It was head out first thing in the morning for Fountain Paint Pots. It was also clear overnight, so I had to scrape the frost off the windows of the truck, and then drive in the fog to get there. Fortunately, that mostly cleared out north of Biscuit Basin, and there were no bison on the road.
But there were bison in the parking lot. We were the third behicle there, and I didn't see them until I had packed up and was about to head out. Suzanne never saw them. They were right in front of the vehicles, maybe ten feet from the walkway. Just settled down there, comping away, and they ignored me.
The interval for Fountain wasn't unreasonably long, and we got a couple of Morning's Thief eruptions before it started. It lasted about 35 minutes, so we knew we were not going to be coming out for the next one.
So a few hours later we arrived at Grand with West Triplet and Percolator erupting. Which led to a Rift eruption. Which didn't really seem to matter. Although Grand did have a delay, and several large boops as much as 1/2 minute before the One Burst Grand eruption finally started.
After, I went down basin for really the first time this trip to see a Grotto and Grotto Fountain start. I got both, but was a bit disappointed that Grotto Fountain got to about three meters at most, and Grotto started within a couple of minutes.
From there I noticed that Link was having a minor eruptions, so I stopped by to watch it. It wasn't long before I felt and heard a thump. That was interesting, because I've never had that happen before during a minor, only during those major eruptions I saw in 1983. Then it happened again. For the third time I finally figured out what was happening. It was from the people slaming the door of the Riverside Pit Stop.
And here's what the new view of an eruption of Riverside. It belongs on a calendar sold by "Yellowstone Forever".
Arrived for the afternoon Grand just in time to see Turban have an eruption lasting 7m30s. This was undoubtely caused by a delay. It was three Turban eruptions later when the One Burst Grand eruption finally occurred. The only different thing about this eruption was that the restart was quick, about 8-1/2 minutes.
Later went over to Black Sand Pool for some more thumps, this time from a real geyser. There were some good, strong ones, and they didn't ever seem to correlate with the heavy boils the pool was having.
Went out for one more Grand eruption after it got dark. This too was one burst, with nothing to distinguish it.