I got made fun of when I wanted to fly across the United States to search for shells. But who is laughing now, after our rad trip? So when I told Micah that I want to fly to Chicago to find geodes, I expected a thumbs up. But what I really got, was more laughing. How rude.
But I think he may have realized that my ideas are pretty stellar, because he found a local area to get our feet wet in the geode genre.
After a security briefing last night, we were up at the crack of dawn this morning, and on our way.
The kids took a good rest on our three hour drive, but woke up when the sun did.
When we finally made it out to the geode beds, Micah and the kids checked out the terrain.
We finally found our spot, and set up shop.
We all dug, and dug — not exactly sure what we were looking for quite yet.
A nice guy who was near us kind of explained to us, that you dig until there is white baby powderish dirt. (Ash from a volcanic eruption many years ago.) Below the ash, you will start to see rocks that have nodules on the outside of them, with a greenish color. Those are the geodes.
We still dug and dug…with drink breaks along the way.
That same guy found something rad while he was digging, and called the kids over.
Apparently, he dug right into a tarantula’s home.
So he gingerly got the tarantula on his shovel, and then his hand to show it off to the kids — explaining to them that there was nothing to be scared of.
Navy said, “Oh! I love tarantulas.”
And to the disbelief of this guy, grabbed for it, and played with it for the next 30 minutes.
Then she found a new home for it.
After putting him in his new home — she checked in on him every few minutes.
That’s Navy — brave, disgusting, and caring all rolled up into one cute package.
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We didn’t have great luck, until a man took us to the cinnamon geode beds. There, we were watching him extract a geode the size of a volleyball. It was amazing! Afterwards, we all got in there and dug some beauties out ourselves. It was honestly a treasure hunting blast!
We loved it so much, we stayed overnight in a hotel to have more rock hounding adventures the next day.
This time, we set up shop on the old Colorado riverbed where we supposed to be able to find Limonite cubes.
It was an easier find, which made it even funner for the kids.
Originally, I think Micah and I thought we would be out there for 2-3 hours.
But what ended up rock hounding until it got dark.
In true Navy form, she found another critter this time. I actually spotted this horny toad, and called her over.
And like a kid in the candy store, she grabbed it and made it her best friend for the day.
Every once in a while, we had to stop for a snack (like the hotel’s peanut butter packs).
But then we were out on the rocks again.
One of the sweetest scenes of my life came from today.
As Scout was walking in from a few hours on the rocks, he seemed exhausted.
So Dash got off of his break chair to go greet him, and offer to hold his pick axe.
Scout said he could still hold it, but Dash put his arm around him, and guided him back to the resting spot.
I literally got tears in my eyes, because it was so sweet.
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The other tears I got in my eyes, was when we were driving home.
That same little brother got frustrated at that same big brother, and…
an accidental bloody nose ensued.
So we stopped all physicality (which put an exhausted Dash right to sleep), and tried to solve riddles the whole way home from the lamest website ever!
My kids still ask, “What is brown and sticky?” and crack up like crazy. (It’s a stick.)
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Minus the bloody nose, it was a perfect adventure.
That being said…I’m off to book my tix to Chicago.
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