we luv rocks!

after leaving hueco, we made our way further west.  while in new mexico, we found a lot of non-climbing activities that still involved rocks!

city of rocks
no, not the City of Rocks in Idaho!  altho i think you can climb here.  it is a park full of cool boulders and rock formations.  its almost like a maze of boulders with corridors and passages.

naturally formed

you can barely see the sun in the background

im standing on a rock that is balanced on top of that little rock underneath it

rockhound state park
at this state park, you pay a $5 fee and you can keep all the rocks and minerals that you find!  sounds rather silly since i guess you can do that anywhere, but these rocks are pretty!  ;)  really, there are true rockhounders who go to remote places in search of precious gems and stones (duh duhhh - do you feel the foreshadowing??).  we're still learning how to identify a lot of these stones, but it sure is fun to look for cool rocks!  ;)

at the entrance

digging..

and more digging

turquoise mining
yep you guessed it!  we went rockhounding for turquoise!  it started with me mentioning that it'd be cool to have some turquoise jewelry.  jason says, i bet we can just find that lying around somewhere.  he does some research online, and wallah - finds a guy who posted something about an abandoned quarry somewhere in new mexico, and he left his contact information on the site.  jason contacts him and they exchange a few emails.  eventually, they chat on the phone.  he's really nice and very helpful.  we find that this isnt the safest actvity.  the quarry is far back in the middle of nowhere, and the dirt roads can be treacherous.  he strongly recommends that we tell someone where we are going, and be sure to contact that person (jason's mom) at the end of our day when we are safe and sound.  the guy we talked to is the volunteer fire chief for the nearby town (and by town, i mean a cross-street that has about 4 buildings).  he actually told us to give out his contact information just in case we never got back in touch.  apparently, one time, a guy went back there and got stuck there for 10 days!  no one knew where he was and he almost didnt survive the ordeal.  it was a little nerve-wrecking but we were still in for it :)

and the trip was a success!  we had to hike an hour to get into the quarry area.  and we had to hike up and down about three different hilltops.  but eventually, we found true turquoise!

the start of the journey

ruins of the mining facility

more digging!