Ideas for your chance to see solar eclipse in western USA next August (21st)

So, there will be a total eclipse of the Sun with the path of totality running across the United States on 21st of August (a Monday) of 2017, the event starting out around 10:15 a.m. local time on the Oregon coast and then at slightly later times (adding time zone changes too) so around 11:45 local time in southern Wyoming and after noon in the plains states. It runs out to sea in South Carolina mid-afternoon, I am recommending anyone who has an interest in seeing this event to plan a western option where you'll get a better chance statistically of seeing it, and also the added bonus of better scenery as you'll no doubt want to spend a few days at a minimum looking around.

The best options would seem to be flights to Denver, Las Vegas, Seattle or Vancouver or Calgary in Canada (other well-positioned cities such as Portland, Boise, Salt Lake City don't have as many direct flights to Ireland but of course you can connect to them). My overall plan suggestion is to fly to any of these places about a week to ten days before the eclipse and fly out one or two days after (after calculating the driving time on the day of the eclipse if your plan would be to get there late that night and stay over for a morning flight, that's the closest I would want to cut that part, probably better to fly back on 23rd).

You would then need to have a car rental secured and this would probably make the U.S. airports the better choice although you can probably rent in Vancouver or Calgary and drive across the border. I would avoid that hassle and start from Denver, Seattle or Las Vegas. Your choice would depend partly on what you wanted to see in the days before (or after if you choose that option) the eclipse.

I am of course going to be down there but for me it's a day's drive to the totality zone. However, we will likely be on the road for the week before the eclipse (most likely around Utah) and will be catching the spectacle on our return leg.

I expect motels to be fully booked soon in some of the towns along the path of totality such as Salem and Corvallis-Albany OR, Madras OR, Baker City OR and further east into Idaho but not sure yet about the situation around Boise Idaho which is slightly outside the path and has a lot of motels, that might be a good bet (Boise, Nampa, Caldwell, to the town of Ontario, Oregon) as these places are all on the I-84 freeway and that would provide a rapid repositioning route east or west on the morning of the eclipse if it was to be necessary to go more than the 20-30 miles north into the eclipse path to get a good view. In our case we have a camping option with our vehicle and we tend to stay in campgrounds most nights on our holidays and motels once or twice to get the better washrooms and wi-fi.

So the point of the thread is to say, plan now if you think you might enjoy the combined experience of wonderful scenery and the spectacle of a solar eclipse, it may be many years before you'll get an easier chance than this one. You can research the costs but I am guessing somewhere between two and three thousand Euros for two people travelling together. Maybe with this thread, two singles can join forces. Most U.S. motels have the same rates for one or two people in a room and many have two-bed options when you book. So if you're not a couple, it's still quite easy and if people think you're gay (and you're not) then they will think you're cool (also being Irish will help with that).

If I am meandering the wrong way here, just for the record, I am not gay and also I am not cool. At least, nobody has said that I am since maybe 1975.

Now, if anyone wanted to tag along on the Utah scenery part of this or meet up at eclipse time, I would suggest planning all that by private messages or e-mails and not on this thread. I don't want to discuss details of where I will be and not be, and you shouldn't either. The thread can be used for more general questions. If you did co-ordinate with me, you would be driving your own vehicle and making your own accommodation plans but I could give you some idea of where to do that to keep pace (a leisurely pace as we plan to visit several parks and back road scenery places -- we might plan it so you see things we saw before and won't be visiting while we see less interesting things nearby). If the co-ordination is just for eclipse day, then we can handle that by phone and e-mail closer to the time if we know you are likely to be in the same general area.

You can google the exact details on timing and path, but for planning you don't really need to know much more than where to fly, what vehicle to rent and then where you want to go, ending up somewhere between Boise and Baker City on the I-84, which is where the eclipse path will be (both those places are near the edge of totality, the best spot will be near the Snake River in eastern Oregon).

So, any general questions or ideas, let me know. I think you would find this to be a "trip of a lifetime" sort of a thing if you like western scenery and I can say from past experience (March, 1970) that a total eclipse of the Sun is a memorable event that will be awe-inspiring (as long as we can see it, of course, otherwise it's two minutes of darkness at an odd time of day as I found with my second attempt in May 1984 that failed to find a hole in a large cloudy zone across Virginia once again). Otherwise I have only seen various partial eclipses, wasn't mobile enough to catch some of the other ones.

Utah scenery is something hard to imagine or describe, I would suggest you go on google earth and look around at the various national parks and some of the scenic routes around Moab. Disclaimer, nothing Mormon lurking in my background, no pamphlets will be forced upon you (by me).

Is it expensive? Mostly the flight, car rentals can be quite affordable and petrol (gas) is about half the price you're used to paying. Distances are large but highways have 80 mph limits in Utah and some parts of Idaho. You would probably fill up four or five times on a trip like this, maybe 150-200 euros. Motels are usually about 50-60 euros a night, camping can be almost free if you know where. That leaves food and medical insurance that you might want to buy for the time that you'll be out of Ireland. Probably about 200 euros at a maximum would cover that, so it's mainly a question of booking flights before they fill up or get too expensive. Anyone who flies to Vancouver can probably count on a bit of assistance from me if for example you wanted to get across the border to rent your car. If you fly to Calgary I won't be anywhere near there at the right times.