Tripometer – 13,160 mi
Gas Gauge – 1002.257 gal
Location – Rock Hound State Park, Deming, NM
Lodging – $14
Cans of OFF – 4
With the work week behind us, we intended to do some serious rock hounding today. Being almost absolute novices at rockhounding in the Southwest, and certainly completely ignorant of the rocks and minerals to be found in the state park, our first stop was the visitors center in the state park. The visitors center was constructed in the early two thousands and it was clear to us that they designed the displays specifically for rock enthusiasts. Our camp host, the same woman who helped us get into a site two days ago, was also behind the counter and our chief source of information on the park and the rocks to be found within. Once again we were impressed with her knowledge and willingness to help. After speaking for quite some time and gathering all of the information that she was willing to give, we decided to visit the lapidary just outside the park entrance.
We have driven by the little rock shop at the base of the mountain a few times since we’ve been in this park and have joked a couple of times that the shop is more of a “de-lapidary” than a lapidary given its appearance. As it is the only rock shop within a mile of the state park, we figured they would likely be an excellent source of information on the rocks to be found up in the mountains here. Rock people are a special breed. The owner of this shop was no exception to this rule and as expected when we walked into the place we were waylaid for almost two hours discussing everything from the tremendous selection of geodes and thunder eggs on display in the shop to religion, politics, food, weather, geological processes, climate change, the sexual revolution of the ‘70s and, of all things, railroads. We don’t think the old fellow in the rock shop gets many visitors, but he was certainly interesting to talk with!
We left the delapidary with instructions to climb the washes in search of both agate and ‘thunder eggs’. This area is known to be a rich source of geodes. Thunder eggs are formed by the same process as geodes but instead of being hollow rocks with crystal formations lining the inside, thunder eggs are solid structures that have been completely filled with crystallized material. The delapidary had many sliced open thunder eggs on display and for sale and they were gorgeous (and also tremendously expensive). Possibly the most frustrating aspect of looking for thunder eggs and geodes is that they appear to be normal looking roundish rocks with no striking exterior features. There are two ways to find out if you have a gorgeous specimen – 1) smash open the geode with a hammer thereby destroying the beautiful interior OR 2) cut open the sample with a rock saw or the like… which we don’t have. The folks at the delapidary told us that if we found a single thunder egg on the mountain we should consider ourselves lucky. Not the brightest outlook.
The weather on the mountain today was extremely windy. We returned to camp in the late afternoon with every intention of climbing the mountain in search of the perfect thunder eggs, but were put off by the sheer force of wind whipping around the mountain. When we set up the trailer we have what look like four car jacks, one under each corner of the trailer to minimize movement caused by people inside the trailer and the wind. With as much movement as we were experiencing in the trailer today, it honestly felt as though we hadn’t put the jacks down at all. Instead of braving the wind on the mountainside we decided to spend the rest of the evening in camp reading and watching a bit of TV. Our campground is located just high enough on the side of this mountain that we have excellent TV reception. Something we haven’t had in quite a while.