Gold Mine Rock Shop

Our next stop was at the Gold Mine Rock Shop across the street from Echo Canyon in Canyon City, Colorado. It was not part of our agenda for the trip as we had not read about it when we did our research on places to visit in Colorado. However, we decided to stop by as Sharon collects rocks.

Sharon's love for rocks started when she was very little when I first showed her a pebble and said, "See how smooth it feels? Mommy used to collect rocks when I was little." She asked to keep that pebble and since then brings home rocks of all colors, texture and sizes. Her backpack would be invariantly heavy and I had to restrict her at one point that she can not bring home big rocks and only one rock per day.

You can imagine her delight visiting this rock shop. Though it appeared small from the outside it was huge with a wide range of collection starting from lava to calcite formations. Most of these rocks are from the Colorado mountains which are broken down as part of the Gold mining process. There are some from the neighboring states and from other countries as far as Brazil.

We purchased some green, blue quartz and amber and jasper for children and their Science teachers. Joshua wanted a geode. Geodes are rocks with internal cavities filled with crystal formations or other chalcedony deposits. I love agates, a thin cross section of a geode showing the varying thickness of multi color bands and translucent in nature.

For the rock enthusiasts among us here are some pictures...