Growing up With Rocks

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https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1mDZjAFXDggVIQDDgKSSDwl9dzaC6xsJi
Road up to McDonald Observatory 
Spring 1964

Looking back, I’ve always had a fascination with rocks. I’m not good with remembering the names of them, but I do enjoy looking at them, touching them, sniffing them...and yes even listening to them as I thump them with another hard object. 

And on occasion, I have been known to lick a rock or two. 

Psychologist say that the formative years, those first five years of a child life, sets a life foundation for a child. I guess growing up in the West Texas Desert set me up for seeing beauty where people see bareness. 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=152_BWD75jHxvoEmiyP0BpWFBmEEVHLIqDaddy and Me at McDonald Observatory 
Spring 1964

I can remember many a trip with my Mom and Dad and cousins to the Rock Pile near the Davis Mountains. Easters were spent looking for brightly colored boiled eggs amongst the white rocks of the terrain. 

No green grass for us. 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=11GA1I3zYnBJ9qM8JUO_v7t-V6GABfZyF
Rock Pile near Ft Davis
Easter 1964

And even as we got older and more cousins were added, most Easters you could find us there. Climbing rocks and chasing each other over hard packed dirt and dust. 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1LNaX1J2bUqJ8YUmc5ZnqDTbd6UfVcgO-

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1ci8KyOg_xUy0jrR1JljSaFDCK57Sgy_G
Rock Pile
Me,  brother Chris, Cousins Yvonne and Pete
Around Easter 1966

To me, a foreign view is one filled with forest and lots of green grass. My heart instead longs for the wide open meadows and plains of west Texas and the mountains that surrounds them. 

The winding road to the Observatory and to Ft Davis will forever be etched on my mind. 

Getting to hike as a little girl while my Daddy held my hand...nothing compares. 

Picnics filled with all the good stuff my Mom and Aunt made...no better way to eat. 

Getting to take home rocks. Smile time!

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