It was a Great and Grand Day!

We started the day waiting for Great Fountain..it was in overflow when we pulled up.  Great Fountain has so many memories for me.  Bob Hoffman introduced us to the predictive patterns of overflow, meter boil and pause on our first visit in 1985.  It quickly became my "favorite" geyser.  I loved the sounds of its overflow trickling down the terraces.  We started watching it the next summer when Bob wasn't around.  The kids played in the dirt (no passing the garage can!) with the other gazer kids who I won't name in case I forget someone!

Then you turn around and the kids are old enough and nagging  to be left off at Geyser Hill.... so we would start the day with breakfast at Great Fountain.  I would stay with a book and lawn chair while Lew played the part of chauffeur taking the kids to Geyser Hill.  Eventually back to GF where we would wait for the first overflow and mark the prediction board.  Then it was decision time.  Pick up the kids, leave or wait.  It depended on many factors, Grand  did it go?  What about lunch?  Etc.  But many times I would stay and Lew would leave to let the VC know it would erupt in an hour and a half window.  I'd move the lawn chair to the no parking area and continue reading or answering the ten thousand questions about when it will erupt.

Then......it would....we have far better pictures but this was today with the sun on the screen so not well centered....

Then you turn around again...and Adam is watching Grand at night while we are watching Great Fountain with Tim Thompson.  We had a pickup truck with a camper one of those years and we mounted a green screen for a computer so we could enter the data from the huge Ryan Tempmentor as we worked with Tim and Rick ("NOW THIS IS REAL SCIENCE"--Rick to us and Tomas as we all squeeze in the truck camper to see the data on the screen) to come up with a better prediction formula for the Visitor's Center.  What fun!  How exciting to do real science!

Now we are without kids or grandkids as we sit and watch while others change the prediction board and tell the visitors all about the series of bursts used to predict Great Fountain and I think...yes that is real science.

After Great Fountain we bike out to Lone Star for our lunch.  We watch it erupt (yes, again). Next will be a trip to Grand Geyser.  Its due sometime in the early afternoon hours.

Grand Geyser is the largest predictable geyser in the world.  Mary Beth knows this geyser.  She amazes me with the comment that even more than the waves, it sounds right for an eruption.  A lovely two burst Grand on a sunny, smokeless day.  Hey David your picture was soooo much better I am using it instead!

 Then it was time to get back to a Katz, who is feeling quite ignored and abused!  It was a Grand and Great retirement day!
Jan