I have a few very similar photos. I was in Cape Girardeau Illinois.
To give you an idea of how crowded it was, the hour long drive down there took us two hours not including half an hour to stop and use the bathroom. 29 minutes of which was standing in line to use the bathroom.
The drive back took 3 hours. We detoured up to Columbia instead of going in to St Louis before heading home. My friends went straight to St Louis.
Did you go to one of the big parks? Any areas around the main 5-6 city parks was a shitshow, I drove by them after the eclipse to charge and noped out of there real fast
Most of the locals went to community parks like Kiwanis, Twin Trees park, or the Trail of Tears
I was in a random park in Jonesboro, Texas. Only one other group of people was there, probably because it's such a small town. I was staying in Belton and had to drive about an hour to get there (Belton was predicted to be cloudy) but I got up early enough that there was virtually no traffic.