Day 2: The parable of the Geode

This story begins in a driveway in 1987. Seven year old me had just learned that geodes exist. I knew nothing about them. Only that there are special rocks that when you break them open there are beautiful crystals inside. I didn't know what they looked like, how big they were or where you could find them. So I did the most logical thing a seven year old can do. I grabbed a hammer and started breaking rocks.

Busting rocks with a hammer became a hobby which I enjoyed even if I never found a geode. But a part of me wondered how many rocks would one have to break to find such a lucky rock.

Fast forward to 2013. I have an eclectic preschooler who loves YouTubes on ocean drilling and is memorizing the periodic table. We bought him a plastic periodic table that had empty 1cm squares that you can place cubes of elements in. He collected elements as rewards for completing his sticker charts. (Don't worry, he didn't get anything dangerous). 

One thing led to another and I found myself ordering the book -- Rockhounding California. Inside the front cover was a map of the state with pins for all the best rockhounding sites across the state. The kids loved the adventure of traveling out to remote places looking for copper ore or fluorite. There was a spot that was really remote that the kids had always wanted to visit -- Hauser Geode Beds. 

In 2020 when we bought our RV, searching for Geodes became a mission on the long list of things the family wanted to do. We made our first attempt in 2021. It ended poorly -- a long story for another post -- but lets just say that we spent 8 hours digging out the RV with cereal bowls and had to turn around and leave without even getting close to the actual geode dig site.

Last weekend, we worked up the courage to try again. I downloaded the satellite maps of the area. We talked through strategies for how to handle rough roads and taking a deep breath, headed in. 20 miles of desert roads took nearly 2 hours to navigate. Carefully passing through river washes and rough spots. Eyes glued on the satelite images on my phone making sure we were on the right path. 

Just about a mile away from the dig site, the road got really rough. We hemmed and hawwed and decided not to press our luck. We pulled off the road and set up camp on an amazing level site at the top of a tall hill. There was a great fire ring and dig spot for the kids to play in. I'm guessing someone else made the same decision we did. 

It was late afternoon, but the kids were too excited to wait until the next day. We packed hammers, shovels, snacks and water into the stroller and headed out down the road. I carefully examined both the satellite images of the dig sites and written descriptions of what to look for. The site is fairly popular among rock collectors and easy rocks have already been found. So, you have to dig and search if you want to find any geodes. 

By this point, I've learned a thing or two about rocks but I'm not an expert by any means. I had a vague idea about what a geode might look like but I wasn't sure I'd recognize one on site. Pressure was on... 5 eager boys, limited daylight and only a rough idea of what I was looking for.

A little science to provide some context....

Geodes form two different ways -- either during a volcanic eruption when a gas bubble gets trapped in cooling magma or in a sedimentary rock when water dissolves minerals inside a forming rock. The beds we were searching for were the volcanic type. The descriptions from the internet and my rock books describe the geode beds as ash beds. Instructions were to dig in the ash and geodes will loosen and fall out. So... we dug. Piles of ordinary rocks that *could* be geodes loosen. None of them were geodes. We worked until after sunset. I had to gather everyone and point them back towards camp. Shoulders were slumped as night fell. The hike home was much longer than the one heading out.

By some stroke of amazing luck, we had cell service at camp. I pulled up YouTubes to see if we were digging in the right area, the right way, looking for the right things. There have to be people who know what they are doing after all, this place is infamous among rock collectors. As predicted, there were several videos detailing people's adventures searching for geodes in these remote parts. Funny, they looked a lot like our day -- arrive. dig. move. dig. search. dig. break things open, try again. The boys felt much better but they also felt like the whole thing was a bit of a scam. They are GEODE BEDS... they should be full of GEODES! 

Some more study and discussion amongst adults yielded a new plan for attack for the next morning. The smaller kids weren't up for another trek so Ulrich and Eddie headed out first thing in the morning while I stayed back with the littles. 

They came back with a geode. Thank goodness.  

The plan had been successful and yielded a less popular dig site that still had easier to find geodes. Had they had a full day of digging, they would have found several nice ones. But it was a short, weekend trip and we had to start the trip home if we wanted to start the school week with minimal crying.

The long drive back I pondered the adventure -- over 9 hours of driving to dig in ash to find the most ordinary boring looking rock that when broken yielded precious treasure -- sparkling crystals. It felt like somehow the perfect vacation to take heading into Ash Wednesday. I could almost hear Jesus preaching -- the kingdom of heaven is like a geode. 

Still holding in my heart and pondering all the different ways that the kingdom of heaven is like a geode... and how somehow, my whole life ... I've sought to understand both.