Same geo interest here. My dad took me up on a local mountain digging for quartz crystals, sheet mica and garnets when I was about 8, have been hooked ever since. Around that time he also bought a pan for gold panning. At best we ever found a flake or two. My aunt lived in AZ, sent me rock specimens and polished rock through my childhood. I have a beautiful 2ft long piece of petrified wood about 5" in diameter, numerous geodes, petrified dinosaur bone and other artifacts from AZ. And yes, Most of my rocks are in boxes and bags on the cellar floor, beside the boxes of old antique bottles I dug up as a kid. I too need to liquidate a lot of that stuff.