Drusilla Claridge has combined a fascination with history and an appetite for the outdoors since coming to New Mexico 23 years ago. She has participated in reenactments of the Rocky Mountain fur trade rendezvous, wearing authentic period Cheyenne clothing, and sleeping in a teepee. She has handled horses since she was a teenager, and has travelled horseback in the Gila Wilderness. She frequents New Mexico's hot springs, and has participated in a sweatlodge ceremony conducted by a Jicarilla Apache.
Dru worked on the Gila National Forest as a fire lookout in 1979, 1988, and 1989. The journal she kept was excerpted in a piece published by Stackpole Books. The book, Go Tell It On the Mountain, an anthology of lookout writing, includes the works of Edward Abbey, Doug Peacock, Jackie Johnson Maughan and others. In the summer of 1996 Claridge went back to tower work.
Dru worked on the historic districts of Silver City, New Mexico, reading nineteenth century newspapers, conducting oral history interviews, and photographing historic adobe buildings. Her work, writing technical documents on the history and architecture of Southwest New Mexico, allowed significant properties to be listed with the National and State Registries of Historic Places.
In the late 1980s, she lived in remote Quemado, New Mexico, and reported for the Catron County Courier. She also visited every lookout tower on the Gila National Forest, photographing them for the U.S Forest Service.
Her historical novel, Peacock Ore, is now available from 1st Books Library. The book depicts two cultures and their fight over the Mogollon mining district in the 1870's. On one side was the great Apache chief Victorio, with his sister Lozen, warrior and medicine woman; on the other was Sergeant James Cooney, with his Irish miners. The Silver City Daily Press pronounced it a "must read for Southwest history buffs." To order a copy, call 1-888-280-7715, or visit www.1stbooks.com .
In addition to writing, Dru also creates desert landscape pastels.
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So you can't pick up rocks just anywhere, but the good news is the State of New Mexico, knowing a rockhound lurks within everyone, created Rockhound State Park just for the purpose of picking up rocks. In the Florida Mountains, just outside of Deming, the park is accessible from either the Columbus road, Highway 11, or the frontage road (State Highway 418) east of town.
I visited Rockhound State Park with a true rockhound, and having my friend along really added to the experience. I got over rockhounding years ago - these little treasures never looked as good in my back yard as they had in the wild, so I learned to let them lie. (Call these rocks 'leverite': "leave 'er right there.") Some people never get over it, though. These are the true rockhounds, and whether the rock is easily pocketed or not has nothing to do with it.
Somehow my friend and I got away without certain tools necessary to the rockhounder. She forgot to wear pants with pockets, and I completely forgot my geologist's rock hammer. Nor did we wear adequate clothing - we thought it would be warm in Deming in January, and in fact a very cold wind blew out of the west all day. We layered on everything we had with us, and struck out for the "Thunder Egg Trail." (Thunder egg is another name for geode.)
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We began picking up rocks. It was my friend's oohing and aahing that did it, not me. The more excited she became, the more I noticed the fantastic colors and shapes of the rocks around us. Into my pockets went choice pieces.
My friend's dream is to take a pack animal out rockhounding; as we walked, we debated the relative merits of goats or llamas for the job. Inspecting a rock too big to hand-carry, she said, "The goat could handle that!"
"This one could go in the llamas' packs," I said, toeing a red and purple rock bigger than a loaf of bread.
"The llamas could pull this one in a cart!" my friend said, pointing to a rock that would make a small piece of furniture.
And so it went, while we picked up pieces to take home with us. Chocolate jasper, purple and red rocks - rocks that seemed to contain some map or message from another world, if we could only decipher it. We admired the flora, too: Large prickly pear and barrel cacti grow at Rockhound, as well as the ocotillo and chaparral of the Upper Sonoran Zone.
When the trail crossed a hillside exposed to the cold wind, we turned back. Depositing our treasures in the back of the car, we turned on the heater and drove two more miles down the road to an extension of Rockhound State Park, Spring Canyon. From this road, I was astonished to see the Organ Mountains at Las Cruces in the distance, and fascinated to see the rock eminences of the Florida Mountains at close range. The gate was locked at Spring Canyon, but we could see the road went up into a park below the rugged peaks of the Floridas. We saw green and lavendar rock, completely different from what we had seen at Rockhound, by the road in Spring Canyon.
We vowed to come back sometime in the spring, when the weather is warmer but not too hot. The campsites at Rockhound have the requisite picnic tables, trash receptacles, and bathroom facilities. Their position on the hillside, overlooking the entire area from the Burro Mountains to the Cobre Mountains of Santa Rita and Cooke's Peak, even giving views of the Cedar Mountains on the Mexican border, is inviting.
When we go back there to camp, I will take the Thunder Egg trail all the way to the top of the ridge above Rockhound, watching for the wondrous colors and patterns of nature's making. I will also go to Spring Canyon and pick up rocks there. (Oh, alright, I never did get over lugging rocks home!) One could even go into Deming for Chinese food. I recommend Fat Eddy's at the Holiday Inn, just outside of town, as a good place to eat also.
Information about Rockhound State Park is available at the Chamber of Commerce in Deming - look for the old train station with the locomotive sitting next to the road. And if you can't hire a pack animal or a llama pulling a cart, at least wear pants with pockets. You'll want them.