Usually leave the radio on on the off chance that I might hear something interesting. Last night, decided that I didn't care what F&M were doing, and whatever happened after the start of a River pause, I would learn about it in the morning. So I shut the radio off and added and hour to the alarm.
That meant that instead of going out in time for Grand and Beehive's early morning eruptions, I got out just in time to miss them. Leading to another day with a huge gap before time to head out. But with the intermittent showers of the late morning, having no reason to be out and about wasn't so bad. Did get down to check out Daisy and the wash zone from the recent Link eruption, and to watch an hour of Bijou pauses. (Easier to recognize unusual behavior when you have some idea of the look of the current normal behavior.)
The Grand eruption in the afternoon was a bit of a disappointment. Other than the first few intervals being shorter than the previous one, the Turban activity leading to the eruption showed no clear patterns giving any indication of when the eruption would occur. Worse, an eruption of West Triplet came and went without either Rift or Grand. Usually a bad sign, but at least Grand did decide after a couple of Turbans to erupt. Like yesterday, we had two bursts, but unlike yesterday, they were short and the total duration barely totaled 10 minutes. One bit of amusement was that because of the storms and general bad weather, the wind was coming from an unusual direction, and all the folks gathered on the benches by West Triplet found out the hard way that Grand can get you wet. A few people didn't learn that lesson and were there for the second burst, which gave a repeat performance.
Beehive turned out to be quite cooperative in the afternoon. The weather didn't improve after Grand, and on the whole, got worse. The only good news was the wind direction, it was blowing away from Geyser Hill, so no need to worry about getting drenched by Beehive. Only getting drenched by the weather. I took a look at some weather radar sites via my iPhone, and saw there was a nice, strong cell headed our way. So as I was deciding if it was time to leave, water appeared in the Indicator. That made the decision easy, as since I was going to head in immediately after, I could risk getting doused. As it was, the rain held off just long enough to give us a nice eruption, one that drenched the people gathered across the river instead of us.
Before the evening Beehive eruption, Plume had a couple of eruptions that varied from the norm. The first, which I didn't see, was a six burst eruption. I was told that the last two bursts were the smaller, minor variety where the height only reaches about 10 feet. The next eruption was a typical five burst. The next one I saw, right after the end of Beehive's eruption, had an unusual fifth burst. It started out looking like a minor burst, staying around 10 feet for a good 10 seconds or so before lifting to a more typical height. The burst also seemed to last much longer than I'm used to seeing.
The rainstorm was pretty heavy for an hour, finally ending before sunset with a nice full arc double rainbow from my cabin door (with a Pipeline Meadows bison below it.) It was then that Fan & Mortar decided to have their first event since the activity of the night before. With the rain nearly over, and at least another hour of light, I decided that I had no excuse not to bike down there. To get there just in time to see a weak restart of the Fan vents. At least didn't have to spend much time down there.
At that point it was only about an hour before it would be time to go out to Grand, and with the clearing skies, decided that I would go out for the nighttime eruption. The moon was shining through a high thin layer, so there was plenty of light, but the sky was gray instead of black and full of stars. I arrived to find Rift in eruption, but with the overcast, it wasn't all that cold either. A couple of hours waiting for a two burst eruption wasn't so bad, especially when the second burst lasted over two minutes.
One thing I like about nighttime are the sounds you don't hear during the day. As I was leaving Grand, walking toward Sawmill, I could hear, but not see, an eruption of Old Faithful. This particular night I also got to hear a new sound. Having seen/heard so many nighttime eruptions, all the various sounds are familiar, and even expected: the gurgling of Turban after the post-eruption quit. The spitting of Percolator, and rumbles from West Triplet. As I was getting ready to leave, standing by West Triplet, I suddenly became aware of a new sound, a liquid splashing I'd never noticed before. Quickly realized it was an eruption of Sputnik. I'd seen it during the earlier eruption waits, but never heard it before.