Families travel hours to Tyler State Park for Eclipse

TYLER, Texas (KETK) – Families are traveling from hours away to come to Tyler State Park to watch the total solar eclipse on Monday.

LIST: Eclipse events happening in East Texas

“What time did we leave guys?” said Joe Barnett, visiting from Colorado. “4 am!” said the Barnett children. “They’re not ready for that,” said Joe.

Joe and his three children drove from Colorado to stay at the Tyler State Park to get a prime view of the eclipse while enjoying the great outdoors.

“I’m originally from Denton, we have family in Longview, family in Denton, and it just seemed like a perfect opportunity to put everything together, all in one trip,” said Barnett.

They aren’t the only ones who spent hours on the road to get here. Bob Kelso and Marcy Wheeler drove for eight days from San Francisco.

“Well I didn’t really want to drive to Mexico, so other than Mexico this was about the best spot, and we’ve been to Tyler last year on the way back from a trip to see our son in New York,” said Kelso.

Tyler Junior College gears up for Monday’s Eclipse

With the chance of rain on Monday, it has some tourists worried the trip could be wasted.

“Fingers crossed because the weather keeps getting better actually, so when we first looked at it a week ago it looked like it was going to be storming, now it’s partly cloudy, maybe raining before,” said Kelso.

Barnett isn’t letting that stop him and his family from enjoying their time in East Texas.

“If it gets cloudy, we’ll have a good time on the water,” said Barnett.

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