My Rockhounder's Dream Adventure With Road Scholar- "The Bug House", Farewell Dinner, and Beyond!

The final day started out calm enough with an introduction to The Bug House.

A family owned rock and mineral shop/wholesaler for 30 years.

Wade Crapo explains their Rock Hound business and shows us some interesting pieces.

 Gary demonstrates how to prep the trilobite fossils with a dremel.

 A tour of the Bug House's shop/ 'working area'.

Beautiful pieces just waiting to be discovered.

Septarian nodules being polished.

 Then we got down to business!! The rest of the morning was spent taking turns having our geodes cut.

From our bucketful , we would choose 4-5 at a time that we thought may be good geodes.

While waiting in line with great anticipation, it was fun to see everyone else's treasures :-)

 Both Gary and Wade had a constant flow of customers!!!

Both Jim's and my geodes are being cut in this photo :-)

We had a delicious lunch at a local restaurant-'The Delta Freeze'. I am not sure why this is the only picture that I took here, must have been enjoying my Reuben and milkshake too much :-)

After lunch, the pace really picked up. Besides still wanting pieces cut, we now started getting all of our treasures organized and packed. I think every available flat surface was occupied now!! No matter how busy it got, everyone was in high spirits and the atmosphere was quite jovial.

I hope the chunk of rhyolite with a topaz crystal that I see in Carol's box made it home safely!

I hope I am like Jack when I am 93 years old ; he had loads of energy and enthusiasm!!

sorting,wrapping, and packing

 When I went around taking these pics, I missed a lot of  people! Some may have been on one of the post office runs to get some of their boxes mailed, or like me here, standing in line to get my wonder stone cut.

It was fun watching Wade take the time to get my wonder stone cut just right .

 Jim and I finished all our rock packaging and had time to go back to the rock shop that we had visited earlier in the week. I had decided that I would like a beryllium chunk and a topaz in its matrix.(The topaz, in case I somehow mess mine up)

Beryllium chunk, not polished....yet.

 One topaz piece, just 2 different angles of it.

 We had just enough time to catch our breaths and freshen up before it was time for our farewell dinner. I think in the next few pics, everyone on the trip is pictured.....may be just the back of their head ,but this will have to do :-(

We had a pleasant evening of sharing; our favorite memories of our trip and samples of rocks from our hometown area.

I have very few pictures of our three trip leaders. They did an incredible job making sure we had an awesome adventure. All too soon, we said our goodbyes :-(

Now that I am home, I have enough rocks to keep me busy for quite some time.

Cut geodes waiting to be polished.

Also,a box of uncut geodes waiting to be cracked/cut-not pictured

The geodes in the back on the right resemble turtles :-)

I took this picture at the Bug House....

now Jim is creating a similar piece from our trilobites.

Topaz crystals that need a bit more prep work/cleaning.

Rhyolite chunks with topaz crystals waiting to be excavated.

Fun thinking about what may still be in these pieces!

A whole box of snowflake obsidian....

and a whole box of mahogany and sheen obsidian for some future use.

Sunstones

A box of agate and Jaspers waiting to be tumbled.

My wonder stone before treating with a fixative artwork spray.

My favorites of the trip, sprayed and ready to be displayed.

Wonder stone piece that reminded me of a Japanese theater mask-picture does not do it justice :-(

  I now have quite a 'wish list' for lapidary equipment !

This was definitely a trip that exceeded my expectations!  Unbelievable how much we learned, saw, collected and experienced in such a short time in the pleasant company of other enthusiasts :-)

Definitely a Rockhounder's Dream vacation !!