The clouds from the previous eruption must've stayed around for a while, as it was a warm night. There were still some visible off in the distance to the north, but nothing to interfere with the moonlight.
Another short wait for Grand. This time thought, it took 2-1/2 minutes from the start of Turban for Grand to finally decide to get going.
In the morning we had one of those times where everything happened at once. Grand had had a Turban delay when Beehive's Indicator was announced. So it looked like Beehive would be erupting first. I was down by Sawmill to catch that eruption, and also because Uncertain was steadily coming up to overflow and pushing out water. So within a matter of seconds. Uncertain started, then Beehive, then Grand. Makes note-taking a bit difficult.
And Grand punished the folks who abandoned it for Beehive by having two bursts. Following the second one, Turban quit almost immediately, but Vent refused to follow. For over a minute, it was erupting a thin jet to about a meter high. Finally it died down and joined Turban.
As part of my tour-guiding duties, when heard that Great Fountain was predicted for about an hour after the end of Grand, went down to see my eruption for the year. Was an your usual Adequate Fountain eruption, with some large bursts but nothing outstanding
Was taking a nap, or at least not doing anything when I was surprised by the radio call for the Indicator. The surprise was that I was expecting Beehive to be around midnight at the earliest. Ten and a half hour interval not unheard of, but still short. It was also the longest Indicator of my visit, at 25 minutes.
During all that, in comes the call that it looks like Fan & Mortar are finally having a real event. Since it was well over an hour before I'd expected to head out, I decided that I could just as easily kill time down there and maybe actually see it erupt. I was one of the first to arrive, since most folks were over on Geyser Hill, but within a half hour there were several dozen people out there, including a small group of tourists who had been out to see Riverside.
Which it did. It became apparent early on that this was not going to be like the pseudo-events of the past few days. We got a full Bottom vent eruption along with the coordinated huffing and splashing from Main vent. When the Fan vents came back on, they were all strong, and quickly built up to the point where High was erupting to at least 4 meters continuously, with Gold and Angle not a whole lot smaller. Finally, the eruption was initiated by Fan moments before Main kicked in.
The conditions, for a nighttime eruption, were perfect. The moon was at full, and high enough to illuminate the area. Once the initial playing of flashlights over the jets of water was over (and it took at least one person a while to get the message), it was possible to see moon bows in the jets coming from Main vent. Since there was no breeze, the only way to get wet was to go down into the target zone by Spiteful.
After that it was time for Grand, which was a bit anti-climatic. Again, the moon provided plenty of illumination. From the north end, the entire runoff apron was aglow from the reflections, and it was easy to see the surge in runoff head down from Grand's pool. The eruption itself started nicely, but was another of those that last almost 13 minutes. It was so long that Vent & Turban stopped within seconds of the end.