Total Solar Eclipse in Gallatin Tennesse on August 21, 2017© Photos Posted by Mark Miller © Hi-Res Source
This was a spontaneous trip to Gallatin, Tennessee to witness the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. My Nephew Dan Shields had posted a NOAA chart showing the path and predicted clouds. Finding another Tennessee Chart detailing the path, I picked the Nashville area for a quick road trip. My wife Pam and I took off Monday at 3am and headed north for an 8 hour drive to the Totality Zone. Apparently many others had a similar idea as it was reported about 90,000 people came into the Nashville area for the event. The traffic was herendous and almost made us late as we got off on back roads trying to get there in time. Our initial plan was for Sumner County Park but as we approached, and time was running out, we saw the Laguardo Recreation Area when crossing over Old Hickory Lake off the Cumberland River (I incorrectly identified this as bledsoe park in my video). Checkout their Facebook Page. Laguardo is located between Lebanon and Gallatin Tennessee. We pulled in, parked on the grass, walked toward the water, and met some new friends (Benito Romanech and Family) almost like they were saving us half the picnic bench to share with them (they had been there since 6am!). It was a around 1:10pm and the totality was predicted for 1:27pm. I clamped my GoPro 5 on the side of my tripod and started a 30 second time lapse. As totality approached, I switched it to video mode. I knew the GoPro was too wide angle but figured, why not. I was pleased with getting some audio and having the trees and clouds in the video. In hind sight, I should have planned for some better close up video. The Tripod was useless for my camera as the sun was too high overhead. I shot all my shots holding my camera but seemed to do okay with it. I did not buy any filters and only used the natural clouds to filter my shots which the good Lord seemed to help me out with. The predicted totality was 2:40 mins but the raw video recorded a period of 3:00 mins. There was a section in the middle I cut out where I was trying to get my camera on the tripod before giving up. It was a truly Epic Experience and I hope it works out to visit the next Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024. Afterward, we went to our AirBnB Room to check in. The room was "Over-the-Top", excellent, fantastic, can't say enough good things about our first Airbnb experience. Then on to Nashville for a night in Music City. The next day we packed up and hit two different hiking trails to water falls on the way home. The first one at Old Stone Fort State Arechaeological Park and the second one at Cloudland Canyon State Park in Georgia. See my web galleries Old Stone Fort and Cloudland Canyon for those Galleries. It was a fantastic road trip that Pam and I were long overdue for. Equipment Used: GoPro 5 for video, Canon 7D DSLR Camera with a Tokina 80-400mm lens.
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