2024 October entries

The T-Rex Agate Shop

by Nicole Sucaldito

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Like most kids growing up in the 90’s, I had a fascination with dinosaurs and collecting rocks. I remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theaters at the age of five. Yes, most definitely too young even iif my mom did cover my eyes when the lawyer got eaten off the toilet.  I remember my first rock collection purchased from a garage sale, which looked like the kind you buy at a science museum gift shop: six rocks glued to a cardboard sheet, labeled accordingly. I remember searching for stones in the backyard, my mom’s landscape rocks, and especially up north on the beaches of Black Lake. Always finding one that looked so special, seven-year-old me jjust KNEW it had to be a rare find.  Something that would pay for unlimited Disney vacations and a mansion like the movies, only to find out that it was basalt or granite at best.  An old chunk of concrete at worst. Never mind the disappointment when I pulled the colorful stones from the water, only for them to fade and lose that shine, becoming dull, because what seven year old knows that you need a rock tumbler?  

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My collection didn’t grow very big and within a few years I was on to the next obsession.  And even worse, middle school came around and any scientific interest deemed “nerdy” was quickly discarded. The rocks were thrown back in the yard or given away. My notebook with a drawing and description of each dinosaur species thrown to the bottom of the trash can. Cool clothes, boys, and gossip is front of mind.  If we’re lucky, getting good grades and finding an extracurricular activity makes its way to the list of priorities as well.  Rocks, dinos, and everything in between had fallen far from mind.

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There was a quick moment in college when I took a geology course as an elective. Volcanoes, sedentary rocks, mineral labs.  For a moment I thought hey, maybe this is what I should do.  But just like that, the six week spring semester was over, my parents almost had heart attacks that I even thought about a career in geology, and I barely scraped by with a C+.  Who ever thought summer classes were a good idea?

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Fast forward 10 years. I’ve graduated with a degree that couldn’t be further from geology.  I have a career, a husband, and a newfound love of National Parks, with the cliché’ goal of visiting all of them throughout my lifetime.   It was 2018 when my husband, Chris, and I planned a two week road trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. The most beautiful place on earth in my humble opinion and such an amazing trip as I hadn’t had a two week break from work or responsibilities since I was a teenager.  Mountains that touch the sky and water so clear you can see every glacier carved stone beneath the surface.  I was fascinated and maybe that’s where I felt it calling again.  

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After our stay in Glacier, we were headed to Bozeman for a night, then Devils Tower, Rapid City, and the Badlands.  Leaving the park the morning we packed up, I told my husband I would drive for a little bit since he pulled most of the weight on this trip. Let’s be honest, he does most of the driving on ALL of our road trips.  He reclined and quickly fell asleep as he does in the rare case that he isn’t the one driving.  Leaving the park was bittersweet as it hurt to leave such a beautiful place, but I was excited to venture on to our next stops. Not to mention, the pit of homesickness was starting to fform.

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We were on a winding road with mountains to the north and west of us. Still snow capped even in August, they followed me from a distance.  About an hour into the drive is when I saw it.  A large T-Rex statue in front of a building, and next to it, a smaller building with a painted dinosaur silhouette.  “The T-Rex Agate Shop”.  It was a reflex.  Not a conscious thought.  I pulled in automatically.  “Hey, Chris, I’m going to run inside that shop for a moment.  Just to check it out.  I’ll leave the AC on, just keep sleeping”.  He gave me a drowsy nod and turned back over. 

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As I entered the shop it all hit me at once. The bright interior, with minerals, crystals, and fossils placed strategically around the room. It didn’t have the pretentious feel that many holistic rock shops have, nor the pristine sterile feel of a museum.  It was welcoming with shelves splendidly lit but slightly cluttered.  It would be overwhelming if not for being labeled perfectly for a curious and inexperienced customer such as myself.  There were walls of agate bookends, baskets of smaller polished rocks, jasper bracelets, and small boxes of unique specimens only the pros would know about.  

I quickly began picking out what caught my eye.  The woman at the counter was friendly and eagerly told me the history of the shop.  The shop was opened in 1937 by Cliff and Marion Trexler. Marion Trexler discovered the first North American baby dinosaur fossils in 1978, changing the future of our beloved dino studies. She came across a nest of fossilized baby dinosaurs, which gave Jack Horner and other paleontologists the first evidence that dinosaurs were motherly creatures who cared for their young and didn’t abandon them as previously thought.

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I impulsively started placing various crystals, geodes, bracelets, and books on the counter, unable to carry them in two hands.  Reasonably priced, I found many specimens that I would treasure to this day.  Most were basic, such as quartz, heat treated citrine, celestite, and amethysts, as well as a handful of polished stones. It gave me a small thrill, but different than the retail therapy high so many of us rely on when making an impulsive purchase.  I felt as though I had found these myself. Dug them from the earth.  They were new and precious and made the small ache of homesickness fade.  After I finished at the register I ran back to the car, bag in hand.  I began the drive away from the shop, stealing one last look.

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When my husband took over driving, I rummaged through my bag and showed him my finds.  Feeling each smooth and rough stone between my fingers, and paging through my new “Encyclopedia of Crystals” book, I felt a childlike giddiness.  On the days long drive home, I made sure we looked for other rock shops on our route. Fortunately, South Dakota had no shortage, and I came home with quite the “haul”.

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To this day, I always search for rock shops when we go out of town. While I’ve found some amazing places, none of them hold a special place in my heart like the T-Rex Agate shop.  I found a passion that day.  One that took me back to my childhood.  One that I wish I hadn’t left behind for so long.  I recently saw a quote that said, “It’s funny how so much of “finding yourself” in adulthood is simply getting back to who you were and what you loved as a child”.  I truly feel that is what rock collecting is to me.  A way to slow down and simplify life a little.  Appreciate the beauty that these minerals hold.  I have been guilty of gaining hobbies only to lose interest, but this is not one of them.  Six years later my collection keeps growing.