As a birthday present for me, the FMS sponsored a collecting trip to the famous fluorospar district in Illinois around Cave in Rock (actually, I don't think they knew it was my B-day beforehand - I just got lucky). We spent the day at the Ben E. Clement Mineral Museum (haven't gone? Why not??? The best fluorescent display this side of Franklin.) Howie Green, FMS VP, gave an excellent presentation on mineral collecting in Greenland, there were several folks trading rocks, and was a great greet & meet - about 25 people from the midwest area, as far south as Florida and east to NY.
As evening came near we all hopped in our trucks and caught the ferry to Cave-in-Rock, and onward to Minerva. Some of our group got caught in the (unbeknownst to us) parade they happened to be holding that day - what a traffic jam (but Howie got some quality time with miss Fluorospar - see photo at end of this post). I was lucky and got to collect some in the daytime, found a few boulders and whacked away at them. Came away with some very respectable pieces of calcite and fluorite (with a mysterious blue I've not seen before - probably also fluorite). This is one of my best.
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(Don't miss the upcoming trip report about this visit in the FMS UV Waves newsletter)
While I was collecting rocks, Howie was watching the parade.