Weekend trip - Sunday - success at last!!

On Sunday we finally did what, in hindsight, we should have done first on this trip. Then we could have spent the rest of the weekend lounging around the pool at the hotel sipping mixed drinks. I'm just kidding. Although it wasn't as productive as we had hoped it would be, the rock hunting was fun and we spent time together as a family.

What we did is we finally visited Richardson's Rock Ranch (http://richardsonrockranch.com/). This was originally a 20,000 acre cattle ranch whose owner decided 30+ years ago to let people come dig thunder eggs out of the beds located here. I imagine it snowballed from there. These pictures show the TONS of rocks he has from all over the world. There are separate piles of rose quartz, petrified wood, obsidian, uncut geodes, etc., priced by the pound. All this is in addition to all the cut, polished, and otherwise improved rock he has inside his large shop. Although the shop itself would have been worth the trip, we were here to finally score some thunder eggs. We took our rock picks and buckets and headed out for yet another long, dusty ride over rutted roads to get to the beds.

Success at last!! Once we got the hang of it, finding and digging out

these little beauties was surprisingly easy. See that rounded object in the center of the picture? That is a thunder egg jutting half-out of the surrounding rock. In a couple hours, we collected about thirty between the four of us and headed back to the shop to have them cut open to reveal their inner beauty.

I'm sure it says something about me that I liked the guaranteed success involved in this last trip. They told us what to look for, where to dig, and even supplied us with the tools. --And I'm okay with that.

After a late lunch, we headed back home, where the boys fell into bed without complaint as soon as we got inside (around 9:00). I think they were asleep within minutes of laying down. I know I was.