Thanks for Visiting My Site….Contact Me For More Information…

Thanks for visiting my site, I am a rockhound in east central Missouri and I have been rockhounding for 50 years…my Mom and Dad got me started and I am glad they did, it`s a great hobby to get into and enjoy, digging and finding new treasures that God created millions of years ago can be as much fun as meeting new people that share that same love and interest, turning into long lasting friendships. I go rockhunting as much as time permits me to, sometimes in state and locally, as well as out of state trips to other locations where other great treasures can be located. I have a core group of friends that join me on many of my travels out of state and I am often asked by others if they can join me and my group. My answer is yes, as long as you meet a few requirements…I am often asked if I am willing to take others rockhunting with me and my answer is the same, yes, as long as you meet certain requirements.

My parents raised me to be a law abiding rockhound, meaning I do not trespass nor steal from others, I have great respect for others and their properties, I ask for permission before entering property of others and if denied permission, I respect that and go elsewhere. I am easy to get along with and I take my dog with me often on my rockhunting trips…if you don`t like dogs, then do not ask me to leave my dog at home, he is a big part of my life and a joy to be around much of the time. Many of my core group of friends are hard rock miners, we put in long hours at locations, digging and breaking rock to find the goodies, we practice safety in doing so…some of my group of friends are more surface collectors…we all wear the appropriate safety gear no matter what role we are in at the locations, basics are hard hats, gloves, steel toed boots, and safety glasses, not all are required at each location, but each person comes prepared just in case.

Some of the locations I go to, are open to other rockhounds, some at no charge and some charge a dig fee, some require rockhounds to wear safety gear and practice safety while rockhunting there, staying off the high walls, behind berms, and following local rules and regulations to avoid injuries. If you are the type of person that can abide by rules and regulations, then you are the type of person I can take rockhunting or provide information to. 

Some locations are privately owned and I cannot take anyone else there, nor provide information on them…. some where I did the legwork to gain not only access to that location but the trust of the owner, and I will not provide that information to anyone else at the request of the owner.

I am a big believer in keeping my word, and I have seen the end result when one does not keep their word on other locations…I have seen many locations once accessible to other rockhounds, lost because someone failed to keep their word and gave out the information to rockhounds who had no respect for the property of others, damaging the property in their pursuit of pretty rocks and minerals. 

In my fifty years of rockhounding, mainly in the last twenty years, I have seen and experienced many of these different types of people, mostly good people and some bad, some I never care to meet or deal with again…I`m a pretty good judge of character but sometimes I have to rely on the word of others til I find out differently about someone…been there and done that too. I do screen folks I have never met or heard of too…there are many tools available these days to do just that. I have worked in law enforcement and the fire service for many years, and worn other hats as well. 

So if you believe in good ethics, following rules and regulations, practice safety, and can meet my simple requirements as a good rockhound, then I would be happy to take you rockhounding, provide you with information on available locations, or add you to my core group of friends. For more information and to get started, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com and tell me about yourself and we can go from there. My name is James…Onyx and I look forward to hearing from you…

MFQ and Park Hills Show 2016

I forgot to complete my story on the weekend of the Park Hills Show, the weekend that David and Janyce Sorrells came up for the show and then went rockhunting with me at MFQ…and my buddy Travis from Tennessee came up to meet us there and rockhunt with us as well as his two sons. David reminded me this morning and so here I am, three months later, completing the story on the weekend, my apologies to all….that was a rough week and a rough month…as my Dad passed away that week as well and I went to the show on Saturday and rockhunting that Sunday to give myself a break…something that I took a bit of heat for later on, and knew would happen, but sometimes you have to listen to your heart and mind and do what is best for you.

Onyx and I met them all nearby and led them to the quarry that morning and we found a huge blast pile waiting for us on the west side, to check out…it didn`t take them long to get their gear on and head up the pile of rocks to do just that….

01-new-blast-pile-on-west-side020304-david-janyce-climb-the-pile

…if memory serves me correctly, we found some of the deformed dark calcite chunks, they were laying all over the place, and alot of massive calcite as well…I honestly have not been impressed with that side of the quarry since they started blasting over there, much of it plain looking rock and massive calcite layers, very little crystalization like we have seen in the other areas. Here lately tho, we have been finding some of those longer dogtooth crystals, brown and black colored, that I always refer to as not knowing what they wanted to grow up to be, cause they have great form but on the outside, are rough edged and pitted much of the time, but still in a classical dogtooth formation. Whatever David and Janyce were finding, they seemed happy with and filled two buckets pretty fast….below you see David carrying them to the truck while Janyce keeps on digging into a pocket….

05-two-buckets-full-already

I had told them to check out the walls in the coved area, because we find many more nice pockets there, plus in the heat of the day, its cooler there as well, the high walls retain that cooling shade longer and there is a cooling waterfall there too, that you can stand under and get soaked and cooled down fast if needed. So soon after working the western pile, we moved over to the coved area and found Travis and his two boys already there. David found some big boulders there that had some vugs of calcite druse with some poker chips inside and began to work them while the boys were working the small piles to the left side looking for goodies…

06-david-finds-goodies-cove-wall

 

…and pretty soon, Travis was up in the cove corner looking for pockets where the 07-travis-works-the-corner-of-the-covewaterfall was located…while David continued to work those boulders….

08

…pretty soon the boys wore out and it was down to Travis, David, Janyce, and I to continue looking for goodies….

09

10

I told Travis to check out the wall behind David and Janyce, cause we had found several pockets full of nice dogtooths in there a few weeks earlier…

11-working-the-boulders

…and pretty soon he was scrambling all over the pocket wall to look for goodies…

13-travis-searches-for-pockets

…despite the heat, we had a pretty good time and everyone found some nice crystals…by the time 3 pm rolled around, everyone was done in from the warmth of the day and headed home. It capped off a great weekend of rockhunting, starting out the day before at the Park Hills Show where the old Federal Mine and Mill is located….

14-old-federal-mill-park-hills

 

 

 

 

Quartz Crystals and 4th of July in Arkansas 2016

Never has one of my previously planned trips to Arkansas come at a better time than my first week of July 2016 mini vacation trip. I remember letting my Mom and Dad know about six weeks ago that they were welcome to make the trip with Onyx and I if they wanted to take a few days off to rest and relax, as I would be staying at the condo on Lake Hamilton that I often stay at on my travels down there, and it`s a great place to stay and simply recharge your batteries at. Two weeks later, I lost my Dad to a massive heart attack, he collapsed in their front yard. 

Jim Johnson, Honorary Firefighter

For the past four years, Dad had suffered from Vascular Dementia, a condition that means in addition to dementia, he was also prone to his body trying to form blood clots all the time, which is likely what caused the aortic anneurism problems that he went through two years ago and required lifesaving surgery. We laid him to rest three weeks ago with full fire department and military honors, and a few days after I returned to work, the mini vacation that I had set up back in December last year, finally arrived. Mom and I were exhausted and mentally drained from trying to get back to a new normal, adjusting to the loss of his presence in our daily lives. Mom decided to go spend a few days with her brothers and their families in Fort Smith and Waldron, while Onyx and I drove on down to Hot Springs to spend time with several rockhunting friends looking for quartz crystals. After dealing with alot of drama and stress during Dad`s funeral and in the few weeks afterward, we were both ready for some rest, relaxation, and fun digging for quartz. We had a nice drive down there, stopping off briefly in Fayetteville at a flea market where I purchased a nice pyrite cube cluster from Spain. Onxy and I dropped Mom off at Aunt Dorcas and Uncle Harleys house in Fort Smith and then drove on down to Hot Springs, arriving there by mid afternoon. After cleaning up a bit, Onyx and I drove up to the Hibachi Sushi Buffet location near the Mall for a nice evening meal, then I stopped off at the Home made Ice Cream store called Scoops and picked up a quart of Butter Pecan to take back to the condo. I stopped off and replenished the ice in both of the coolers I brought down, filled with my spiked water, gatorade, and some snicker bars. While kicking back and relaxing on the balcony watching the speed boats go by….

01 Speedboat & Skiers Lake Hamilton02 Speedboat & Skiers Lake Hamilton03

….I called Chad, one of my friends who lives near Hot Springs, shortly after that and let him know of my plans to check out an old mine the next morning…he was interested in joining me and Andrew, a new rockhunting friend in Conway who was driving down the next morning as well to meet me at the Mall. Chad said he would meet me at McDonalds, where I normally eat breakfast when down there, on Friday morning.

04

Since we had started our day early that morning, Onyx and I were in bed soon after the news and up again Friday morning by 6 am. After taking Onxy on a short walk around the condo complex, meeting a few of the other renters walking their pets, we headed to the McDonalds Restaurant just north of the Mall for breakfast…Chad arrived soon after and then we drove down to the Mall to meet up with Andrew Stauber from Conway.  Andrew and I had been talking for a few weeks online after he found my website and discovered that I travel to Arkansas a few times a year for quartz crystals…he told me that he was new to rockhunting and would like to go rockhunting with me. I told him I was driving down the first few days of July and we agreed to meet up this morning to go check out an old copper/lead mine that he found out about online and secured permission to check out with the owner, since it was on private property. He arrived at the Mall shortly after Chad and I got there, and from there we drove south to the property, arriving a little after 9 am. We talked to the owner for about 20 minutes about the history of the old mine and then he told us that he had walked down to it a few days before and had to kill a water moccasin that popped up out of the creek water…a creek runs next to the old mine…and that he had seen a few copperheads there as well. I told Andrew I really didnt want to be messing with any poisonous snakes on this trip and would prefer to come back in the fall when it was much cooler and we didnt have to worry about such things. Chad agreed, mainly because Chad was wearing shorts and sandals, instead of boots and jeans like Andrew and I were wearing. We asked the owner if it was okay with him for us to return in the fall and apologized if we had wasted his time, but he was very nice and gracious, telling us that if it were up to him, he would rather we came back in the fall as well.

From there, not really having anything else planned out, I called another guy I had been talking to for quite some time online…Gary Fleck, a mineral and quartz dealer who lives on the west side of Hot Springs…and found out he was home with some spare time and we were welcome to go and visit with him for a bit. I had an appointment at 2 pm, so we had some free time and headed over there to meet and visit with him. Gary used to own a quartz mine near Oden and has been a quartz and mineral dealer for many years, lives on Lake Hamilton and has many beautiful crystals and minerals in his collection and many more for sale as well. We visited with him and his wife for about 90 minutes before I had to take off…before leaving tho, I did purchase a nice dolomite piece from the Elmwood Mines with some small fluorite cubes on it for my personal collection, and I gave him some nice double terminated calcites on pyrite and chalcopyrite from the Viburnum Trend mines, too. Later that evening, Chad and I met up with Virgil Richards, a good rockhunting friend of mine from Tulsa, at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant for supper…Virgil had driven in that afternoon, the first of many friends that would be digging with me the next couple of days, for quartz crystals. We had a great supper and then all three of us split up for the rest of the evening.

Onyx and I were up early once again, this time catching the sunrise over Lake Hamilton right off my balcony…..

05 Sunrise Saturday Morning

…we got ready and drove up to the Courtyard Marriott Hotel to pick up my St Louis County buddy Chuck Reed, who was staying there with his family, he wanted to leave his truck there for his wife and two daughters so they could go visit downtown Hot Springs while we were digging for quartz that day. We then drove over to McDonalds and had breakfast and then drove over to the Mall to meet up with Alina and Pat Klein and their two sons Fen and Coen…they had arrived late the night before driving in from Indianapolis…Chuck and his family arrived around 11 pm. Everyone else had texted me the night before or earlier in the morning to let me know they would meet us at Mt Ida, including Virgil since he was staying at a motel on the west side of Hot Springs, so we headed west soon after in order to meet everyone in Mt Ida by 8:45 am. On the way up there Chuck texted Tony, the mine owner, to let him know we would arrive at his mine a little after 9 am, we were slowed down by heavy traffic outside of Mt Ida…weekenders driving 45 mph instead of 55 mph. We soon arrived in Mt Ida tho, getting around the slowpokes in the passing lanes of Hwy 270 about ten miles east of town, and shortly after pulling into the old Exxon Station we met up with Justin from Hot Springs, Virgil from Tulsa, and Chris and Kim Bryant with their son Preston, from Birmingham… soon we were driving over to Tony`s mine.  We arrived about 9:15 and found Tony waiting for us by his trackhoe at his new digging area…he showed us some gorgeous small clusters that he had pulled out of some pockets in the new area and we were soon off to the races, looking for quartz…Chuck found a nice yard rock not five minutes after walking up into the dig area…

 

..so soon after photographing Chuck with his find, I walked up into the dig area and was seeing crystals laying all over the place, picking up several and placing them in my bag before I even got to the back wall of the new area….from there, I turned around and snapped a few photos of everyone else searching the tailing piles for crystals and every few seconds, someone was calling out that they found something nice….

I set up shop next to Virgil who was already hard at work digging out crystals in the clay on the back wall, using a flat head screwdriver….

16 Virgil Digging Out Crystals

 

 

..and here is one of his finds soon after….

 

Pretty soon the heat of the day began catching up with us, so we started taking breaks and drinking our fluids…along the wall we were in the shade for a while that morning, the canopy of tall pines presenting a great cover for us for much of the day….when I looked back behind me the next time, I saw people spread out digging all over the place…

 

…and Justin was off to my left on top of one of the tailing piles pulling out some nice crystals..he and Fen were searching for the single points and they were finding some nice ones…

 

…and through the morning hours, Onyx did well in the shade next to me, stretched out on the cool…to him…clay dirt….

 

…Chuck was behind me and Virgil looking for plates and yard rocks during the morning hours….

 

…and everytime I looked over at Justin, he was pulling crystal after crystal out of that tailing pile he was working on…

19 Justin Looks For Crystals

 

…Chuck was soon joined by Coen, while working behind Virgil and I, and they began discussing minerals and quartz while taking a break from the heat….

 

 

…and then I saw Justin walking around and surface collecting some more…

 

…and then shortly after noon, more took breaks from the building heat while Chuck and Justin decided to head on up the mountain to the old mine and see what more could be found up there….here you see Pat and his dog Toby have decided to join me and Virgil on the back wall area…

25

…and here comes Alina and Preston surface collecting as well as Chuck walks back to my truck with his tool bag full of crystals in the photo on the left and Fen surface collecting on the right….

 

…Fen was relentless in his search for single crystal points…had I known that`s what he was after, I wouldnt have handed him all those little clusters I found….

 

…by the time 3 pm rolled around, Virgil and I were getting tired, mainly of the oppressive heat…

 

….we were still finding a lot of crystals, even pulled a large piece of rock away to reveal a nice pocket of crystals and worked that for awhile and Virgil found a huge yard rock too….

31 Yard Rock

…most everyone else had gone on up to the top to the old mine and were finding some nice ones up there, so we decided to follow. As we were packing up and getting ready to head up there, Justin showed me a super nice single point that he found up there, as he was getting ready to head out…if you have heard of one but never seen one…this is what a happy camper looks like……

 

Chuck walked back down, having found several nice crystals up at the top and so rode with me to the top, Virgil following soon after, and we stayed up there awhile and looked for a few more, finding some nice ones up there too…here Chuck caught me surface collecting up there…….by that time, I had my floppy hat on to keep the sun off the back of my neck….

34 Me Searching Upper Pit

35 Upper Mine36 Me PIcking Up Crystals

37 Upper Mine Loading My Finds

…Virgil, Chuck, and I were the last ones to leave…we were all out of there by 4 pm and although we were exhausted due to the heat, we were all very happy with our finds…I had four bags full of wrapped crystals and some of us also had some nice yard rocks. Tony was a great host once again, and we look forward to returning to his mine again this fall. We headed back to Hot Springs to get cleaned up and have supper…this was the night that the entire Hot Springs area celebrates the 4th of July with their huge fireworks display over Lake Hamilton. I no sooner arrived at my condo after dropping Chuck off at his hotel, then I discovered a major parking issue…I had to park at the next condo building up from the one my condo was located in. Chuck and his family were going to come down and watch the fireworks while I photographed them, as we would have front row seats to the display…they are set off at the Power Boats Business across the water from the Clarion Hotel, a quarter mile east of the condo. About an hour later tho, the parking situation lightened up and everyone was able to come over to watch and enjoy the fireworks with me….by 8:30 pm, the boats were starting to accumulate out in the channel behind the condo….

0205

…and right before the display started, some folks about two buildings up had their own private show down next to the water with some pretty commercial grade fireworks….

07 From Pier Next Door            08 From Pier Next Door

…and then soon after that, the huge display started and lit up the night skies over Lake Hamilton….

09 Yellow Starburst1013

 

 

 

 

 

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This year I was able to capture over a hundred nice images of the fireworks and I know that I stood there and snapped over 200 photos during the display, shooting some video as well, once again, it was a GREAT show there !!  I dont know who sets them off there, but JOB WELL DONE FOLKS !!!

Sunday morning, our plan was to drive up to Twin Creek Mine and dig in a private pocket there. I had set this into motion on June 19th when I started talking to Miss Dixie on FB, letting her know that we would be there on Sunday, July 3rd and would like to dig in the special private area to the right as you enter the mine area, not the public dig area…four of us had dug there back in November and did quite well there. She started telling me that they had expanded their operation  and were now digging 75 feet up the hill from the public dig area and had hit a ten foot wide quartz vein up there…and that they were going to let us dig there, that it was going to be their private pocket dig area for the next few years…she said that pocket would cost us from $ 300 to $ 500 for those of us that would be there that morning and she said they were finding blue phantoms up on that ridge as well. I told her that would work for us and I would contact there the day before to firm things up. I emailed her again on FB the evening before driving down to Arkansas to let her know we were looking forward to digging there again, and she responded by letting me know that everything was looking very promising for us.

So Saturday evening, before everyone arrived to watch the fireworks with me, I started texting Miss Dixie to make sure we were still on for Sunday morning in the private pocket area…I kept all my texts and emails on my FB page to refresh my memory on this….she said Bobby had been working hard and would meet us at the mine in the morning to show us the possibilities…said there was more than one spot and more than one side of the mine to choose from as to where we could dig…then I asked her about the price…a few weeks prior she told me the price would be $ 300 to $ 500 for the group of us and that is what I told me crew so they would know how much money to bring with them for this dig…we had 7 to 9 adults and four children 10 years of age and younger.

She texted me back and said $ 100 per person is the special dig price and Bobby is seeing 3 or 4 pockets worth $ 300 to $ 400….one may open bigger, but the price stays the same and Bobby can show you…I texted her back, to confirm she just told me that the cost was now $ 100 per person, and she confirmed it…told her we could not afford to pay $ 100 per person, that she had told me prior that the cost would be $ 300 to $ 500 for the group…she came back with, okay what were you thinking…told her back in the fall the price was split up by four people for the special pocket location, that was what we were figuring on doing this time too…she said she didnt know what Bobby had set up for us last fall. Bobby had given us a pocket price for two different pockets back in November, when one didnt work out, he let us have the other pocket for a lower amount. She said we could work something out, give her a few min and she would get back to me….a few hours later, she came back to me and said $ 450 was the best she could do for a private dig area, and if Bobby had not made the deal with us the last time, she would not even consider that, she said Bobby would meet us at the mine at 8 am.

Chuck and I met up at Mc Donalds the next morning at 7 am and shortly after, met Alina, Pat, Fen and Coen at the Mall, and we took off to the west to meet the others at the parking lot across from the Crystal Inn on Hwy 270. Virgil was just ahead of us and let me know there was a bad vehicle accident on 270 on the west side of Hot Springs, head on collision and only one lane open. We had to stop briefly when we arrived and observed a pickup with heavy damage to the front, but no other vehicle in sight…I did notice half a dozen Hot Springs firefighters standing on the bank above the lake on the other side of the guard rail, looking down…which indicated to me that the other car was in the lake below, not a good sign. We found out later that evening, that the two young men in the car were pronounced fatally injured at the scene, they crossed over the center line and struck the truck head on, then caromed off the pickup and went flying thru the air landing down the embankment and in the water of the lake…prob a good thing most folks couldnt see the end result.

When we arrived at the parking lot across from Crystal Inn, we found Chris, Kim and Preston, and Virgil, waiting on us…two of the adults who were going to go with us, didn`t show up, so I let everyone else know it was going to cost each adult $ 60 plus $ 12.50 for each of the kids.

We drove on over to the mine and met our hostess, Jennifer, at the gate, she was arriving at the same time as we were, and we followed her down to the camper office where we found Bobby greasing up his new trackhoe. I let him know that we were ready to go up the hill to the new private pocket area and he looked at me like I had lost my mind…told him that was what Dixie had told us, we would be digging up the hill where the ten foot wide vein was found and he said he was confused…told him I had been confused as well, even showed him the texts that she had sent me, he read those and decided that she had lost her mind… so he decided to call her to see if he could clear this all up. He came back a few min later and told us that we would be digging in the small commercial mine where the four of us dug in November, not up on the hill in the new private pocket area. We walked up there and he showed us the expanded work area, more wall exposed with crystals in plain view on the wall, pointed out a few other areas where pockets were located and offered to bring the trackhoe over there after dinner to stir things up even more. He let us move our vehicles over there as well, which would free up parking for public diggers. We paid Jennifer our fees and started searching for crystals as the heat and humidity began to build….

38 Sunday Morn Twin Creek Mine

39 Twin Creek Mine40 Working In Shade As Much As Possible

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jennifer was a great hostess, she came over to check on us frequently, brought some water bottle spritzers over with her a few times to spray us down due to the heat and humidity being so high…even brought us some umbrellas for shade….

41 Looking Back Toward Trucks42 Looking Back Toward Trucks

…and here she is looking pretty hot herself…..

43 Jennifer Our Hostess

…with her awesome assistance, we endured the humidity til about 1 pm…we were still fairly wore out from the day before, when a couple of the kids went down from the heat on Saturday and Virgil had taken a fall and hurt himself as well at the end of the day, and the rest of us were just a little sore in places. We thanked her with a big tip for her awesomeness and sparkling personality, and headed up the hill and out of there. Chuck said he would lead the way to the main road and once we got out on the gravel road and started down the hill, he came to a sudden stop half way down that steep hill….and started veering to the right into the ditch…anyone that has traveled Forest Service Roads in the past few years, knows that these days they are all narrow, and the gravel is slanted down to a 45 degree angle into the ditchline on both sides of the road…what happened is we met Miss Dixie coming up the hill in her 4wd pickup, all duded up in red, white, and blue, and so we all moved over to the ditchline and passed by her truck…as I passed by she smiled and waved, and I waved back.

Once we hit the main road, I took the lead and led everyone over to Bill and Faiths Blue Moon Crystal Shop on Hwy 270, a few miles east of the turn off to Mountain Harbor. Bill and Faith have been good friends of mine for several years, Ray Roth and I met them years ago when we began going to Miller Mountain Mine each year in the fall…they were the most honest, reliable, dependable, hard working and friendly mine operators I had ever met down there, and now they operate their rock shop out of their home in the same manner. Just great down to earth folks with very affordable quartz crystals, jewelry, and minerals from other states and countries as well…we were all shopping inside and I was looking at some spirit amethyst crystal clusters from South Africa when my phone started blowing up with texts…from Miss Dixie….the first one wasnt too bad, read ” Didnt want to say hi in the road ? “

While I was typing out my answer ” we were all hot and tired and didnt want to block the road, so I waved and smiled and drove on “, when her next text hit me and the look on my face when I read it, concerned a few of my group and they came to look with me…..it said ….” Prolly best you didnt “…so I added on to my first message back to her and asked her if I had offended her in some way….and she answered ” Yes sir I believe so “…so I asked how I offended her and she answered that ” she felt that I had mislead her intentionally about the pricing on the pockets and said I was not honest with her “….so I told her, figuring she didnt know, that we had paid $ 470 that morning, $ 20 more than the $ 450 she had asked for…and then she came back with ” its all good and said she would pay better attention to detail the next time “.  However by the time all of my group read what she was texting me and getting an attitude with me about it, it wasnt all good and no one had any desire to return there to dig again.

We all headed back to Hot Springs shortly after that, I set Virgil up to meet a good dealer friend of mine in Hot Springs on his way home in the morning, Gary had some good Elmwood Mine material that I was sure Virgil would like to see, and I told Bill and Faith that I would stop off the next morning to see them on my way home too. Virgil and I met up later at the Hibachi again for another good supper and then I headed back to the condo to relax down. However folks living on the other side of the lake drew my attention outside on the balcony, many were setting off their own fireworks shows….

44 Sun Evening Private Fireworks Show4549525355565759

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Onyx and I tried our best to sleep in, made it to sunrise…..

59A Sunrise Monday Morning

….and then again at 7 am, so we got up that time and started packing the truck. Once I filled the gas tank and re-filled the coolers with ice, we headed west on 270 to Bill and Faith`s Rock Shop again, where I stopped off to get a few crystals…they had a couple of the spirit amethyst crystal clusters and I selected one of those along with some glassbacks and small clusters that I really liked. From there, we headed west to Hwy 71 and then north to Fort Smith, where I stopped off to pick up Mom…discovered my cousin Sherry with her two boys Derek and Seth, so after a short visit with all of them, Mom and I headed north on 71 to Missouri. We made one pit stop along the way, stopping off in Fayetteville briefly to photograph the Johnson Mill, which was restored several years prior and converted first to an Architectural Office, then it became a bed and breakfast, and this time we discovered it was now a hotel with an old brick house across the street converted to a bed and breakfast…called the Johnson House appropriately enough….

60 Johnson House

 

…and then while Mom took Onyx for a short walk,  I photographed the old mill, with the huge water wheel and water flume and waterfalls…..

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We arrived home safe and sound by 6 pm…in time to rest up and get ready to shoot the fireworks that evening at the fairgrounds. Check my blogsite for that story…www.jwjphotoblog.com

 Here are some of the crystals I found down there….

70 Clusters From Twin Creek Mine Wall71 Small Clusters & Glassback Twin Creek72 Small Glassback Twin Creek72A Small Glassback Twin Creek

 

 

 

The first four were found at Twin Creek….starting with the fifth one,  the rest were found at Tony`s Mine on Saturday….I still have a few more to clean up and post, too….

73 Small Cluster Tonys Mine74 Small Cluster Tonys Mine75 Fist Sized Cluster Tonys Mine76 Smokeys From Tonys Mine77 Smaller Ones Tonys Mine78 Tonys Mine79 Big Single Points

 

 

 

Waterhole Pocket End of May

Well I am now officially four stories behind…thats what I get for traveling so much I guess, going to have to take off more time to catch up after I return I guess.

I decided to return to the secret spot and see if I could find more of the dogtooth crystals, so I drove down one evening mid week and took a look around.  After examining the pocket more closely, I was only able to pull a few more out and decided to leave the embedded ones for Docia to chip out, cause she is better at chipping those little crystals out than I am. I scratched around the surface on either side of the pocket to see if I could locate a back way in, but had no luck. I also attempted to drain the waterhole above the pocket since it seemed to drain well into the second and third waterhole, so I expanded the little trench to do so…felt like a kid again, playing in the water….

02A  Trenched Water Below

…I found a few small pockets down below the dogtooth pocket but nothing to write home about……

03A   Found Few Small Pockets Below

….I felt the big waterhole calling to me so I went up to explore it further and after scratching around and finding potential calcite, I decided to do some tamping around a bit on the dome rock…. it sounded hollow so I decided to dig and explore as much as I could…

04 Lots of Potential

…and so I dug in and pretty soon the bottom dropped out and this hole appeared….

06A   Hole Appears

I decided if this wound up being a pocket, I sure didnt want to flood it, so I backed off and dammed off the waterhole so it wouldnt flood it…..

07A  Backed Off and Dammed off Water

…after I got that done, I started working on exploring the hole more…

08A   Deeper Sounding Hole Appears

…and let me tell you, everytime something fell down into that hole, it sounded deep, could hear water below and the rocks were splashing so I figured it must be a deep pocket of something, which didnt surprise me since the dome of rock to my left side sounded hollow. I started removing some thick plates of druse and pretty soon had the pocket expanded to this….

09A   Hole Expanded to Water Pit

…I pulled about six plates out as I was expanding the pocket and several poker chip crystals from the bottom…all too soon, the sun started setting on me, and Missy and I decided to wrap up what I had collected and head home….

10 Sun Starts to Set

 

 

 

.

A Nice Three Day Weekend, Part 2….

Sunday afternoon, after another photo shoot, Missy and I loaded up and headed back to the secret spot to see if we could work on those other potential areas I found late the day before…this time we got a late start and arrived about 2 pm…..

01 Back to Bulldozed Area

knowing I only had a few hours of light, I quickly started working the first area with my hand rake…..

02 Starting Here Today

and pretty soon I was seeing signs of calcite, always a good sign of potential pockets nearby….

03 Calcite Shows Potential

and pretty soon I had a few nice crystals dug out of the beginnings of a pocket…

04 Crystals Found Initially

and pretty soon I was finding one pocket after another, usually one leading to the other by way of a narrow trench filled with crystals and small druse plates. Just as you would think the pocket was going to open up into a bigger pocket, you would come up against a wall of rock and nothing more from the pocket, an abrupt end to the pocket. Then I would move a few inches over and find yet another pocket forming and more crystals…here is what it looked like after the first thirty minutes of raking and digging….

05 Pockets Forming Up

and I had the same problem as the day before, piling my crystals up in the wrong place…of course today, it wouldn`t have mattered where I piled them up…the pockets expanded in every direction and I wouldn`t have been safe anywhere with them….after hitting a dead end quickly on the left hand pocket above, I moved over and started digging out the pocket on the right….

06 Explored Pocket on Right

 I cleaned it out and moved more to the right where I found even more small pockets….this area just kept expanding with one pocket after another….

07 Expanded to Right

and here is the pile of crystals that just keeps growing….

08 Crystal Pile Growing

and I kept moving to the right and digging down and finding even more pockets with crystals coming out right and left….

09 Upper Bench Pockets

this one pretty much came to an abrupt end when I came up against a solid wall of curved rock on the far end of the right side…but if you look under that pile of crystals, which by now I have moved back three times, you`ll see the makings of more pockets under those little bluff walls, and yes, you guessed it, I had to move the crystals once again to explore under those plates…plates of druse as it turned out….

10 Pocket Starts Toward Pile

so I took a few moments and high graded the crystals and plates, moved the rejects back about two feet and piled the rest over on the right side of the solid rock wall and started working those druse plates, til I found yet another pocket ….

13 Upper Bench Pocket

here are the druse plates and crystals that I took out to get to this point….

12 More Crystals Found

and here is the pocket up close, and you can see a few crystals inside it….I dug those out fairly easily and reached back a little further and pulled even more out…

14 Inside Upper Bench Pocket

as I was digging this one out to enable me to get my hand in there further, the top of the pocket came down and this druse and poker chip combo plate came down with the dirt….

15 Druse and Chip Combo

I took as many crystals out as I could and then took a break and wrapped up the nicer crystals and druse plates and carried them to the truck…I had about 45 minutes left and decided to check out one more area, where I had raked around earlier on a break and while raking, a hole opened up, that appeared to be quite deep….\

16 Next Pocket Started With Hole

found this hole about twenty feet from the original pocket from Saturday and closer to the truck actually. While raking, I came across an area of calcite that really looked promising and then I pulled a chunk of druse out that was hanging upside down and this hole opened up underneath it…..

17 Hole Surrounded by Calcite

I really need to start taking my flashlight with me so I can look into them and see if they bear exploring further…this one just appealed to me though, it seemed to me that it was deep and might contain another cavern and boy did it….

18 Deep Hole As it Turned Out

I pulled these druse plates out and the hole opened up even more…

19 Druse Plates From Hole Pocket

however, even though I could get my hand down in the hole and started pulling some beautiful crystal singles and twins out, the opening wasn`t large enough to get some bigger ones out, so I pounded on a large chunk of druse to enlarge the opening more and this nice druse chunk with poker chips is what came out….

20 One of the Plates

there are some neat looking hematite balls all over the druse on that chunk too. The next photo shows the enlarged opening of the pocket…

21 Plate Removed Expanded Hole

about a foot wide at this point and the next one shows better how deep the pocket is…or at least how deep it appeared at this point…

22 Hole Expands and Deepens

after a few more minutes of pulling one crystal after another, out of this pocket, including a few plates of druse with poker chips attached, and twins and triples, I sat back and shot this photo and it shows a nice few poker chips attached to druse on the ceiling of the pocket near the opening….

23 Crystals and Plates From Deep Pocket

and this also shows the pile of crystals growing on the left side…you cant tell here but the pile is about fifteen inches tall, mostly singles here, as I put the more delicate crystals and plates on the right out of view of the camera here…the next photo shows that nice ceiling plate still in the pocket….

24 Plate of Chips and Druse on Ceiling

I ran out of light soon after and wrapped what I could quickly and then packed everything away in my truck. The sun was setting rather nicely again, as Missy and I started up the hill….

26 Sunset Looking Nice

and then at the top of the hill as we headed home….

27 Sunset From Top of Hill

 

stay tuned for part three….

 

Welcome to JWJ Rock Hunting blog

Welcome to my new site, jwjrocks.com

People always ask me, what types of rocks and minerals do you look for and collect ?  I always tell them, pretty rocks.

I started collecting rocks around the age of ten, thanks to some friends of my parents, who worked at the local Pea Ridge Iron Ore Mine south of Sullivan, they were able to bring me some pretty quartz crystals, calcite crystals, hematite and magnetite specimens covered in pyrite and marcasite, often found in goodie pockets or pretty pockets deep down in the mine.  Hence my quest and journey began for  pretty rocks and minerals.

I remember my parents taking several trips each year and would always work in a rock collecting adventure along the way whenever possible, or at least a rockshop visit in the area.

I had to make a decision when I turned eighteen, my parents told me to choose between collecting rocks and photography. I chose photography at that time, having started photographing fire calls at the age of 14 for the fire department as a volunteer firefighter, and also enjoyed shooting sunsets, scenery, weather, and steam trains.

After college and a few years in law enforcement dispatch and police work,  I opened my own photo finishing store and portrait studio and operated it for several years, and continued my journey through the fire service, my vacations often consisting of working as a firefighter at the Missouri State Fair in August each year, and photo shoots in pretty places.

Through the 1980`s and early 90`s, I became the Training Coordinator for my local Fire Department, setting up all of the training for our firefighters and coordinating all of the classes and outdoor hands on training as well, which took up a lot of my free time apart from my business. I was also in charge of the umpires and ground crews for the local Little League Baseball Organization in Sullivan for about 15 years.

After twenty years in business for myself, I returned to emergency dispatch work for Union Pacific Railroad Police for five years at the Response Management Communications Center for UPRR in St Louis, where we handled calls from all over a 27 state jurisdiction and dispatched UP personnel by phone to emergency locations, after first notifying local first responders. We also handled all state and federal notifications required by each state agency. I had great bosses and supervisors there, it was truly one of the best workplaces and environments I have ever worked at. Had they stayed in St Louis, instead of moving the operation to Omaha, I likely would have stayed with them.

UP decided to build a new building in Omaha, and move the RMCC operation there in 2002, so I then took a job offer at East Central Dispatch Center in Richmond Heights, for police and fire dispatch work of 8 cities in the St Louis County area. This included answering non emergency phone calls, answering 911 calls, handling several radio frequencies including 2 police channels with 4 departments on each channel, fire frequency with all 8 departments on one channel, mutual aid channels for both police/fire agencies, and paperwork. I worked there nearly 17 years, the last ten years I worked primarily as a fire dispatcher, and with my background in the fire service, it was very enjoyable for me. It can be a stressful job at times tho, mainly due to some of the people you have to work with and deal with on a daily basis….luckily most of the time, I had good bosses and a great supervisor, but the stress took its toll eventually,  and I took early retirement and returned to my first love of rock and mineral collecting.

I took early retirement from ECDC early in 2018, after spending 25 years total in  dispatch and emergency communications work and had nearly 40 years as a volunteer firefighter with Sullivan Fire District.  I then worked 2 years seasonal full time at Greenbriar Hills Golf Course in St Louis County, then a few months one winter stocking shelves at a local Walmart Store, before heading out to New Mexico in March for my first trip out there with my group of rockhound friends.

When I returned from the Deming area, with a truckload of pretty rocks and minerals, I began working at my current seasonal job at Wolf Hollow Golf Course, near Washington, Missouri. Again, great bosses to work for, plus working outside doing advanced yard work plus some specialized work details, and being allowed to take many short rockhounding vacations through the season, and many golfer friends, some of whom also like rocks and minerals, makes for a very enjoyable work experience.

I also do a lot of guiding work for Mineral Clubs and groups, taking them to rockhunting locations I have access to go to with permission from the owner. I have about a hundred rockhound friends now in my personal group that often travel with me on my out of state trips these days. Many also like to travel here to Missouri and spend a few days rockhounding with me locally.

Years ago I met and talked to many of my current great friends on an online rockhound board, called The McRocks,  and from those initial contacts, have been able to travel to various places both locally within Missouri as well as surrounding states and find some beautiful crystals and minerals to add to my ever growing collection.

I was also part of a small group of rockhound friends,  formed from the McRocks site, that traveled to an old fluorite mine in Kentucky, where we were able to help a museum Board of Directors open up areas of the old mine with machinery and manpower, so that rockhounds who later went there to dig and collect pretty fluorite could do so in a much easier fashion.We did this for about 15 years in all types of weather and enjoyed every minute of it.

People ask me all the time, what do you enjoy the most about collecting rocks and minerals..I used to think it was displaying beautiful crystals and minerals…eventually tho, I came to realize that the enjoyment is truly realized when hunting and finding the remarkable and beautiful treasures created by God, and the memories of actually digging and finding those treasures, while in the company of good friends, that make that enjoyment even sweeter.

So, I hope that as you browse through the many blog stories and photos in my new site, that you enjoy what you read and see as much as I do, and if I can assist you in any way in your journey as well, please do not hesitate to contact me at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

If you have Facebook, my personal FB page is at https://www.facebook.com/jwjphoto

and my new FB page for Rock Guiding Trips is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/322253830735906/

 

James W Johnson                                                                                           Rockhound and Guide                                                                                   Retired Firefighter                                                                                          Sullivan, Missouri