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In the summer of 2020 jpc and I had planned to get together in Eastern Wyoming to collect. That trip was unfortunately aborted by the coronavirus outbreak that year. This year, that conversation resumed and a new plan for a three day excursion in June emerged. I decided to make it a two week long car trip, driving all the way from New York, a longer car trip than any I've made in the past 25 years. That would afford me the opportunity to stop at some other sites on the way there and back, plus see some family. Another big reason for driving was an opportunity to visit and collect at the Big Cedar Ridge Cretaceous plant site. Having the car would afford me the opportunity to bring the necessary tools and be able to transport the fragile specimens safely. The rising price of gasoline certainly had an impact, and my plan was to cut costs as much as possible wherever I could. Part of that plan was camping 10 nights I departed the suburbs of New York City on Saturday, June 11th. That evening I arrived at Sturgis, MI, just off interstate 80. Spent the night in a motel and headed off the next day, driving through the heart of Chicago enshrouded in mist. It was my very first time driving through that city. I headed north and in the middle of the day arrived at my cousin's place in Madison, WI. He had moved there from Manhattan five years ago to teach music at the University of Wisconsin. This was my first time visiting him there, my first time in Wisconsin, actually. He took me on a lovely tour of the school and the town. I spent the night and was on my way again just before noon the next day. It rained off and on as I drove through Western Wisconsin and crossed the Mississippi into Dubuque, Iowa. From there it was a short drive to my first fossil stop- at Graf. This Upper Ordovician site in Maquoketa Formation is famous for its nautiloid death assemblage. I have found quite a few nautiloids over the course of my collecting career, but I've never encountered a site where they are thoroughly dominant. There was a layer of limestone, a few feet thick that was in many places just packed with their shells.