any personal experience with Geodes??
 

This is not a Geode, just a thunder egg.
(Incidentally, the gnomes' name is Gogar. He haunts my front door.)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1364772800.jpg

Have a bunch of geodes around here somewhere from Dugway Utah. Dug them up with my father when I was a kid. He spent about a year there TDY in the air force around 1993. I remember seeing heavy equipment digging an another area getting them commercially. Don't know if you can go do it with a shovel like we did anymore. I will post up some photos if I dig them up. Har Har Har....

Also dug topaz out of a mountain at the appropriately named Topaz Mountain. I want to take the family to dig sunstones in Oregon next year. Haven't done it for years, but I used to be a pretty big rockhound.

I collected minerals, rocks and gems as a youngster, so I've had a few. I've got a thunderegg sample somewhere in one of the boxes housing my collection. Mine's been polished though.