Google Maps Traffic Alerts Follow Eclipse Totality Path, Carhenge Gets the Last Laugh

"The Great American Eclipse has, as expected, turned into the Great American Traffic Snarl," according to an article by Douglas Perry. The proof is in the Google Maps: Perry posts a series of screengrabs to show the long red lines where traffic slowed to a standstill as the eclipse moved across the path of totality yesterday. First congestion came to Western Oregon, and then Eastern Oregon, and then Idaho and Wyoming, and so on.

For a perhaps more awe-inducing view of the eclipse, and maybe to wash the image of all that traffic from your mind, here's satellite imagery from GOES-16, showing the darkness of the eclipse moving across the continent.

And as one last testament to the power of collective human reaction to the unfathomable scale of nature, we present the story of Carhenge, as detailed in an article by Bart Schaneman. "When Jim Reinders built Carhenge — a Stonehenge replica made out of classic American cars — it was decades before anyone was talking about the path of totality," according to Schaneman. The project was viewed with skepticism in Nebraska, where Carhenge was built, until the it became "one of the most talked-about destinations to view the eclipse in the entire country." It turns out, however, that Reinders never anticipated the Great American Eclipse.