All times, unless otherwise noted, are from Sunday, August 2. Today was a classic (even if slightly cooler) summer day. In the morning it was nice, sunny, calm, and cool with temperatures building up until early afternoon. Around mid-afternoon we began to get significant cloud cover, and storms threatened, but moved through without drenching the Old Faithful area. There was, however, a very significant wind gust (the wind storm lasted about 3 minutes) around 5pm. I watched the dust fly everywhere throughout the parking lot outside of the Upper General Store. Xanterra is renovating the really old building that is just based the Lower General Store on the drive near the Myriad Group. They put up some large fencing, similar to what is used for cattle, and the wind had blown 90% of it over. Woops! I managed to get out into the Upper Basin for a few hours tonight, and I made the most of it for about 40 minutes or so. After getting times from the Visitor Center, I biked down to Fan and Mortar. On the way, I noticed that Grotto and the Central Vents were on and Rocket was surging nicely. I arrived at Fan and Mortar to see Suzanne, Linda, and Darrin there, and found out that Rocket had majored late this morning (not sure on the time) a little over 3 hours or so after Grotto began. This information told me that this was almost certainly a separate eruption of Grotto, though they did not know when it started. So I decided to try and wait for a Rocket major. I got there, sat down, put on some of my heavy duty bug spray, and got out Scott's book to just do some spot reading on Geyser Hill when I heard some heavy heaves. I looked up to see Rocket having it's eruptive surges, wide and tall. So I pulled out my radio, and for about 2 seconds, the surging stopped, then began again with full force - Rocket major eruption at 1831. At 1834, Lynn called Beehive's Indicator as "in eruption", so I began to pack up my things. Rocket ended one minute later for a duration of 4m02s. I biked to Castle, where I got a beautiful view of a TALL Beehive at 1848. There was just a very very slight breeze that took the steam and water towards the bridge by Old Faithful and Geyser Hill, so I got a perfect view from where I was. After that eruption, I noted that Grotto was off (sometime between 1840 - 1855), and was biking back towards F&M when I turned to my right and saw a very nice full rainbow where the right side actually ended at Grand. I was watching as the brilliance of the rainbow waxed, and a second rainbow formed above it, when I noticed increased steam from Oblong. Oblong began, 1903. The eruption was steamy, as it was a cooler evening, but with the brilliant rainbow over it, it was great! I then saw a steam cloud from Geyser Hill which turned out to be a Lion initial, 1907ie (probably ns). As that was going on, Daisy began at 1909. Paul Strasser said that I should definitely head down to Fan and Mortar and work my magic. We had an event cycle that consisted of only Main Vent splashing, even though this was some impressive splashing. One splash in particular was after River had already turned on, and was big enough to have the "V" shape and multiple feet high. It was impressive. However, it took 17 minutes between River and Gold turning on, and the vents looked pretty good sporadically, but I never got too excited. I may have looked excited because I was moving around a lot, but that was more because I was beginning to get cold. Other times from the day: Castle 0705 major Daisy 0737, 0949, 1154, 1709, 1909 Fountain 1351 Grand 0929, 1712 Great Fountain 1550 Riverside 1017, 1603 Beehive 0657 with the Indicator at 0640 (i=13h5m), and 1848 with Ind. 1834ie (i=11h51m) I have Plume reported sporadically throughout the day 0555, 0651, 0943, 1227, 1753 Aurum 0839, 1703 Lion 0647, 0914ie, 1907ie, 2047ie Oblong 0549ie, 1123ns, 1903 Plate 1145ie Rocket major sometime in late morning and 1831 (d=4m02s) -Ben Hoppe -- I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20