2000 miles, 33 hours driving: now was it worth doing this in 5 days? The answer is: YES 😊😊😊. Although pretty hard on the body! I asked my wife this morning: if there would be another total eclipse in 5 days in ... let's say ... Kansas, would you go again, and her answer was (to my surprise 😊): Yes, absolutely! Maybe this is the best way to describe how wonderful such an event is. 

The rest of the description is the whole journey, no need to read further since it is more a story book than anything astronomical 😊.

And what a journey. It looked so much like upper New York or even Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine to be the best location, which would have been at least 1000 more miles. But then after some cloud analysis and the Astrospehric (great webpage, look it up please) forecasts, we decided on south-western Indiana, which turned out to be the right decision, the skies stayed clear!! @Bruce Donzanti was close by, I decided though to go a bit closer to the center, hence we did not meet, unfortunately. @Brandon Tackett sent me a PM, and we talked then on the phone, exchanging some tips, while he was on the way to Indianapolis, where he experienced also a clear sky!

Arrived at Vincennes, IN at 9am, looked up where the events were taking place, and one of them was that the local golf course closed up for viewers. We were meant to leave the car in the parking lot, but that would not have worked, since I needed the power for my mount from it. And what can I say, the main guy let me drive onto the golf course with it, although strictly forbidden by the golf course owner. The owner stopped by later on and talked with me, and he laughed about it, but also saw why I needed the car. What great people, the mid-western friendliness as one knows it, so many thanks to them!

Setup completed at 10am, perfect skies, and then several practice round for the eclipse. I used my solar telescope to center the mount to the sun, then replaced it with the FRA400, and voila, sun in the center. Test images as well with the Canon, I selected the 200mm lens for it. And Go Pro wide angle ready for the video. All good ... now the waiting.

1 minute before the totality started, all action, starting up everything! All looked good, enjoyed the live view of the diamond ring, big cheers everywhere, and after 1 minute of it I checked the runs ... and OMG ... the mount disconnected! I kept on going, but after 1 more minute the sun was out of the frame, the mount just stopped. So all action on the Canon then, changing the exposure times by hand while still looking at the eclipse with my eyes, did not want to miss that 😊😊.

4 minutes are SHORT!!! Well, at least I had my Canon images, and some with the FRA400. The image above is from the Canon, 3 different exposures overlayed (1/15s, 1/100s and 1/200s).

So, packed everything up after the eclipse ended (waited until the very end), talked with so many people the whole time since everybody was curious about my setup, and I let them look during the partial phase through the solar scope. A great time!!!

And, of course, the car did not start up, did I drain the battery? Luckily at the 5th attempt it started, peewwww ... in the middle of the golf course 😊😊. But THIS was definitely the reason why the mount stopped! So drove to the hotel in Bowling Green, KY. The morning after, yup, no chance to start the car, there was more wrong. Got a jump start by another super friendly guy, what can I say, makes me almost wanting to move to this part of the US when retired!

We decided not to stop the motor again until being home, even when getting gas, worked out. Then we arrived in Atlanta, I75, in the middle of downtown (if you ever drove there, you know what that means!!). And we smelled something when stopped in the traffic jam, ... was it us? Nooooo ... cannot be. So once we moved again we did not smell anything anymore, good must have been Atlanta 😊😊😊. But well, another traffic jam, south of Atlanta, and yup, the smell came back, and MUCH worse. So get off ASAP from the interstate, and parked at a gas station. Opened the hood, and the battery was .... boiling 🤓🤓🤓! Ok, that was close!!! If that had happened in the middle of downtown Atlanta, we would have been maybe in the news! Wow, we need a new battery! And what can I say, as if clear skies were not enough luck, the battery places (multiple ones), were within 2 miles!! Walked there, and again, super nice people, got the new battery, a guy drove us back to the car, replaced it, and off we drove back home! All this in less than 1 hour.

Now back home, images not that great, but well, images are not the main part, the experience is! @Gary Imm summarized what was good and bad about the eclipse perfectly (https://www.astrobin.com/y9wx53/?nc=collection&nce=1924), very much the same for us. The 2017 eclipse was more intense, since it was the first time, this time it was more the event itself, with the people, and then just being awed by the eclipse, not emotional, just amazed 😊.

Hope you enjoyed the story, sorry about this being so long! An experience that I will not forget until the end of days, this is life!!!