It's always too late.

Segments of a battered American landscape. Wyoming.

We’d been waiting forty minutes for Old Faithful to blow. The wind was sharp and cold, unprepared onlookers shivering in soft thin jackets. Old Faithful finally erupted and people became silent, waiting for great torrents of water to flow from deep in the Earth’s crust . The mound gave up a frothy gasp and spit high into the air. A strong wind set a cold mist over us.

When Old Faithful ceased, the crowd began to mumble. Feet shuffled along the stony walkways away from the benches. A child still sitting next to her parents turned to them and looked up. “That’s it?”