The Avatar Spouts Off Every 91 Minutes

Yes, it's another Avatar post already.  I've been yakking about the hypothetical cross-country journey pretty hard lately, but the truth of the matter is that he is somewhere that is an awfully long ways from anywhere else.  When I filed his quarterly report, I was all thinking "all he has to do is zip across Wyoming, and then he'll be back in a settled part of the world with occasional towns and everything!"  But one doesn't really zip across Wyoming.  276 miles north to south, 365 miles east to west, it is a big big state, and its towns don't really reach the threshold of "occasional."  It is, you know, the 50th most populous state.

So the Avatar is very excited to be in a well-known place, resting for a day and watching the regular belching of thousands of gallons of water out of the Earth's crust!  Because he is at Old Faithful.

If I had a ton of grant money at my disposal and free reign in time, I would fetch Cuyp, Canaletto, and -- seasonally -- Avercamp up to Yellowstone to see what they could do with the iconic geyser.  I might also do feasibility talks with Christo for a short-term installation project to be called "Water Balloon."

For the nonce, though, we'll have to be satisfied with those artist that have actually made it up to northwestern Wyoming.  The great American landscape painter Bierstadt, for instance.

Or the great American landscape photographer Ansel Adams:

Or, here's an unexpected treat: the National Geographic people brought Play-In artist Abelardo Morrel up to Old Faithful to see what he could do with his camera obscura.  So, here's a photographic image of the geyser (and its perennial ring of fans) projected onto the Yellowstone soil.

OK!  Only 200 miles to the next town!

Lander -- or maybe Riverton -- here I come!