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Thursday, March 12, 2009 - Rockhound State Park, Deming NM

Big cat, City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM, February 19, 2009
Big cat, City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM, February 19, 2009

Time to hit the road, with a stop in Deming for a quick tour of the 44th annual Rockhound Roundup.

To quote an article in the Deming Headlight:

Rockhound Roundup kicks off today
By Kevin Buey/Headlight Staff
Posted: 03/12/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

Rockhounders were arranging their booths and display areas Wednesday at the Southwestern New Mexico State Fairgrounds.

They expect a crowd of people today through Sunday for the 44th annual Rockhound Roundup.

A short line was at a booth in front of Building 1, Wednesday, as folks registered for field trips that are part of the roundup.

Richard Jones, from Lajoya, Texas, is here with his wife, Donna. They are first-time visitors to the roundup. "Love the area," he said of Deming. "We're thinking of moving here.

"We bought a claim the other side of Hachita. I didn't realize there was this event. I'm interested in learning. I'll be new at rockhounding."

The first field trips are at 8:30 a.m., today, to Big Diggins, with John Ewert leading people looking for good Agate samples, and Joe Morone talking a group to Hatch to find Rhyolite and Fossils. Other field trips are Friday and Saturday, to Big Diggins, to Kilborne Hole, east of Columbus off Highway 9, and Black Dam, to the southwest in the Coronado National Forest. The registration line will be longer today.

Night camp

Site 5 - Rockhound State Park, Deming NM

Life is to be Lived, Not Controlled

No indeed, the world is just as concrete, ornery, vile and sublimely wonderful as before, only now I better understand my relation to it and it to me. I lived a public life and attempted to function under the assumption that the world was solid and all the relationships therein. Now I know men are different and that all life is divided and that only in division is there true health. Hence again I have stayed in my hole, because up above there's an increasing passion to make men conform to a pattern.

.... Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? - diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that were to happen. .....Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.

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