Like millions of Americans, I traveled to the Path of Totality to view the view the Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21st, 2017. It was an awesome event that I shared with my youngest son and two other Raleigh Astronomy Club members are their respective families as well as hundreds of others at the same location where we were.
We camped at Lake Greenwood State Park in South Carolina, a location we had reserved many months prior during our planning process and intended it to be our base of operations . Lake Greenwood represented a good mid-way point between a 275 mile stretch of the path of totality from South Carolina coast up into the far west corner of North Carolina. We had identified a dozen locations along this section of the Path of Totality that we were willing to travel to the morning of the eclipse in order to maximize the chance of good weather.
Thankfully, the forecast the morning of the eclipse was quite favorable for the Lake Greenwood area so we stayed were we were. The weather cooperated and skies directly overhead remained clear the entire duration of the eclipse. In fact, not a single cloud ever cross the face of the sun, from our location, during the entire 2 hours 56 minutes of the eclipse (the total eclipse was only 2 minutes 36 seconds in our location)
My fellow RAC members and I set up our equipment down towards the water’s edge on Lake Greenwood, on the Terrace within the campground. It was a spectacular location. At peak there must have been between 500 to 1,000 people on the Terrance. I estimated about 100 to 150 of them took advantage of the views we were providing.
The campground, Lake Greenwood State Park, was quite beautiful. The lake was very picturesque and the campsites were well maintained and spread out well. I would definitely recommend this campground to any of my camping/RV friends.
I put together this video in order to attempt to document my experience of the 2017 Great American Eclipse. In the months leading up to the eclipse I tried to find a video that seems the capture all the emotions and views of a total eclipse. I could not find one I thought captured it all. In my video you will see of course pictures of totality but from different views, get a sense of the landscape before and during totality and hopefully get a sense of the emotion of the event
Here is a link to additional video coverage from Univision, they also came down to South Carolina to cover the event at our recommendation: https://www.univision.com/local/north-carolina-wuvc/asi-se-vivio-el-eclipse-solar-en-carolina-del-sur
Clear & Steady Skies!
-Mike
