We stayed at The Maverick Inn. Friday night, after dinner at Eric's Deli, we hung out at the fire ring and met an interesting couple who were there on their honeymoon, having just got married.
Alpine is the home of Sul Ross University and a Saturday farmer's market, selling homemade jellies and hand crafts. Downtown is semi-quaint, with an independent bookstore and several "local art" shops.
After the others went home, Mary and I stayed on for a while and visited the museum of Big Bend at the university, then headed out to Woodward Ranch.
Woodward Ranch is the only source of red plume agate, and other gemstones can be found naturally across the land. I was very excited and imagined we would travel home with buckets full of wonderful agates that I could show off to Andrew, the geologist.
Upon arrival, you are welcomed by two very enthusiastic, and slightly intimidating dogs, and then the nice landowner shows you what characteristics you need to look for on your rock hunt. You are then given a metal bucket and told where to drive and where to avoid, based on the limits of your vehicle.
Like any good parent, my first response to my child being
mauled by "intimidating dogs" is to take a photo.
I think she mistook my Outlander for a Jeep. After a two mile drive down a dirt track, the roads became very 4x4 and I needed a 17 point turn to get my Outlander out of a very sticky situation. We parked up at a few sites on the way back and hunted for our loot.
Looking at examples in the rock shop, the job sounded very easy, "look for a rock like this". Okay!
These are some examples of what we might have found
This is what we found.
Apparently, we failed miserably. Mary picked up any rock that looked a little sparkly, and I followed directions and picked up anything that slightly resembled a "cookie". The lady checked over our bucket and sympathetically allowed us to keep our stash at no charge. She then gave Mary a shark tooth and let her hold some petrified dinosaur poop.
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