Everett was running a little short on cash Wednesday evening so he encouraged Becki to fish in the campground pond for their supper. Unfortunately, Becki didn't catch any fish but she did manage to feed a few fish who were happy to remove the worms from her hook. Carl must have taken pity on the starving couple because he invited them to have Brats and all the fixin's with Carol and the other Mauritz boys. Naturally, Everett would have to cook for his supper, but it was better than going away hungry.

That evening and several others thereafter, we sat around the campfire swapping stories. It is always nice to be able to relax and unwind after a long day of busting rocks.

For a while on the first evening around the campfire, all of us played dueling cameras taking shots of each other from every angle. The flashes were going off like the sky on the fourth of July.

Don't ask me what it was about my appearance that made Becki run off to fetch Everett's camera so that she could to take my picture. What's so un-manly about a cute pair of blue flip-flops?

I must say that Becki and Everett seem to agree with one another as there was quite a twinkle in their eyes as they sat around the fire.

On Thursday, we again made our way back across the Mississippi to Adams County, Illinois. Everett showed us the way to his "secret site". We dug and broke rock in a relatively hard dirty limestone in an effort to recover geodes that contained bladed gray-colored calcite. To say that we did well would be an understatement. Chrissy was able to locate a couple fantastic geodes that were full of incredible bladed calcite. As is often the case when Chrissy and I dig together, she will find great stuff, work on it until she gets too tired to continue and then call me to finish getting it out, if necessary. Chrissy has learned over the years me to not let on too early in the game that she has found something great so that she won't get nudged out of her spot by me. The following pictures show some of the geodes that we recovered from Everett's spot.