We decided to take a trip out to the Dugway geode beds to try our hand at looking for geodes. I've heard of people doing it, and knew our boys would love it. Devon has a friend at work who has gone quite a bit with his kids, and gave Devon a few pointers. So, we decided to give it a try, and hope we could find some cool geodes.
It was quite a drive - about 3 hours or so each way. If the mountains weren't in the way, it would have been so much faster! Luckily our kids are good at road trips, and the drive wasn't a problem, so we did the entire trip in one day. Once we got out on the dirt road in the middle of nowhere, it did feel like we drove forever - making me wonder if we were lost. But we did find it and we weren't lost!
There is just a big open area that is marked as the geode beds with a sign. There are is one small road leading off the Pony Express Trail Road, and then as you drive on that road it branches a little, and there are pits where people have been digging. The general rule is that your best luck is usually in an area someone has already been digging, because it signals they may have had some good luck. Our first area we tried didn't seem to have any type of rock that I would think would contain geodes. We dug, we hammered many rocks open, we got dirty, but had no luck. The second spot we tried had lots of what I think was mahogany granite - lots of beautiful red rock with some black mixed in. But we still had no luck. We also accidentally buried a small toy car that Austin had brought, and possibly left right where Devon was putting shovelfuls of dirt as he dug in a hole. Luckily it wasn't anything too expensive - something we got from Wendy's or McDonald's years ago. However, it was a favorite toy of many of the boys, so kind of a bummer.
Lauren loved helping to dig, and often got right in the way of where Devon was trying to dig. She has no problems getting dirty, and often actually loves to just bend over and play in the dirt wherever we are. I had some neighbor kids tell me they hoped our next baby was a girl because girls don't like to get dirty. I laughed, because I thought of Lauren.
I figured that it would get hot, and it might be fun to have something else to add to the fun, so I bought some squirters from the dollar store, and hid them in the car. I also brought some water and big bowls. My plan was an ambush by me and Devon to start a water fight. When I could tell everyone was about done digging, but without the kids knowing what I was doing, I set up a bowl for me and Devon on one side of the car, and another bowl for the kids on another side, and place their squirters there. I had Devon get all the kids to come help him just a bit more with the digging, while I did the prep work, then I started the fun. It took the kids a minute to figure it out, but then we had fun squirting each other and getting wet.
Devon's friend also told him of a place to get "Apache tears" in case we weren't successfull.
The other big highlight of the trip came when Austin and I were walking back to the car a little ahead of everyone else. We saw a horned toad run across the path in front of us. So I decided to catch it. Austin loved it! He even got to where he could catch it. Oh, the squeals this kid let out as he had fun catching and holding it. So cute!! I don't remember any of my kids acting quite this way and it was fun to watch his excitement.
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