Apoc-eclipse at CircusK9

So on the way home from the store, where I was stocking up on food in advance of the coming apoc-eclipse, I heard on the radio that gas stations in Bend, Oregon, are already running low on gas. Bend is not in the path of totality but it is one of the larger towns in eastern Oregon near that path.
Let's let that sink in a bit. It is Wednesday. The solar eclipse, an event that will last all of a couple of minutes, won't happen until Monday (four days and 19 hours from now according to NASA's countdown clock). The hordes are now descending on Oregon by the tens of thousands, projected to increase to over a million people by Monday. There are only about 4 million of us in the entire state to begin with so that's a lot of extra people: extra mouths, extra cars, extra butts. I read some local news articles about the astonishingly large number of portable toilets that were rented for the occasion by various towns and cities to help reduce the number of people shitting and pissing in Oregon waterways and beaches and deserts.



I live in a town in west Oregon that is in the projected path of totality for the eclipse. I'm treating this like a natural disaster, and stocked up on dog and cat food, cat litter, food for myself, extra water, and of course, gas for the car. I plan to hunker down at home. After hearing the radio reports on the way home from the store, I may go buy a gas container and some extra gas this afternoon.

Don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate the scientific impact of this event, unusual in that the path of totality crosses the entire continent. I saw about 75% of a full solar eclipse in 1990 in Austin, Texas. It was pretty neat. Following instructions on a NASA JPL site, I made a simple pinhole camera so I can safely watch this one. Emphasis on simple, that's for sure. I will certainly celebrate this astronomical event on Monday. But I plan to do it in the calm and quiet of my own backyard.