Every child must grow up. Sandra Gonzales grew up to be a mother, to work in the healthcare industry for 25 years.

But she never grew out of her childhood passion.

“We went camping every weekend,” she recalls of her Denver upbringing. “We were in the mountains every weekend. And I would be looking around the ground wherever we were.”

She would fill her chest of drawers with rocks, adding weight until the thing broke and her dad had to hammer it back together.

Now Gonzales stocks a colorful collection in a wagon in her front yard — a collection for the neighborhood kids. They are free to take whatever they’d like.

Older kids such as Gonzales, meanwhile, gather twice a year for Colorado’s biggest celebration of all things rock.

Gonzales puts on the Denver Mineral, Fossil, Gem and Jewelry Show, a week-long extravaganza starting Sept. 8 at the National Western Complex. Sellers and buyers from around the world converge in the thousands for what Gonzales calls “nature’s art:” crystals and precious stones from the earth, rocks from space, remains from the days of dinosaurs.

Gonzales is the proud organizer, opting for a place behind the scenes. But, oh yes, she’s very much like everyone else in the crowd: committed to finding the perfect rock.

How to describe her fellow rock hounds? Simple, she says. “We’re rock crazy.”

So crazy that they might hike or drive the rutted, treacherous track up 14,000-foot Mount Antero for rare aquamarine. Gonzales has a claim off the mountain, as she does west of Colorado Springs in the hills of Lake George. The area is renowned for amazonite and smoky quartz. Gonzales also has scrounged around the high elevations of Alma for that land’s great reward: red rhodochrosite.

How to describe Gonzales’ “crazy” tribe?

They are, she says, a mix of geologists with fancy degrees and raggedy youngsters and old-timers with little to no formal education. They know what they’ve read or learned out in the wild. Hound long enough, Gonzales says, and you start to recognize “clues” leading to rich pockets: fault lines and pegmatites.

If you’re starting out, she recommends getting with one of Colorado’s several local clubs dedicated to the hobby. That’s how Gonzales returned to her childhood passion. For the past decade or so, since leaving her healthcare career behind, rocks have been her pursuit.

The childhood curiosity bred by Colorado’s mountains never left.

Similarly, her mother can’t resist the adventure.

“She just turned 85,” Gonzales says. “The season’s coming up, so she’s been doing her treadmill and walking. You gotta keep it going, you know.”