Rock Hunting - An Obsession

Growing up in Southern California along the coast,  I spent much of my time at the beach.  One of my favorite things was to find seashells as I built sandcastles along the shore.  Each one was a unique little treasure,  designed as a habitat,  left behind as a thing of beauty.
As I grew older,  I grew away from the beaches and into the city.  As an adult,  I came to Yakima,  a rural area of central Eastern Washington.  This is the farthest I have ever lived from the beach.  No more seashells!
But there are different kinds of treasures here!  They are harder to find than seashells,  and research must be done in order to locate them.  They abound in a vast array of colors and compositions.  Agates,  chalcedony,  thundereggs,  crystals,  carnelian,  jaspers,  garnets,  opals,  sunstones,  geodes,  gold!
I live in a mineral-rich area with a diverse terrain.  During warm weather weekends I can be found knee deep in some river searching for water-tumbled agates that look like giant ice cubes.  During the spring I comb the flat, rocky fields just outside of Ellensburg searching for the rare Ellensburg blue agate.  If I am lucky,  I will make the trip to a prehistoric wilderness in northern Oregon where the views are just as fantastic as the vast array of minerals that are found there.  Fabulous moss agates,  thunder eggs with vugs lined with minute glistening crystals,  painted jasper, flame jasper, rainbow jasper,  blue opals with vibrant pink fire,  and huge hunks of icy chalcedony.  Someday,  I will make it deeper into Oregon to dig for baseball size garnets the color of pomegranates and sunstone shillers that glisten like the flesh of a ripe orange.  Perhaps I'll even get to that place in Nevada where opals abound.I have buckets and bins and display cases full of treasure. 
I have a rough time letting any beautiful stone pass through my fingers.  The size of my collection astonishes visitors to my home who have never experienced the adventure of rock hunting.  Some are intrigued,  others are dismayed.  Sometimes even I am perplexed.  Why this obsession?  What am I ever going to do with all of these stones?Recently,  I have begun to make jewelry with them.  Perhaps now I can justify my obsession.
PS:  I am planning to visit Red Top Mountain this year.  On top of this mountain there is a path that scales the side of a decaying wall of basalt on its route to the top.  On the peak there are craters the size of a Volkswagen bus where other "miners" have dug for the treasured thunderegg that Red Top is famous for.  One must only scratch the side of a crater to unearth a plethora of tiny egg-shaped treasures.  It's an amazing place.  I can't wait to make the trip!