Extra amateur day on the roads for total eclipse, particularly in these areas

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Nasa Eclipse Map 2017 08 15 07 24

If you’re running the roads at work through the weekend into Monday in or across any of the above areas (in the darkest-shaded band), safe to say it might be busier than usual with four-wheelers.

Cue KATU 2 TV in Portland, Ore., with this report about truckers in the state, part of which is in the 70-mile-wide path of what’s going to be the total first total eclipse of the sun to cross the entire continental United States in our lifetimes. Some are planning to take a mini-vacation rather than risk fighting the traffic that’s expected as eclipse watchers flock in from parts north and south. As for me — I’m lucky, I don’t have to go anywhere to catch an hour or so of midday darkness/dimness.

At about 1:30 p.m. local time, it’s scheduled to go dark here in Nashville. That might well be the best time of the day to be on the roads, if you’re headed through one of the eclipse areas with no plans to don some of those nifty eclipse glasses (yeah, my wife and daughter have managed to get their hands on some) to watch it.

“We’re basically going to shut down for the day,” Keith Shrock, the President of Shrock Trucking in Salem, told KATU:

Shrock is going to let some trucks head down to California on Sunday, but for the most part, most of his trucks will stay parked on Monday. He cites safety as the big concern.

“It’s kinda frustrating on our end to not be able to operate, but we just don’t feel it’s worth the risk,” Shrock said.

Shrock’s isn’t the only company whose plans are detailed in the story.

What’s your plan for this once-in-a-lifetime event? Anybody joining the ranks of the curious trekking into the “zone of totality” (sounds like a sci-fi hell on earth, I know) — where I happen to live or elsewhere?