Goodbye Big Bend, Hello New Mexico
In the last few days of being in the Big Bend region, I got a chance to accompany a paleo expert to visit a newly discovered dino site. They’re all over the area, but the locations in the parks are pretty well-hidden, and the rest of the region is private land, so it was a really special thing to get access to a relatively inaccessible place! I got to actually HOLD a vertebrae in my hand, and it was a really amazing feeling. I was shaking!
Besides the hadrosaur bones, we also saw fossil turtle shell, lots of other bone fragments, huge agates unlike anything I’d found before, and petrified wood. Due to its paleo significance, we didn’t collect anything, but the video I made of the trip shows all the cool stuff.
The trip to New Mexico was rather uneventful, and I didn’t stop anywhere along the way, except I did find one gigantic agate in the river rock landscaping at a love’s truck stop In pecos, Texas. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already seen it. Haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it yet, but I have it!
I had made big, big plans for an artesia / roswell / clovis / ruidoso / carlsbad kind of trip and it just didn’t pan out that way. But I DID make it to Artesia for Pecos Valley Diamonds - twice! I used BLM’s arcGIS web app to figure out where the public lands were and began my search there. I uploaded a fun video about the whole thing, if you want to learn about Pecos Valley Diamonds, and see how to find them for yourself!
I hunted in two locations, both BLM land, and came away with a ton of crystals! Beautiful, beautiful quartz crystals, most of which were double-terminated, and the colors are just astounding.
I spent some time exploring the area, finding some nice restaurants, looking at houses (because why not?), and taking a ton of pics and videos.
And, really, that was kind of it. I wish I had way more to tell about. I don’t see myself getting back up to NM anytime real soon, so I’m glad I got to enjoy it while I was there and had the opportunity. I always loved my visits as a kid and those memories with my family are unmatched. This was a close second, though.
