Rock Hound State Park, Deming, NM

Author: Our Grandson, Jack, age 13

Today we are on our way to Rock Hound State Park (RHSP) and its sister park, Spring Canyon. Rock Hound encourages visitors to hunt for rock and geodes. Just before we got to the park entrance, we stopped at a small adobe building with a sign that said, “Rock Shop and Museum.” Outside the building were piled separate mounds of large and small unbroken gray rocks. There were also two tables of rocks that had been sawed open revealing the impressive geodes and thunder eggs on the inside. We walked into the dusty, crowded building to find it jam-packed with rock specimens collected and polished by the owner, Christopher. He introduced himself and told us all about the rocks in the area, how to collect them, and their mineral content. He said to bring back the rocks that we collected from the mountain, and he would tell us what he knew about them. We drove over to Spring Canyon for a picnic lunch. The Canyon was a place among the Florida Mountains between two steep rocky faces. My brother, Lincoln, and I took a hike up the steep side of the mountain next to our picnic table. We returned to RHSP and looked around the visitor center and watched a video that told about the park and the rocks that we would be allowed to take with us. We found lots of rocks with traces of quartz and some jasper but no geodes or thunder eggs. We also found volcanic rocks, one was basalt and the other two were black. The definitions were given to us by Christopher when we stopped after our hike. We then drove to Deming for refreshments and back to camp for a relaxing evening. --Jack