The anticipated short Grand interval didn't materialize. Hard to tell, but appeared that Rift had erupted earlier, and Grand was going to wait until West Triplet recovered or ten hours had elapsed. It wasn't until about the nine hour mark that Grand finally had what appeared to be an attempt to erupt, or at least get into an eruptive mode. After that it was alternating short and long Turban eruptions for over an hour until it finally did erupt.
Came out of the Lower Ham's Store parking lot on the Beehive Indicator call and had to change direction due to a pair of bison right next to the road. The Beehive eruption waited, of course, for the dead calm to end and there to be just enough breeze to douse all the people waiting on the boardwalk by Plume. But not enough breeze to seriously affect the height of the column.
After a couple of false alarms, finally had a real Fan & Mortar event around noontime. The activity looked good until the Angle Vent started, and that's when it became obvious that wearing the rainwear was being overdressed.
After that was another Grand wait, another one of those where every Turban interval is the same because the system is waiting for the West Triplet eruption. It appears the window extends to the first Turban eruption after West Triplet ends, as that's what happened again today. The eruption itself was a two burst. The wind direction helped emphasize the size of the early Vent eruption, keeping Grand and Turban's steam from obscuring the height of the water plume.
One feature of Grand's eruptions that I've noticed is that starting around the eight minute mark, Grand will have slowdowns as if it's about to quit, or even pause just long enough to make it look that's what's happening. The water only boils up 3 or 4 meters during that time, then when you expect the bursting to stop, we get a explosive rocketing of a slender jet. If seen several eruptions with two of these slowing, implying that the one burst Grand could have easily been a three burst Grand if only the system had a little less energy. This afternoon's eruption had the slowdown, and then actually did quit.
I'd decided to turn off the radio at 20:00 so I could get a good night's sleep, so of course the call about a Fan & Mortar event comes over at 19:45. Oh, well. Went down to see a nice double pause with lots of Main Vent splashing and then strong play from Fan. But nothing much came of it, and got back just as it was getting dark.
Paul Strasser suggested that the reason there's no longer bison meat loaf on the Lodge menu is because drivers haven't provided enough road kill.