Kelly, New Mexico

Me and my best friend Inu have been out of town for a couple of days. We took our little teardrop trailer and hooked it up behind the Toyota Corolla and headed North. Well out of range of the cell phone.

The primary purpose of the trip was to go to Kelly, New Mexico to search for fluorescent rocks. Kelly is a ghost town about 20 miles West of Socorro and about 3 or 4 miles South of Magdalena.

Kelly is a an old mining ghost town located in the mountains at N 34.08326m W-107.20485. Its elevation above sea level is about 7,489 ft (2.304 meters). Not THAT high, but for sure high enough that your breathing notices it when you are walking up the hill carrying a bag of fluorescent rocks.

In the 1880’s Kelly was central New Mexico’s most prosperous mining town. Silver was mined there from the 1860’s and in 1903 it because a major source of zinc carbonate which is an important ingredient in paint. Now a little over 100 years later there is very little left of the town. A few house foundations and concrete stairs here and there leading to nowhere. And massive mine tailings.

I really don’t know why those areas associated with zinc mining seem to be so productive for us glow rock freaks, but in my experience they seem to be.

We got there late afternoon, and we parked next to the old church. There are cattle grazing unfenced right there, and my little Shiba Inu doggie who likes to think he is king of the world had a marvellous time pretending to be a border collie. He was especially thrilled with herding away from our camp site the massive bull with the big cajones and the really big horns! Honest. Inu absolutely got off on it.

We spent one night there.

It was the first time that Inu and I had spent the night together out in the wild. In my little teardrop trailer I’ve got lights, a heater, a microwave oven, and a good sound system (with 4,000 songs including all the Beatles songs). All is powered by the sun via photovoltaic cells and a nice big lead acid battery.

In the middle of the night I had to go outside and wee. Inu took the opportunity to go for a walk about around the forest for about 45 minutes. He loved it, and he did indeed finally come home.

It was a nice productive area for fluorescent rocks.

I had several battery powered UV lights with me, and Don Newsome’s shortwave Ultra Brite II won out hands down.

There was nice red fluorescing calcite everywhere.

Less common was the two colored blue/white fluorescing hydrozincite with traces of calcite, and there was a small amount of nice bright green willemite.