This is actually our second trip through Deming, New Mexico.
The Deming Luna Mimbres Museum has quite a wonderful collection of artifacts from frontier life, crafts and the largest Mimbres pottery collection on display. The 2-story building also features rocks and geodes, military items, an art gallery and antique vehicles to name a few. The pottery collection from the Mimbres Indians is really the highlight attraction because of the number of items they have on display. We both feel it’s first class just for this reason. We of course were drawn to the collection of rocks and geodes that were on display.
The Mimbres Indians buried pottery with their dead under the floor of their homes. Pots depict wedding ceremonies, christenings, babies, children playing and Grandfather telling stories. Also the pottery told the story of their lives regarding their dress, hair styles weapons and their activities – hunting, snaring birds and ceremonial dancing. The Mimbres Indians lived along the Mimbres River and occupied the Deming, Silver City and Lordsburg area from 950 to 100 A.D.
 | The pottery was painted with a Yucca leaf chewed into a brush. Paints were made from the minerals in the earth. Designs were geometric and naturalistic (animals, human). |
When touring the room dedicated to all servicemen across all branches (and through all of the wars fought), it was great to see how they were being honored by each display case. Some of the more unique pictures are those of Tokyo Rose, a group of servicemen shaped into the head of a horse, General Pershing from WWI, and one of the best pistols ever made (per Jeff) a Model 1911, 45 caliber Colt. This area’s military history includes Fort Cummings (1863), Camp Cody (WWI) Deming Army Air Base (WWII) and a memorial to heroes of the Bataan Death March.
The gems and minerals exhibit was good. Since we are truly novices in many ways, it’s always good to continue to learn about rock hounding. For instance, what is a geode or a thunder egg? It might not mean anything to most of you, but for us it is always good to learn. We stopped in at a local rock shop and found out that thunder eggs became a word that meant solid, whereas geode means hollow. Thunder egg is an American Indian name. The Indians believed that these nodules were missiles cast by the Thunder Gods living in the volcanoes of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. Good thing to know – all species of nodules are nodules, whether they are hollow or not. Only when a nodule is hollow, can it be correctly called a geode.
These pictures from the museum are of thunder eggs.
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 | You’ll notice the large one in front that is not completely solid, but the ones on either side of it (blue in color) are. The one that is brown and round has not been cut yet. Just imagine what it might look like. |
These pictures were some of our favorite rocks and gems that were on display. Now that we know what the Fire Agate looks like, we can start searching for it. Guess what, we do believe that we have found a couple of them. Can’t wait until we get them home and into our rock polisher!
 | This is a piece of petrified wood. Quite a beautiful stone, don’t you think? A piece of wood that is many years old – quite amazing! |
We ventured into a very large room that housed antique vehicles. As you can see, Jeff particularly enjoyed the 1920’s fire truck.
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It was now time for us to try our hand at some local rock hounding, so it seemed appropriate to start at - Rockhound State Park. The park which has a campground is located a the foot of the Little Florida (pronounced “flo rita”) Mountains. This mountain is made of volcanic mud called rhyolite. Silica minerals, quartz crystals, chalcedony, blue agate and white and pink common opal may be found within the park area. One of the more predominate colors of jasper are here also. Can’t forget the nodules, know as thunder eggs – and geodes – filled with either agate or common crystals.
So . . . did we find any? We did find some rocks that we liked and have a couple of what we think might be geodes, because of how light they feel. Jeff is going to break them before we leave so we will see just how lucky we were. We had so much fun and could rock hound for hours. We hope that you enjoy the pictures of the State Park, as well as the drive that we took from the park – about three miles south to Spring Canyon. With an elevation close to 7,800 ft. it didn’t seem uncommon to see a sign indicating caution and a 17% grade for driving, proving to us that this area is more rugged than the park.
Deming proved to be a good stop for us.
Hugs
Be thankful for the bad things in life: for they open your eyes to the good things you weren’t paying attention to before!
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