I started planning my trip to New Mexico back in December after making contact with a Guide out there in the Albuquerque area, that said he could take us to a few locations where we could find some pretty rocks. I let him know we were not new to rockhunting, that my crew had a lot of experience collecting rocks and even digging them from the ground and rock walls both. Every time I made contact with him again tho, it was like starting out new again, I dont think he was taking notes like I do when someone in charge of a group contacts me about going rockhounding with me here in Missouri. He did start to take me seriously the closer we got to the actual trip tho. He came highly recommended by a few friends of mine who have hounded with him, so I figured he knew what he was doing and would take care of us since we were going to pay him for his services, and so I didnt worry about it as I continued to put the trip together. 

During the few snows we had this winter, I was racking up alot of hours on my computer researching the trip…Michael, the NM Guide, sent me a photo of Dogtooth Calcites ringing a plate of blue Fluorite cubes one evening, said he might be able to take us up to this location, it was up pretty high and in the northern part of the state. I was pretty sure in my mind, that everyone in my group would be fine looking for something like this….

…but later on in the planning, he told me it was going to be impossible to get up that high due to all the snow they had received this winter, so we had to go with Plan B on the last day of collecting. 

Early in February one evening, I was researching Desert Roses found in Southeast Arizona, near a little town called St David, which is south of Benson a few miles. The deeper I dug, the more information I came up with, but only a few sites were giving particulars on how to get to the areas where they are found…I was totally avoiding the You Tube page because there were several you tubers on there talking about going to St David and finding the Desert Roses, but they were not giving any info out on how to get there unless you paid them for the info…bad enough they are making money on their videos by their followers, but then they want even more money for the location info. Luckily there were some folks that did give out info on how to get there, and at no cost to anyone watching. One evening I came across a guy named Rolf, who has a rock and art gallery in the St David area, and was a well known collector of Desert Roses, over a span of 40 years. I thought his name sounded familiar, and looked back at the notes and emails I had exchanged with John O, over the last ten years, and came across his notes to me about a friend of his named Rolf, who had a rock shop in the Bisbee area and knew every square inch of ground in southeast Arizona and what could be found there. I sent Rolf an email at three email addresses that were listed online, and to his wife through messenger on Facebook, but didnt hear back from him. I mentioned it to Anita Williams, who is a good friend and lives in the Silver City area…she offered to drive down there and check it out for me. 

Anita drove down there the next day and met Rolf at the Art and Rock Gallery, visited with him for a while and obtained a good email addy for me, as well as a good cell phone number for him. He and I began talking that evening and made plans to meet up with him on Sunday morning, March 1st, which was our first day of collecting, at his Sunshine Art and Rock Gallery. Rolf wouldn`t be able to go with us to show us the way there,  but was able to describe to me where we could find some good roses and some other areas close by as well.

He told me that many of the good places, where he had collected even better roses, were now owned by corporations and fenced off, or inaccessible for other reasons. Carl and Valorie, in my personal group, stopped off in that area on their way home from the Tucson Show, and were able to find some and let me know, too.

If anyone would like to see Rolf`s photos of Desert Roses, go to this link on Mindat, he wrote many articles over the last 40 years for Mindat.   

https://www.mindat.org/gl/134557

I was also able to make contact with the new ” controlling interest ” owner of the Blanchard Mine and Mike was open to us going to the Blanchard one day while there to collect some more Fluorite and Barite, as well as some of the other beautiful minerals found there, such as Linnarite, Brochantite, and Chrysacolla. He told me that he would meet us at Bingham and lead us up to the mine, where he would have us sign a release form, and each of us would pay him $ 50 to collect there for the day. Initially he indicated that he would allow us to collect and fill one five gallon bucket during the whole day, but he relaxed that requirement when we got up there. All of us were willing to pay another fifty dollars to collect and fill another bucket, but as it was, didn`t have to do that.

  A few days later, I texted Eddie, a mine owner of several claims in the Orogrande area, who we had visited with three years ago when out there last, took him some geodes for the children that he teaches about rocks and minerals at area schools near Alamogordo each year. I had reached out to him back in December, and he was very open to taking us to a couple of different mines than we went to 3 years before. When I texted him in February tho, he was having some serious PTSD issues, they were giving him severe migraine headaches and he asked me to remind him who I was and what we had set up or talked about before. Once I did that, he was good to go and remembered what we had talked about. He offered to take us to a couple of mines closer to town and also offered to take us to one of his mines in the Bingham area, so that took care of two collecting days for the trip.

By the end of the first week of February, I had the trip lined out and all I had to do was contact NM Guide Michael again and nail down where he could take us as well, which turned out to be Nacimiento Copper Mine north of Albuqerque, and I set that up for the last day of collecting. Here is the schedule that I set up for the trip this year….

Feb 27th  — Up Early and Drive to Tucumcari, NM

Feb 28th —  Drive to Deming and stop at Belen, along the way, to look for Jasper/Agate

Mar 1st  —  Lead Group to St David, Arizona to Rolf`s Sunshine Gallery With Morning                         Hunt for Desert Roses & Then Lordburg, NM for Copper Minerals

Mar 2nd —  Orogrande Mining District With Eddie at Two New Mines All Day

Mar 3rd —   Deming Area  Fluorite Ridge Possibly Hike Up To Old Tailing Piles

Mar 4th —   Deming Area  Fluorite Ridge Again, Then Drive to Socorro

Mar 5th —  Blanchard Lead & Barite Mine in Bingham Area

Mar 6th —  Bingham Area 2 of Eddie`s Mines, Then Drive to Albuquerque

Mar 7th —  Michael NM Guide Taking Us to Nacimiento Copper Mine

Mar 8th — Head for Home

It was a good plan and several signed up to go, we wound up with about a dozen going, including 4 rockhounds new to my personal group, 2 were experienced rockhounds and 2 were newbie rockhounds. What I didn`t see coming, or expect to happen, was that I came down with a stomach bug the evening of the 3rd day…after collecting at St David, Arizona…I had a fever at the hotel and broke it that night, which meant I was not contagious after that, but I was not able to eat solid food nor drink much water without the need to find a bathroom fast, and we all know how tough it is to find a bathroom out in the desert.

A couple of days in and I was on the computer talking to my Nurse Practitioner by messages, and she told me to get the new Immodium tablets for Multiple Symptoms…I had already picked some up and was taking them each morning at 5 am, to get things under control as quickly as possible. Then I would go meet the crew at breakfast at the restaurant…I was able to eat scrambled eggs and buttered toast without too many issues, for energy and protein daily, and my NP suggested banana`s as well for morning meals….that worked out for me better than the eggs and light toast did. She also suggested gatorade instead of my spiked water…I spike my grape propel bottled water with 2 tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar and she knows that…she said that the ACV would likely upset my stomach in my present condition and make things worse for me. Valorie had extra gatorade and gave me a couple of bottles of it, and it worked well for me at Orogrande…thanks again Valorie, much appreciated. It was tough, but I got thru the week doing that day after day, putting aside the discomfort that I felt to get my crew to each location each day…sometimes like the day at Blanchard Mine, I was able to collect and dig with them all day long, other days like at Orogrande, I stayed inside my truck with Onyx much of the day and catnapped. 

Randy Gentry and Mike Mangrum let me know that they were going to drive to Tucumcari as well and spend the night there, too. In years past on the other trips out there, I had always driven to Tucumcari and spent the night at a renovated motel called Budget Inn in the downtown area on the main drag west side of the strip. The new owners had done a great job remodeling it and everything was cozy inside the rooms, lots of spacious parking area and quiet on that side of town, too. This year, I tried several times and was not able to contact anyone there, by phone or email, so I looked for another hotel and found one online called the Desert Inn, and the rooms looked great and the prices were only like $ 60 a night, so I booked my room for the 27th there. Randy and Mike decided to stay there too, and shortly after I arrived, I spotted David Hodge`s white pickup parked there too. Randy and Mike were an hour or two out yet and had stopped along the way for dinner, so David and I drove down to Del`s Diner, a very popular eating spot in Tucumcari, for dinner. This place had been owned by a well known local guy named Del, for many years but we found out when we arrived, that it was now under new ownership, and we also found out soon after, that the food was delicious under the new ownership, too.

The next morning, after breakfast at Del`s Diner and fueling up near the hotel, the four of us headed west on I-40 to Albuquerque, then south on I-25 to Belen. I had stopped off on my second trip to New Mexico, at this location out just southwest of the Belen Airport, pulling off the main road on to a four wheeler trail about a hundred yards, and started finding Agates and Jaspers all over the Desert Floor as soon as I got out of my truck. Within 30 minutes I had half a five gallon bucket of Agates and Jaspers. The washes out there were hot spots for them and the further west you drove down Marble Quarry Road, the more you could find…the area looking kind of like the Badlands…the locals called it a canyon…way down there is a river, Rio Puerco I believe it is called, and on the other side of the river, you are on Indian Reservation land and cannot collect there without a written permit. After about 90 minutes of collecting, we headed on south on I-25 to Hatch, and then southwest on Hwy 26 over to Deming. Most of us were staying at the La Quinta Inn and Suites on the east side of Deming, and we drove down there to get checked in. 

To Be Continued….