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Observations for 20 July


I tried to get some sleep before going out to Grand at midnight, but my neighbors seemed to have brought with them boulders which they insisted on rolling around. Then, once it seemed that I was finally sleeping, they had some sort of medical emergency, which strangely enough, resulted in them being quieter than they had been before. But the rumbling of the ambulance engine wasn't going to let me get back to sleep, so I decided to head out to Grand a half hour before I'd intended.

Which wasn't so bad, as the moon was still up and low, which made for some nice lighting, with long shadows and even a moonbow in the steam over Crested Pool. Sawmill's eruption was nicely backlit, too. Grand itself behaved the same way the night before, erupting on the first Turban eruption after the moon had set. Fortunately, the soon the moon will be up the entire night, and I'll finally be able to see the eruption instead of just hearing it.

In the morning, there was a slight amount of frost on the boardwalks still in the shadows. Grand continued the shorter intervals, and again I only waited for one Turban interval. Unlike yesterday morning, there was a slight breeze which made the activity visible, even without backlighting. It was quite nice seeing several successive spikes appear out of the steam cloud of the second burst.

The hopes of a four Grand day ended with the 9h43m interval leading up to the day's third eruption. Rift had erupted early in the afternoon, but Grand just got into the mode where each interval was a little shorter, and you just have to wait until you get a really short one (less than 17 minutes) before you even have a chance of an eruption.

But the eruption itself was a bit different. Only one burst, but Grand did refill and at least look like it was making an attempt at a second burst. Then, when the vent drained, Turban and Vent acted like they were going to quit. But for about a minute there were a series of small blips not much bigger than the ones you get at the end of a solo Turban eruption. Then quite suddenly Turban was fill and splashing as vigorously as it can. I hoped this might signal an afterburst, but it was nearly nine minutes before Grand started splashing.