Mickey Davis and her husband Don operate The Rock Shop in Orderville, Utah., along lonely U.S. 89 east of Zion National Park.
The shop attracts visitors from all over the world. When we stopped, Mickey promptly led us to big maps near the restrooms and made us stick a little pin on our town. The map has hundreds of pins, plus there’s another map of Europe with more pins. The maps have been up only two months so you know a lot of people have stopped by.
Most visitors are tourists. They are attracted to the shop because it looks like its inside a sandstone rock as big as a house. But it’s not rock, just plaster, paper and chicken wire. It’s 30 years old and still looking handsome for a fake rock. The original owner built replicas of dinosaurs, some of which you can see in a Vernal, Utah museum.
Mickey and Don quit their corporate jobs in Las Vegas two years ago, she with Safeway, he with Camping World, to head to the sticks. It had just come to the point in their lives where they were so busy they never saw each other. Heck with that!
There are all kinds of rocks at The Rock Shop, and fossils, too. For $20 you can buy a really nice fish fossil. Or you can buy a dinosaur bone. The soft serve ice cream is good –most folks go for chocolate/vanilla swirl.
If you like rocks, you should stop by The Rock Shop. Mickey will talk your ear off, which is a good thing because she is a very interesting and nice person.
