A Free Lunch

"I'm lost." The GPS lay yanked out on the dash after lecturing me to turn around when possible and drive into a quarry it insisted was a road.
"Doubt it." Pam's son interrupted his twang with a cigarette drag. "Yuh see the Purina Factory?"
I did not. But it explained the scent of pulverized meat by-products that grew stronger the closer I got to Davenport, IA.
The farther I drove from Chicago, the cheaper the gas, snacks & snuff. $4 beer pitchers, advertised on folded signs with magnetic letters, almost turned my wheels.
No time to imbibe. Geode Fest started at 1PM.
I saw it. A factory stretched across a campus a mile long and belched smoke behind barbed wire. Production's aftertaste seethed through vents and lingered.
I turned on a residential street less gray than the industrial park I'd passed. Kit homes huddled on the grid. Cars idled with hoods up and guts exposed.
I 'met' Pam via an online forum. She relished arguments about UFO's, the Masons, & Ron Paul. I hid pepper spray under the seat and waited with the engine running.
"Can't give directions worth a damn." Her bones greeted me in a hug. "Musta damaged my parietal when my van crashed. But hey, the kibble'll lead ya straight here."
"True," I laughed. "Maybe I'll buy some later."
"Are you nuts?" Blue eyes bulged. "It's loaded with GMO's! Bees are dying! Did you read the Monsanto link I posted?"
Nope.
A sigh replaced the emoticon she reserved for sheeple.
The mighty Mississippi tremored the bridge as we drove from the city and into the country. Crop dusters combed rows of corn and soy that undulated like stars and bars of an American flag.
Pam shared her research and life story for the next 2 hours.
Dripping minerals that seeped inside rocks birthed Geodes. The most valuable specimens were found by shaking and listening for the sound of loose pebbles. Hollow rocks hosted crystals, ideally pink or purple quartz.
We talked aliens (she'd met them), Devo (her favorite band, whom she'd never met) and what she'd buy with her loot (a new van and land in Montana).
Cash crops and old barns decorated with PA Dutch stars faded as we approached the Hamilton, IL dock.
Booths hawking "I Rock" tees and cracked geodes cobbled into jewelry, book ends and paperweights distracted from the shovels and buckets we needed to mine.
Admission paid and release forms signed, we headed towards a dusty red pickup full of anxious rockhounds.
"To the mother lode." Pam and I clinked hoes and climbed in.