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I just booked tickets to see the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. I should have bought them a month ago when I could pick up a DL nonstop roundtrip MSP-AUS for $280. But, since then, the airlines have hiked airfares a week before and after April 8th.

So, I'm taking UA down and DL back. The tickets cost $410 roundtrip, including flight insurance... considering the high potential for chaos around the day of the eclipse, I figured it was a necessity.

I'll be staying with my sister in AUS. On the day of the eclipse, we're going to road trip it to Fredericksburg, about 50 miles away... to see the most amount of time of darkness.

As luck would have it, our home lies about 5 miles from the center line of the total eclipse and we will be in total darkness for 3 minutes and 51 seconds which is pretty close to the maximum. If not for covid, this would have been a dual-purpose event as it would have coincided with my projected retirement date from UA. We had planned a big party with lots of friends. Due to covid, it will mark almost 4 years since my retirement. So still a party, but a little more subdued.

It will still be an international event as Nighthawk and his still newlywed wife will be joining us in my backyard to don the glasses and partake in adult libation while Nighthawk and I enjoy our second total eclipse in 7 years together. We joined up with a couple of other friends outside of Nashville, TN in 2017 for that eclipse.

Airfares are stupid for that week. AA wanted $620 in basic Economy for MIA-DFW. FML. I promised the little one I would take him to see it.

Don't buy anything on Main Street Fredricksburg.. It's the worst of the Texas wine industry, and everything is marked up a solid 100%, but there will be some great targets of opportunity on your drive between Fred and Austin.

And the Pacific War Museum there is a friggin joke.

Alstadt Brewery makes some good beer, but being on Main Street, their food is ridiculously overpriced.

It is a tourist town that absolutely despises tourists.

miamiair wrote:Airfares are stupid for that week. AA wanted $620 in basic Economy for MIA-DFW. FML. I promised the little one I would take him to see it.

What'd you end up coming up with? Have you booked tickets, yet?