folks to mail in pictures from across the country.

  10. 10.

    Doug R

    If it’s anything like the Space Needle fireworks, traffic will grind to a halt around magic time.

  15. 15.

    Fair Economist

    I’m in Portland and planning to drive down to Salem very, very early tomorrow morning. Parking is indeed my biggest concern.

  16. 16.

    Lahke

    Hi, if you are planning to take me up on the permits, could you let Anne Laurie know to send me an email, since I think you also will need my name.

    No traffic getting to the Dalles, and we’ve been doing the touristy things. May I highly recommend the Maryhill Museum just over the river? A strange, lovely mix of objects.

  17. 17.

    The Lodger

    We’re leaving very early for McMinnville which is usually an hour away. Using back roads, hope to get there by 8 to get settled before parking becomes impossible.

  18. 18.

    Lahke

    P.S. Going to bed now to get an early start, but AL has my name and permission to release it to fist interested party.

  21. 21.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Middle daughter lives at eclipse max, outside Carbondale IL. Youngest daughter is joining her. Here in the People’s Republic, we’re getting a near total, so we’re staying put.

  22. 22.

    Mike J

    Per Pool: “the president responded to shouted questions about today’s collision of the USS John S. McCain: ‘That’s too bad,’ he said.”

    5 injured, 10 missing.

  24. 24.

    Eric U.

    Freddy deBoer slandered someone on twitter, deleted his twitter account, and checked himself into a hospital for mental health issues.

  25. 25.

    efgoldman

    @Eric U.:

    Freddy deBoer slanderesomeone on twitter

    One of several thousand people in the world about whom I don’t care if I never hear about them.

  27. 27.

    Spanky

    @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
    Your Federal Highway Commission guidelines:

    – Don’t stop along the roadway or park along the shoulder
    – Exit the highway to a safe location to view the eclipse
    – Don’t take photographs while driving
    – Don’t wear eclipse glasses while driving
    – Turn your headlights on
    – Watch for pedestrians on smaller roads
    – Prepare for extra congestion the day before, the day of and the day after in states in the path of the eclipse
    – Avoid travel in the area of the main path, if possible

    The mrs and I are staged on North Platte, NE, a lovely town where the people are insanely nice. Drive north to the centerline in AM.

  28. 28.

    efgoldman

    @Mike J:

    “the president responded to shouted questions about today’s collision of the USS John S. McCain: ‘That’s too bad,’ he said.”

    All he heard, I’m sure, was “John McCain.”

  31. 31.

    trollhattan

    Will get out of the smoky valley into the Sierra, but only for 80% coverage. Would love to be several hundred miles north.

    Have been practicing with my solar filter, starting (what, now?) to get the hang of it. Sunspots!

  33. 33.

    Yarrow

    Have made no plans for the eclipse but will go outside and look for crescent shaped shadows. Might take a cooking implement with holes in it along to facilitate that. That’ll be about the extent of it for me.

    A friend of mine made plans months ago to go see family in Oregon this past weekend for a long weekend. Couldn’t figure out why the plane tickets were so expensive. Then she found out about the eclipse. Guess even the airlines jacked up the prices for it. Her brother’s house is something like five miles outside totality so the whole family is going to drive into the totality area. Since her brother lives right there he’s got the whole thing scouted out. Lucky!

  36. 36.

    BD of MN

    Currently in St. Joseph, MO (in a hotel we reserved 363 days ago), with a sketchy forecast for tomorrow… My cousin is a radio news guy down in this area (one of the reasons we picked here), he said his friends at NWS, when asked where good viewing would happen around these parts, said “Wyoming”….So, yay…

  37. 37.

    Jinchi

    @Yarrow: That’s an awesome idea. I saw a partial eclipse a few years ago and the leaves of the trees made thousands of crescent shaped shadows. I was surprised how clearly you could watch the eclipse that way.

  39. 39.

    Yarrow

    @Jinchi: I know! She felt kind of stupid, but she was just coordinating with her family about good weekends and decided to make it a long weekend visit. It was just the date that worked for everyone. They scheduled it months ago but her tickets were really expensive and she couldn’t figure out why.

    I think her family ended up telling her about the eclipse and she felt really dumb. She just hadn’t been focusing on it–busy at work and all. All of a sudden she was like, “Oh, wow! I’m going to be within a few miles of totality! Cool!” LOL.

    @Jinchi: My dad suggested it. He said spatulas or colanders or anything with circles in them will make cool crescent shadows. I’ll have a look around to find something that might work.

  40. 40.

    Mike in NC

    @Mike J: Highly unusual for two Navy destroyers to be involved in collisions in so short a time. Nothing works better to end some careers. Hoping for minimal casualties.

  42. 42.

    Yutsano

    I’m a bit further north and I’ll be at the office tomorrow, but if we can sneak out to look we might since we get 96% totality here.

  46. 46.

    sharl

    Regarding the damage to the USS John S. McCain (collision with merchant ship east of Singapore), here are a couple twitter follow recommendations from a guy who’s a political troglodyte, but as far as I can tell knows his Navy stuff cold:
    David B Larter @DavidLarter — Naval Warfare Reporter, Defense News; and
    Geoff Ziezulewicz @JournoGeoffZ — Reporter, Military Times

  47. 47.

    satby

    So we had a patient cancel her kid’s eye appointment for tomorrow at 3pm (eclipse well over in this area by then) because they couldn’t leave the house during the eclipse or they would be blinded. I told her eye damage would only occur if anyone looked directly at the eclipse without eye protection, and she said her kids were two and four and she wouldn’t be able to control where they looked.
    Working with the public can be such a treat.

  49. 49.

    Это курам на смех

    I think my 4 am departure from Portland will be early enough, as most early birds will wait for dawn or so. People who go later than this will view the eclipse by sticking their heads out of their nonmoving cars on the interstate. I am headed for a small wildlife refuge west of Salem. I expect the real traffic armageddon to begin soon after totality is over, when about a million drivers will try to share I-5.

  50. 50.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Leaving Boise at 4 am to drive up to Cascade, where our friends already have a campsite. I’d better get to bed.

  51. 51.

    mskitty

    @Mike in NC
    @Omnes Omnibus maybe not careers damned … just read a bit about GPS-fooling presumably by the Russians; small article said it was noted by one US ship that GPS said it was now inland, asked numerous ships around it which all said yeah, me too. So that added to TWO US ship collisions in a short time … Admiral Kimmel, yeah, yeah.

  53. 53.

    Knight of Nothing

    @Tom Levenson: Solartown in Madras is indeed a little piece of hell, but there are some great folks here and we’ve got our spirits high. The staff, volunteers, and National Guard have been doing their best, but the planners of Oregon Solarfest have a lot to answer for.

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