How our dream came true…
In the spring of 2016, I retired early from my county government job and opened the Windy Way Rock Shop. I’d been working as a sanitarian for many years. I loved the work, I sucked at being a bureaucrat. I realized I had to leave the “security” of my county job to save my soul.
What to do? I thought about what I liked to do, especially when I was a little kid. I liked to play school and I liked to pretend to have a store. Academia would just be another bureaucracy, so I thought about having a store. People knew Merlin is a lapidary, and for years told us we needed to open a rock shop. Livingston hadn’t had a rock shop for years and they needed one. The Windy Way Rock Shop was born.
The name comes from famous Livingston winds and the Navajo Wind Way ceremony I studied in college. Livingston is where I learned to love the wind!
We started out on a frayed shoestring! We dug old stock out, from Merlin’s old rock shop, out of the storage unit. Merlin brought back some inventory from the Tucson Shows and we rented a small space at the edge of town. Though we were on the highway leading to Yellowstone National Park, it was very hard to find our shop as it was along the side of the building. A space facing the highway opened up, and Thanksgiving weekend 2017 we moved to the front of the building. A true lesson in the saying about “Location, Location, Location.” Our business skyrocketed after we moved up front.
Why a rock shop? As I said, Merlin is a lapidary. He has been cutting and selling cabochons to jewelers around the world for over 30 years. Barbara took geology in the 80’s, and always loved rocks. They met in 1990 when Merlin had his old rock shop, The Assay Office in Gallatin Gateway, MT. Barbara opened a small bake shop near his old shop. She had chocolate chip cookies, he had cool rocks. They have been together ever since. Livingston has a lot of rock hounds. During most of its history there was a rock shop in town. The last one closed about 15 years before we opened. With Yellowstone National Park just 56 miles down the road we knew tourists from around the world would be driving by our location.
In 2019 we decided to convert a spare room of the shop into a museum. It is a very small place, but we were able to display some of the cool stuff we have collected over the years. Favorites in the museum include a fluorescent mineral display and a display about Merlin’s cabochons and some of the creations jewelers have made with his cabs.
The Windy Way Rock Shop is a retail store. We hope to make a little money to supplement our retirement incomes. The retail activity supports the space, a space that brings joy and comfort to many of the people who come through our door. It is that joy and comfort that is the real business of our little rock shop. People can find cool rocks and fossils. They can also find a listening ear, identification of the treasures they have found, a hug, and the healing vibrations of a singing bowl.
