Geodes Explode with the Colors of Fireworks

NORTH LIBERTY - Rock hunting as exciting as the Fourth of July?

Yep says T.J. "Geode Guy" Ramsey who has three young children.

"When I'm out in the backyard cracking open geodes they're right there," he says. "It's like watching fireworks. ‘Oooo, ahhh.'"

Red, white and blue. Orange, black and gold. Pink, brown and yellow.

Bursts of colorful crystals inside a freshly opened geode do seem to explode right before your eyes which is why T.J., 35, became a rock hound more than a decade ago.

"It's the thrill of the hunt," he says about that first adventure in 1999 to geode fields near Alexandria, Mo. "It's not knowing what you'll find."

If you've got a similar interest, though, you'll find Geode Guy at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids this weekend. That's where the annual Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show is being sponsored by the Cedar Valley Rocks & Minerals Society; where T.J. will give presentations about geodes at 1 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. (See cedarvalleyrockclub.org)

T.J. also will be a vendor at the show, offering whole geodes in a variety of sizes - racket ball, $5; tennis ball, $10; softball, $15; grapefruit, $20 - where you could get lucky.

At one birthday party T.J. watched a boy crack open a $10 geode and did his own "Oooo, ahhh."

"This is something special," T.J. told the boy. "I'd like to buy it back."

After thinking for a moment the boy accepted his offer - $100 and another geode to open.

"I was just stoked when I saw it," recalls T.J. with the enthusiasm of a kid.

As a youngster T.J. enjoyed rock hunting but preferred to a different "rock," a baseball. He played at Wilton (high school), UNI, the University of Iowa and, for five years, with the semipro Red Sox in Muscatine. And even though he's a telecommunications contractor with Ramsey Communications, started by his father, he loves educating people about geodes.

Ask his wife, Kate, whom he met at UNI. Does she know anything about geodes? "I do now," she smiles. Their children, twins Hannah and Luke, 7, and Natalie, 4, enjoyed their first hunt last year in Hamilton, Ill., where T.J. is an organizer of Geode Fest which attracts 700-some fanatics.

The geode, though, is Iowa's state rock. Southeast Iowa provides the best hunting grounds but, like mushroom hunters, geode diggers are intentionally vague about exact locations.

Gathering geodes can be hard work, from swinging a 12-pound sledgehammer to free them from shale to lugging around 60- to 80-pound buckets of them. It's even a workout for T.J., 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds. That's why he prefers to hunt in cool spring weather.

T.J. uses "geode cutters," also known as iron pipe cutters, once he's home. He looks for the hollow ones, although solid geodes add a nice touch to rock gardens and yards. (He's got a 208-pound one in front of his house.)

His best finds are displayed in glass-front cabinets or sold online at www.firstcrackgeodes.com. Opening a door, he pulls out both halves of a grapefruit-sized geode with black and white crystals worth about $800. They aren't for sale.

"It's just too pretty," he laughs. "It's hard to let some of them go."