Day 4 - Hunkered down in Hopkinsville

Bowling Green to Memphis via Hopkinsville

Well, it seemed like a good plan: Get to Hopkinsville (sorry, Eclipseville) early, avoid the traffic and soak up the party atmosphere.

Even without an eclipse, the 21st August is an important date in Hopkinsville, being the anniversary of the Hopkinsville goblin incident when a number of locals were pestered by goblin-like creatures - possibly of extraterrestrial origin, possibly the result of moonshine visions. The incident is celebrated every year with the Little Green Man festival. Having a total eclipse on the 62nd anniversary is surely a sign of imminent return, and we wanted a piece of it.

Unfortunately, as I was wide awake at 4am like an excited kid at Christmas, I was in danger of dozing off and missing the eclipse entirely. I even set an alarm just in case!

The heat doesn't really help. It's one of those days where to exist is to sweat - no movement necessary. Rather aptly, the W3W tag for this place is tapes.saxophone.sweat (can't help thinking that that should be somewhere in Memphis). If only I had checked first. The other thing that may have borne checking was where the viewing site is in relation to the centre of town. Ethan and myself are no strangers to walking, but 3 or 4 miles in this heat is probably not sensible, so probably just going to have to tough it out here and sadly miss all the weirdness.

Ethan has even been (largely) restrained in telling me that I was overly paranoid about traffic, and needn't have made him wait in the heat for 5 hours, but I expect I will pay sooner or later.

It is all depressingly sensible and civilized at the viewing site. Everyone seems to have come prepared with their gazebos, deck chairs, coolers, barbecues, telescopes etc. We had a beach mat purchased from Walmart this morning, but assumed the moral high ground, having travelled further than everyone else.

Still, you don't need all of the professional kit. The eclipse itself was awesome. I can see why people chase them all around the world.

I was a bit concerned at the sound of gunfire during the eclipse though. Fireworks, fair enough, but shooting at the sun?

Having ventured off the interstates today, we have seen something of small town Kentucky, which all looks very pleasant. Into Tennessee and we found a town which seemed to have more churches than people, I am actually going to check. It also had a place for drive-thru prayer, which I couldn't quite get my head around. Ethan has done some more routing jiggery pokery today to maximize the number of states visited. Hence we traveled from Hopkinsville to Memphis via Missouri and Arkansas, crossing the mighty Mississippi several times in the process.

I'm sure it was the quickest route... I'm not sure what to think about those two states though. Imagine the excitement of Lincolnshire if it was the size of France. (Seems I didn't have to wait too long to pay for the early start after all!)

The Memphis apartment seems pretty good and ideally located, even if it was like an episode of the crystal maze to get in via various codes, time trials and battle of wits. Seems unlikely that much exploring will be done tonight after the epic drive, but lots within easy walking distance to see tomorrow. I feel that driving 1100 miles in 3 days entitles me to a day off.