In a special report, The New York Times Magazine had this to say about the eclipse: “On the morning of Aug. 21, the moon’s shadow will appear over the Pacific Ocean and move swiftly toward Lincoln Beach, Oregon, just south of Portland, making landfall at 10:16 a.m. local time. If the morning fog has lifted by then, and if the weather is clear, viewers will see something in the sky that most have never seen: a black hole where the sun should be, and around the edges sinuous flames radiating out in all directions.”
The shadow then will move on across the United States. If you have a boat, you could see it from on board in St. Louis, Missouri, at 1:15 p.m. local time; in Nashville, Tennessee, at 1:28 p.m. local time, and then just north of Charleston, South Carolina, at 2:48 p.m. local time, when it will move out to sea. The shadow then will disappear somewhere over the Atlantic.
You’ll still be able to see some of the eclipse no matter where you are in the U.S. The band for the total eclipse, where the sun is completely blocked by the moon, is only 70 miles wide; the whole country will experience a partial eclipse. In Los Angeles, for example the eclipse will be 62 percent; in Chicago, 86 percent; in New York, 71 percent. In the middle of the link below you can enter your zip code and find out what you’ll see and when you’ll see it. https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/7/16025284/total-solar-eclipse-2017-date-time-lunar-map-glasses-path
