This circus is the parking lot behind the Old Faithful Inn and Visitor's Center. You can see the steam from the Old Faithful Geyser in at the left center of the picture. All of these buildings came within a hair's breadth of being destroyed in the 1988 fire.
A park ranger, giving a nature talk about Old Faithful. Many of the park rangers are college professors on summer break, so one can often get a pretty interesting talk at sites like this, or on ranger-guided hikes, or at campfire talks in the Park's campgrounds. This particular ranger was explaining how nobody would dare think of drilling in the PArk and risking danger to the thermal features. I'm not sure whether she appreciated my smart-alec comment about BP being willing to give it a try (their disaster was in full swing in the Gulf at the time) but I got a pretty good laugh from the assembled crowd. Some kids never grow up, I guess.
-- Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:27 --
This sequence is of Old Faithful erupting. It's quite impressive, but it would be better if viewed in the winter time. Not only would there be a lot more steam, but there wouldn't be the crowd. I would guess that perhaps 500 or more people assemble (as were there when these pics were taken), and when the geyser goes off, its fairly loud roar has to compete with all of the city slicker nitwits oohing and ahhing. I guess that when they are away from the city noise, they have to bring it with them to feel at home.
