Maybe I should have gone out to the middle of the night eruption. At least I'd almost certainly not had others around, and the wait would have been shorter and the weather nicer.
How annoying? Well, nothing in particular, but just the way all the little things added up.
Start with a West Triplet delay that doesn't want to seem to end. Hours of Percolator quiet and Turban just killing time. The weather is overcast, cold and blustery. I forgot my water bottle. Add in all the stupid human activity. Down by West Triplet is a large, extended family whose kids earlier were running wild, including one poking at the runoff with a stick, who are now singing loudly. On one side is are some geyser groupies who know just enough to be dangerous, and are willing to share that limited knowledge with every touron who wanders by. So you get to hear the same mangled information over, and over, and over and over. Then there's the guy biking who can't leave his whole kit behind, but at least he's walking the bike and not wearing Lycra. Can't forget to add in hearing two hours of some twit keying their radio mike. I thought the NPS chatter was annoying, but this stupid twit found a way to exceed them.
On the other side I've got this fat, pontificating blowhard leading a class passing along gossip, misinformation, mangled facts and his opinions as if they were facts to his ignorant students. It pushed me over the edge when he tried to portray Splendid's 1997 activity as somehow related to road removal (did you know 25% of pavement in Yellowstone has been removed over the last few decades, and that buildings downbasin were removed as part of the 1970 UGB road relocation? That old photos show Old Faithful had a much bigger cone?) Got as far a way as I could from that pompous windbag.
Then to top things off, you've got the geyser groupie who thinks calling in Grand before it actually starts (with an inaccurate watch, no less), is going earn him the bonus points to get that 10th Level Gazer award he so desperately craves. (A Grand start is when the surging becomes continuous and keeps rising, not when you see the first boil. Sheesh.)
No dogs, though. The only thing left to make this day complete is for there to be a group of idiots at Grand this evening with bright lights and too much booze in them.