[ExI] traffic apoeclipse

[John Clark]

Hi spike, sounds like you got really lucky, the eclipse only got to about
80% where I was, fun but not the real deal, I envy you.  My sister thought
she was lucky too because her house is in the path of totality so she
didn't have to go anywhere, and for most of the eclipse the sky was clear
but in the last crucial minutes clouds came in and covered the sun/moon so
she didn't see the most important act in the play. Oh well, as least she
got to hear crickets start chirping and owls start hooting and even bats
start flying.

John K Clark

On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 12:35 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On
> Behalf Of *spike
> *Sent:* Monday, August 21, 2017 7:47 PM
> *To:* 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] civil war denial
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> The eclipse was awesome as all hell.
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> Story when I return to civilaization and get some actual bandwidth.
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> spike
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> Just a short one before I get back:
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> We used up all our bad luck right at the start of the trip, then the law
> of averages caught up with us and things went well.  Left early, got on the
> road from the San Jose area at about 1350, cool out before work traffic,
> but… others had the same idea, so it took us three full hours to go the
> first 8 miles.
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> Going up, forest fires everywhere, smoky skies, so discouraging, but right
> just before we arrived, skies cleared up, no smoke, no clouds, excellent
> conditions.  There was a big hippie gathering just east of us, called
> Symbiosis I think, a kind of lunar version of Burning Man or something.  We
> were close enough to that we could hear them, but not really individual
> voices: more like when somebody makes a great play at a football stadium a
> couple miles away and you can hear everybody together but not individual
> voices.  When totality started we could hear them having their simultaneous
> orgasm or whatever they were doing over there.  (Hey now there’s an idea…)
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> I was filled with a grim determination to beat that crowd out of Mitchell
> and to beat the crowd that went up Interstate 5 toward I think toward Salem
> Oregon, up that way.  We were near Mitchell Oregon, so if you Google
> Symbiosis Mitchell Oregon, some of them might have posted stuff by now (we
> didn’t get any internet or phone out there (like Robinson Caruso, it’s
> primitive as can be.))
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> We came tearing back with the goal of beating the Salem crowd to I-5 at
> Weed CA, which is where 97 meets the interstate.  Weed, they called their
> own town, WEED.  Sheesh.  Serves em right.  For what happened next.
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> In their astounding wisdom, the road department decided they need to do
> road construction on the interstate, on Monday, eclipse day, when
> approximately 8 billion yahoos from California needed to come thru there.
> We were on the leading edge of the human wave, beat the Salem crowd by
> about half an hour, found out using webcams where the wavefront was located
> up that way, beat em, cool!  Climbed thru the backup caused by funneling
> down to one lane, as I watched cars backed up behind me for as far as the
> eye could see across a huge valley.  I assumed they would knock off and
> open the other lane, when I saw that… they couldn’t: they had a big
> pavement roller out there, just getting started, with hot pavement just
> going down.  There is no way they can open that lane.
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> So… we get down to this campground close to Lake Shasta and I get
> chatterty-yakking with the feller who runs the place and he says every site
> is booked, nearly all by eclipse-chasers returning home, and every site is
> guaranteed by credit card so he can’t sell them even if the people don’t
> show and the phone is ringing off the hook.  He has been turning away
> business most of the afternoon, can’t help them.  I just got back from
> walking the grounds and notice that a good quarter of the spaces are
> unoccupied.  Conclusion: that traffic jam out there is horrendous and will
> get worse.  Predict it will last all night.  The silly asses at the road
> department couldn’t see that coming?  Couldn’t they give the paving crew
> the day off and try to get the hippies thru there?
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> Sheesh.
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> spike
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