November 12, 2018
Hi Blog!After spending the morning hiking around City of Rocks State Park, we decided to head over to Rockhound State Park for an afternoon of -- you guessed it -- rock hounding. All national parks and most state parks practice the "leave no trace" principle. They ask that you take only photos and leave only footprints. However, Rockhound State Park actually promotes collecting. Here's Dusty posing next to the Rockhound rock sign.
Our first stop was the Visitor's Center where we talked to the park ranger about collecting rocks.
There were several display tables with samples of the minerals in the area, including thunder eggs, quartz crystals, geodes, jasper, perlite, obsidian and many others. Here is a sample of the samples.
The park is located on the side of the Little Florida Mountains, a range of low mountains, three miles long, situated south of Deming, New Mexico. While rocks can be found all over the hillside, the highest concentrations are in the washes and ravines. Dave surveys the best route up the side of the mountain.
When you rock hound, you spend a lot of time looking down. Sometimes you have to remind yourself to look up and take in the view. High above the campground, this little fishhook barrel cactus is just starting to bloom.
With so many rocks, it's hard to choose. Kathy found one she wanted to keep, but David balked at carrying it back to camp.
As the afternoon wore on, the clouds began to roll in. The temperatures dropped into the 40s. Time to head back to camp and go over what we found.
We laid out our booty on the kitchen table. It may take a couple days to sort through them all and decided which ones make the cut.
In the meantime, we got to enjoy a New Mexico sunset.
Next stop, Wilcox, Arizona, where we hope it's a lot warmer than here!
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