Went to Norris just because it's been over 50 days since that last New Crater/Steamboat eruption, and there have been some reports of it having minor activity that looked encouraging. Arrived at 07:30 to clear skies, and by the time we left four hours later, it was cloudy, windy and starting to rain.
The overflow down from the South Vent is continuous, with frequent surges much of the time. At the bottom the bridge is just above the debris, and the runoff is stained chartreause by the plant life growing in it. But we never saw any good, strong, and sustained activity while waiting.
BWe made it back to the Old Faithful area with only one small delay due to a solitary bison standing on the road's shoulder just north of the Mallard Lake Trailhead. There we found that the window for Grand was open, so we headed out.
Only to find Rift in eruption. And Grand having the first of several Turban Delay intervals. As the summary shows, we ended up waiting five hours with little indication of an eruption. Rift stopped erupting about an hour after arrival, and that coincided with one of the Turban Delay intervals. There was another an hour later.
During this time Bulger was active, with several short but powerful eruptions from Bulger's Hole. During one of those eruptions, about 2-1/2 hours after Rift ended, it suddenly started putting our steam under considerable pressure. It looked like it might be trying to restart. An hour later there was a second such period of activity, but not as strong.
The rains started with the first Turban Delay that we saw, and became pretty much continuous by the time Grand erupted. That eruption was preceeded by a strange Turban eruption. It lasted less than 2-1/2 minutes, but emptied Grand's pool such that it looked like there had been a longer, Delay-type eruption.
Fortunately, Grand finally released the five poeple who were still waiting for it on the next eruption of Turban. The wind was such that we could at least see the start, but the eruption abruptly ended at 9m15s. The hope for a second burst was ended when the wind finally blew away enough steam that the empty crater was visible.
Waited less than a Turban eruption interval for the first One Burst Grand eruption of this visit. The wind was pushing the steam uphill, so at least it was pretty.
Did a quick visit down to Economic. It was full and convecting, and obvious that there had been some activity. East Economic was also full, and looked like there wasn't much slime over the vent area. The rest of the features of the area, from Key and Shoe to Crack looked unchanged from previous years.
With eruptions of Daisy and Riverside during our short time out there, and will Beehive and Castle having erupted during our drive, there wasn't much reason to stay out.
Months ago we made three reservations in southwest Texas. Two were in the path, near the centerline. Because these were AirBnb or Vrbo type accommodations, we made a third reservation, at a commercial motel in Sonora, just in case. For one reason, we got the accommodations pretty cheaply, and we figured that the owners weren't aware that there might a reason for demand for rooms that weekend.
Turns out that was a smart move, as both reservations canceled out on us. The first was six months before the eclipse, and we were told it was because the current tenant decided to stay an extra month. Okay, that's believable, but inconvenient. It was replaced with a second, nicer reservation but at a location where we'd probably have to drive to get a good totality length.
The second one just canceled on us. A little Internet search turned up that we weren't the only clients getting dropped. The booking agency agreed, and told us that we could replace it, and they would reimburse us for the difference and bill the original seller.
A week to ten days before the eclipse we started to get the long term weather forecasts, and they weren't good. All of Texas was going to be overcast, as was much of the Midwest. One had to get to Ohio or farther east before for even the possibility of clear skies.
So we made arrangements and reservations as far east as Buffalo, as we figured we should be able to get that far. Then more forecasts came in, and the northeast started getting worse, while the central area in Illinois and Missouri were the best of a lot of poor choices. More reservations were made, and remade giving us options all along the path.
We left at dawn on Saturday, and as we crossed Colorado, the wind began to increase in strength. By the time we got into Kansas, the truck was bucking along due to a 40+mph wind from the south. Passing the large trucks was sometimes an adventure. On at least one occasion I thought the truck in front of me was listing a bit too far into my lane.
The wind also had the effect of causing a 20% reduction in my gas mileage. Which meant getting into our intended refueling spot with the low-fuel light on for the last 15 miles. Fortunately, that usually means I have about 30-40 miles left. Our policy for the rest of the trip was to refuel at half-tank.
That night in Higginsville, Mo., we made our final decisions on where to go, and a bunch of reservations got canceled. We were left with Mountain View, Ark, Perryville, Mo. and Carbondale, Ill. by then, and based on the forecasts, opted for the eastern one (Carbondale). But, just in case, we decided that, instead of heading there directly, we would investigate the area northeast of Poplar Bluff. There was a reservoir at Wappapello that looked like a good spot, and it was only a two hour drive from Carbondale.
That area was definitely our top choice, especially after looking over the Carbondale options the evening of our arrival on Sunday and finding them less than inspiring. So before dawn on eclipse day, we headed south for the only bridge across the Mississippi that didn't require our going in a wrong direction. It was humid, and it wasn't long before we got to drive in thick fog. Fortunately, there was almost no traffic (although I did have to wait for a train once). We arrived at Wappapello shortly before sunrise and the day use areas were mostly deserted.
That area is fairly hilly, without much in the way of open vistas. One exception would be the shores of a reservoir, which is why we liked the area. At the Peoples Creek Recreation Area there was an open view to the south and west. We should easily be able to see in incoming umbra just fine, especially perched up a bit on a hillside. There were a few streetlights near the restroom buildings, and one was still on as we arrived, but they would not cause a problem when it got dark.
The wait was uneventful. Got set up on the hillside, and ended up being joined by several people we knew. After we arrived, Suzanne sent out messages with both descriptions and pictures of our chosen spot, and based on that, they decided to also drive the two hours to join us.
For awhile around first contact, there was a stream of people arriving, including the geyser gazers, but the area never filled. The parking lot below us for boaters was maybe a third full of cars and the few RV vans. I was pleasantly surprised there weren't any of the big bus RVs there running their generators.
As in 1998 and 2017, I set up a stationary camera to record the experience of the eclipse, rather than trying to record the eclipsed sun. This time I realized early on that it might be nice to capture the changing sky conditions as a time lapse video, too.
The phone camera just isn't good enough and it's just too distracting, so all I did was wave it around for about 30 seconds. Spent about the last two minutes of totality instead looking through binoculars at the corona.
The light immediately after the eclipse seemed whiter than the time approaching totality. Maybe it was an effect of the high clouds and our eyes being adjusted to the darkness.
On my video I see some people launched their boat during totality, and there was traffic over the dam during the first minute. The first car took off about a minute after the end. Most people there left during the next half hour, but we fixed a lunch and waited around until fourth contact. (About 75 minutes.) There were still a number of people hanging around as we left.
Not sure if it's an artifact from the camera recording, but there seems to be a definite edge to the shadow moving toward us at the end which wasn't visible at the start of totality.
It was surprising that we had no trouble driving the two hours back to our room in Carbondale. I was expecting the bridge across the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau to act as a bottleneck, but that wasn't the case. Probably wasn't much different from normal late afternoon traffic. The drive back took longer only because we took a few minor detours along the way, and we still arrived well before dark.
Not much has changed with this release, mostly fixing typos and display glitches. Some changes to the layout of events on the Recents and Favorites views. "Database Cleanup" now resyncs features, groups and users.
The next release should be version 4.0, which will include support for Notebook pages— creating, saving and displaying notes and eruption information locally on the device, without having to use GeyserTimes as a substitute notebook.
Every year during our summer visits, Suzanne buys a Yellowstone calendar for the coming year. The new calendar went up in the hallway to the kitchen at the start of January, and the picture on the first month was labeled "Fountain Geyser".
"Fountain Geyser"
Except when I saw it, I immediately noticed it didn't look quite right. More like Morning. But with all the post processing going on with photos, I figured that maybe that was it, combined with color changes and a telephoto shot to make it look really close up. Artistic, but not realistic?
But the more I saw it, the more I was convinced that it was not Fountain, but what? Then a week or so ago, I noticed something in the upper right corner that proved that not only was it not Fountain, or anything in the Fountain Group, but not even in Yellowstone.
It helped that I'd seen the same geyser activity back in September. What I saw was a bench, just like the ones around Strokkur. At that point, it all made sense. The shape of the water, the color of the formation, the trees and hills in the background.
This sort of thing happened a lot back in the 19th Century. I have a whole series of mislabeled photographs, bought years ago when I was actively collecting such photos. Now I've got one more for the collection.
