Now, this trip is to the world-famous Hauser Geode Beds in the Wiley’s Well District, located about 15 miles south of Interstate 10 off the Wiley’s Well Road exit, which is less than 20 miles west of Blythe. According to another Ross guidebook, “Rockhounding in the Wiley’s Well District of California: The GPS User’s Guide,” the beds are named after Blythe native Joel F. Hauser, who discovered them in the early 1930s after his father, who owned a freight company, noticed the odd, round-shaped rocks on trips between Glamis and Blythe.

Side note: The Bradshaw Trail started in 1862 and was the fastest overland route to the gold fields in La Paz (now Ehrenberg), Ariz., from Los Angeles and San Bernardino. Miners looking to strike it rich, as well as merchants and suppliers, were keen on getting to the gold fields as quick as possible. William Bradshaw was the first to exploit this route through uncharted desert after Chief Cabazon of the Cahuilla Indians befriended and shared with him a map of an ancient Indian trade route, complete with springs and watering holes. Wyatt Earp even rode shotgun on stage along this route, so the legend goes. Today, it is maintained by BLM and is a graded dirt road that you can drive from the eastern side of the Salton Sea along the Chocolate Mountains and past the Hauser Geode Beds, all the way to the Colorado River. It is very remote backcountry, but many off roaders and rockhounds use it. I have taken it a couple of times and love it!

There are several “areas” within Wiley’s Well District to find geodes, and a few twists and turns across some arroyos and over some hills, and we come to the Potato Patch. The first time I came here, I just assumed every round rock was a geode. I would pull over, grab the hammer and go for it – but that is not the case. On the hillside, there are trails and pits where people have dug; underneath all the dark rocks is light sand and dirt that is volcanic ash. The geodes start off as gas bubbles trapped in the ash layer and, over millions of years as water trickles into them with minerals, they solidify. That is a very broad stroke of layman’s terms, by the way.

With gloves and a bucket and a hammer and shovel, you kind of just go for it. A tip from Ross: “It frequently is best to begin digging at an undisturbed surface near a hole that has been dug by another rockhound. Then, if lucky, one can sometimes unearth layer after layer, often starting with large geodes and continuing with progressively smaller ones as one digs deeper.”