Another Strange Day

 Remember this?

https://blerfblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-strange-day.html

Well, it ended with:  "When's the next one?  2024?  Arkansas? Road trip!"

So, we did!  Unfortunately, our friends couldn't go with us this time.  But, there were two other reasons to make the trip.  One, was a visit to Memphis.  We'd never been, so it was a good time to check Memphis out.  The second was I have been to 49 states.  The only missing one was Arkansas.  I needed a good reason to visit Arkansas.  It was hard to find one.  Now, we had one, so...

Ready?  Here we go.

Memphis.  We arrived on Sunday evening, in time for dinner.  Our hotel was only a few blocks from Beale Street, the home of Memphis style blues.  So, with a recommendation or two from the hotel desk, we wandered out.

From the East end of the street

The origins and of Beale Street and the Memphis Blues music go back to the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878.  Part one.  Riverboat captain buys slave boy.  Part 2. Riverboat captain adopts the boy as son.  Riverboat captain dies. Part 3. Son, Robert Church, now and adult, inherits boat. He makes money.  Yellow Fever wipes out a good chunk of Memphis population.  Part 4. Church buys all the land around Beale Street and developed it into clubs and restaurants, many of them black owned.  The sad sound of the blues music allegedly owes part of it's origins to the sadness surrounding the times of the epidemic.

From the west end.

We ate here.  Live music.  Okay food.  $10 cover.  YOLO!

The band was good.  Played a mix of stuff.  Blues to R&B to Bluesy Country.

Funky tables!

A cool looking theater on Beale Street.

We also walked down to the river, to make sure Arkansas was still there.  It was.

Tow boat and barge head up the Mississippi.  Arkansas on the other side.

Arkansas.  Really.  Although it rained a bit overnight, including a good downpour, the next day started out with thin clouds.  Forecast was looking good for the eclipse.  Only 25% cloud cover.  It had been improving all week.

Welcome to Arkansas.  50 in the bag.

We decided to go toward Jonesboro, which is north west of Memphis.  It's about an hour's drive.  Going another 30 minutes got us a little deeper into the totality zone.

Proof!

Nice of Union Pacific to provide us with a freight train to keep (some of) us entertained.

We ate lunch parked at the train station.  Next to it was an interpretive walk explaining the "Rock and Roll Highway 67".   https://maps.app.goo.gl/eAB14vwJfpYp99aFA Apparently, the early rock and roll acts played at clubs along Highway 67 in Arkansas.  A nice collection of signs, some of them with audio narration.  Now, we know.

One of the signs.

The town had a gathering at a city park, but we decided to get a bit further out of town, 6 miles to the northeast.  Might get to see the shadow roll in and roll out.

The town of Walnut Ridge abuts Hoxie.  The "Twin Cities" of Arkansas, says me.

The main event.

Armed with our free solar glasses from Warby Parker eyeglass shop!

As the sun was getting blocked, it really didn't seem and darker, but the heat from the sun was noticably absent - a "why isn't the sun hot?" moment.  When the eclipse got to 90% it started looking darker.  Finally, the last minute before totality, it was like the house lights in a theater being turned down.  Very ethereal, like something was "wrong".  Sky was very dark above but light all the way around the horizon.  Crickets started up.  Birds went quiet.  We could see a solar prominence at the "bottom" of the sun with the naked eye. 

It lasted over 3 minutes.  At the very end, it brightened rapidly and you could see the light return to the land, as if a very dark cloud was scudding across the sky.  Birds started up again and were flying about as if it were early morning.

 

Here are some pictures taken by placing the free glasses over the lens of my Canon "point and shoot" super-zoom camera. 

And totality without the glasses.

Totality.  Venus visible.

Post totality shrimp cocktail on the veranda.

...and then we went back to Memphis...with everyone else.  

Some positive return trip factors:

• Not many people live in Memphis area.
• Not many people live near Memphis area.
• There are two interstate highways that cross Mississippi at Memphis.
• It was a weekday.
• There were easier places to see the eclipse for most of US than Arkansas.
• We planned on stopping at Jonesboro to eat dinner and "wait out any traffic".

Some negative return factors:

• There are ONLY two bridges at Memphis and no other for a long way up and down the river (70 miles south, 100 miles north)
• It rained hard in West Memphis that afternoon
• We listened to Google Maps/Waze - they were beyond their depth.
• Lots of people used Memphis as a gateway to the eclipse extending their weekend a day.
• Many other people also use Google Maps and Waze.

Heading into the mess.

The actual mess.

Result?  It took us 5:30 to get home from Jonesboro.  The last 6 miles took 2:30.  Waze and Google kept filling up all the minor arteries leading to the bridges, then rerouting you backwards to get on the interstate "upstream" as the low capacity routes were filled to jam in minutes.  Just an awful trip.

The next day we woke up to rain, with a forecast of even more rain, without let-up. So we abandoned plans for a day of sightseeing in Memphis and headed home a day early.  Might just have to come back this way again...

Was it worth it?  You bet!  Next practical one?  Across Florida Sat, Aug 12, 2045.  Near St Augustine.  We're all set!  ...Just have to live to be 87 and be sentient...