Our friends Joan and John offered to take Bob and me out into the desert to look for minerals, something we had never done before. We met up in Hatch, NM at Sparkys, home of the World Famous Green Chili Burger.
And what a cool place this was! Sparkys has a collection of kitschy items that hang on the wall and are tucked into corners. We were greeted by this seal named Harbie, a former gas station mascot.
We also saw Colonal Sanders and Ronald McDonald out front. Over our table was a huge moose head.
After we finished admiring the decor we had a great lunch. We ordered the World Famous Green Chili Hamburgers and I tried the pineapple coleslaw and a lemonade. Yum! I can see why they are World Famous! We will come here again.
Then it was on to the rock hunt. We rode with Joan and John to the entrance of BLM land a little over a mile away. BLM is short for Bureau of Land Management, federally owned land that is open to the public and is often leased to cattle owners for grazing. We drove about 6 miles in, along a dirt road that was in pretty good shape. When we reached a spot where the road had been washed out, we parked and started hunting. It was a pretty area with mountains in the distance, and with temperatures in the 60s we soon shed our jackets. It was a perfect rock hunting day.
Joan gave us a quick lesson in some of the various minerals found in the area, including jasper, black onyx, Quartz, and Druzy, which is a rock that has little sparkly bits that look like sugar embedded in it. I just picked up rocks that looked pretty or interesting.
This one was too big to bring home but shows jasper, a smooth rock that breaks into sharp shards. We had a really nice time meandering in the desert. It was so quiet and peaceful and saw not another soul out there. After a while it was time to return to our car and we made plans to meet up with Joan and John again in February.
I now have a big bag full of rocks and a lot of great memories of our day with our friends. Life is good!
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