Observations for 26 July
Even after all these years of watching Grand, it is still capable of doing something new or different. This morning was one of those times.
As Grand's pool refills, and until about the time of first overflow, it is not unusual for Turban eruptions to have long durations, up to 9 or 10 minutes. But after that, anything over 6 minutes is unusual. This morning, several hours after the first overflow, I saw an eruption that lasted 7m21s. The next lasted 6m43s, and three of the next seven Turban eruptions were over 6 minutes long. The only short eruption came with a short Vent overflow, leading to a 5 Turban delay. So nothing really spectacular, but it does show that the system might be changing in other ways. Only keeping an eye on it these next few days and weeks will tell.
The evening eruption was back to more typical behavior, the only similarity was that both intervals were over 10 hours. The eruption itself took place in a dead calm after we'd had a moderately strong breeze all afternoon. As such, there was a beautiful base surge of steam rolling across the platform as the eruption started. It's been a long time since I'd experienced one of these, and forgotten that it also means that the bench areas around the runoff channels have a good chance of getting rained on. Which is exactly what happened. Not much, but enough to scatter the crowd to farther ends of the benches.
Mid afternoon Beehive finally erupted, its longest interval in quite a while thanks to Giantess' eruption.
That was also the time that the circus came to town. The head clown was here to see Old Faithful and visit the Inn, but also went down with his entourage to the overlook across from Beehive and watched the eruption. And unlike a visit when the RIngmaster showed up a few months ago, security wasn't tight and there was no change in access.
Today also had a couple of events down at Fan & Mortar, but nothing came of either one.
The night had an adventure of a different sort. When I got back to my cabin, there were a couple of dogs tied to a truck which were barking. Not only that, but it looked like they had food dishes, too. (Maybe just water). In any case, I realized it was a situation that needed complaining,and so I went to the front desk. They were busy, with only one clerk because there was a medical emergency; a 66 year old woman had fell and hit her head. I finally got to make my complaint and went back to the cabin. The barking continued, and so I called the rangers to make another complaint. The cabin next to the dogs was all lit up, with the windows wide open. I thought the medical might explain the seemingly abandoned cabin, but that turned out to be wrong. Coming back from the restroom just before midnight I heard a family of three walking over from the Inn. I waited at my cabin, and sure enough, it was them.. I will complain even more if they are still here tomorrow.