Thanks so much. Totally appreciate it. The last one we got in the car at the very last minute and drove from Chicago to St Louis. We got there like just in time. It was very very cool and having lunch downtown was fun.
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You’re lucky in that the drive back was easy - we drove down from Chicago, stayed the night in Urbana, and then drove down to Carbondale. It was OK on the way there, and both UIUC and SIUC had set stuff up there (we knew a bunch of the UIUC people). However, on the way back, there was a mass of people that slowed down traffic a lot. I mean, you could see the dark red mass of slow traffic slowly moving north on I-57. We stopped back in Urbana for supper and it had passed us and dissipated after that.
The worst part of this was that the air-conditioning failed in the SUV we rented (car was being foxed). Since we were in Southern Illinois there was nowhere for us to replace it. Luckily, after we let it sit for a bit it started working again and worked until we got back to Chicago. But for about two hours we were in a slow moving vehicle in pretty hot weather. Open windows barely helped.
Lol. Yep, the drive back was fine. We did the 10 hour drive day… Lol. It was a really fun experience but my wife at the last minute packed some stuff and extra clothes for the kids just in case we stayed somewhere a. A said “get in the car and go back to sleep” 
…
Sometimes the best experiences are spur of the moment types…
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I agree that it’s worth the drive to see totality. We went up to Lincoln, NE. The university had a viewing event, but the clouds started rolling in and we managed to get ahead of them by driving east. Ended up at Grand island. The regional airport parking lot offered unobstructed views but the lights started gradually coming on right as totality ended. Next year we’ll find a place along a farm road somewhere with no lights. We did have a nice view of dozens of private jets zooming away right afterward!
Wasn’t this suppose to occur this week? Did anyone, anywhere see anything?!
I’m so sad. It never happened. I was so excited too. I guess I’ll just wait for the solar eclipse in April.
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