And you probably thought I wasn't hunting fossils anymore

There's an old saying,

"When one fossil season closes, 

another one opens somewhere else."

(I just made that up)

The official close to my river season came with these 2 momentous finds:

I know what you're thinking and no, it doesn't work.

This was fun to find because this is the exact lure I fished with ALL THE TIME 

growing up in Missouri.  It's called The Killer

 and we definitely slayed a lot of bass and bluegill with them.

While my fossil friends were closing out their "river season"

with absolutely amazing finds

my "desert season" was just about to begin!

I've traveled a lot and every time I come home from a great trip I have an overwhelming need to go right back, asafp, and capture some more of those wonderful memories.

Unfortunately, it never works out that way.

Extreme financial limits only allow me 1 visit per location.  There's so many places I want to see!

My January trip to Arizona gave me the same feelings, especially to revisit the petrified wood location in the north of the state.

This time it worked out!

I was determined to go back because in January, the Utah trilobite quarry was closed (too cold!) and I really, really wanted to find some trilobites...

and maybe some fossil fish in Wyoming...

So I plotted a geographical triangle 

with Utah, Arizona, and Wyoming at each corner.

I would've gladly done it alone but fossils are more fun with friends so I was happy when Pam agreed to accompany me AND then Jim and Vickie, also from my fossil club, wanted to go, too.

I think the U-Dig fossil bucket says it all:

I'll break this trip up into a couple of posts

so I don't overload you with envy! 

Allow me to start at the beginning.

Jim and Vickie are snowbirds so on their way back to Wisconsin this spring, they dropped by my house and took my tent, sleeping bag, pillow, and rock tools with them.  That way, I didn't have to check any bags on my flights to Salt Lake City in June, where they were kind enough to pick up Pam and me at the airport.  They have a well maintained 4WD truck and enough camping gear that we never wanted for a thing the entire trip.  Jim is an experienced driver, both in 2 and 4WD so we were in good hands for our adventure.

The only catch was unloading all that gear every evening and reloading it every morning.  

The process was very organized in the beginning and a bit of a free-for-all by the end.

First (attempted) stop: Dugway, Utah, for geodes.

When Vickie and Jim said they wanted to stop and hunt geodes on our way from the airport to our first campsite, 2 hours away, I was...reluctant.  I was imagining the little geodes I bought in a Colorado gift store as a child.  Yawn...

We couldn't find the area and eventually gave up, heading southwest to Delta, Utah to set up camp in preparation for an early start digging trilobites the next morning.  Along the way, we stopped at an Ace Hardware to buy some supplies and out back was a cement pad strewn with Dugway geode halves, collected and cut by a local.

I had no idea that these things would be the size of cantaloupes...or larger! 

and packed full of stunning druzy quartz crystals.

And they were $5 each!

Shut the front door!!!  I bought 4! 

Pam and Vickie stocked up, too, so we hadn't even been in the state one day and we'd already added 50 lbs of rocks to the truck.

The U-Dig trilobite quarry is listed as being in Delta, Utah

but it's actually an hour away from Delta, not including the 20 mile unpaved road.

Since the area is BLM land, we decided to camp rough just outside of the quarry entrance.  

I found out on our first night camping that Jim is a Bloody Mary master and a delicious cocktail became our ritual for closing out each successful day.

Second stop: U-Dig Fossils,  near Delta, Utah

This quarry is located in the mid-Cambrian House Range in western Utah and splitting layers of limestone shale can reveal trilobites: 

A trilobite is a form of invertebrate marine life that lived more than 550 million years ago, but is now extinct. These hard-shelled prehistoric critters roamed the sea floor and coral reefs in search of food. Because of their great diversity and often perfect preservation in fine-grained rock, they are one of the most popular fossils among collectors. (from the U-Dig Fossil website)

Vickie found the best of the bunch.

I was happy with my finds, too.

I did become overly possessive of the pry bar...

but I think I had been influenced by a recent episode of "Naked and Afraid"

where the contestants fought about who would get to use the knife.

After 4 solid hours of splitting rocks, we packed all our "bugs" and hit the road for a long haul to our next camp in northern Arizona.

To be continued...