I meant to have this story posted by Sunday night, but a bee interrupted my plans and stung me instead….I didnt feel the sting, which is unusual for me as bees and wasps normally get me pretty good, but I hadnt sat down at my computer to work on the story for ten minutes til I def felt the symptoms coming on…at first I figured I was imagining things, since I hadnt felt any sting nor had I been stung in about ten years….so when my hands started tingling and the light itching sensations came on, I started thinking maybe I had ate something that I was allergic to…but no, I hadnt ate anything for hours, so knew it couldnt be that….then when my throat started swelling and my airway tightening up, I knew it had to be an insect sting….and started looking for one, and found one shortly thereafter on my chest. It didnt have the telltale signs of a major sting, so I grabbed one of my allergy pills and within a few minutes, my throat muscles started relaxing and the itching started to ease up as well. I called Dr. Mom as well and she suggested I put some rubbing alchol on the sting wound and then take a zyrtec….this was around 9 pm Sunday evening and by 9:30 pm, the zrytec was making me sooooo drowsy that all I wanted to do was climb into bed and go to sleep…so thats what I did folks and it was 8 am Monday morning before I woke back up. All day Monday, I was groggy from the sting effects so I just basically rested up and didnt do much til it was time to go to work that evening.

Missy and I got up early, 3:30 am and got on the road by 4 am, headed south to Eminence to meet up with Docia and her grandson, David, who I hadnt seen for a couple of years, as he lives in Alabama and only comes up to visit with them occasionally. David enjoys rockhunting though so we were looking forward to seeing him once again. We took our normal route, down Hwy 19 and 49 to Viburnum, and then down Hwy KK and TT, 72, and then B to 106 and back west to Eminence. These roads are all well maintained and lots straighter and less hilly than Hwy 19, and actually twenty miles less traveling than if I took the traditional route through Rolla and Salem.  We were about twenty miles down Hwy B, when I came around a corner and a full size deer jumped out in front of me, luckily I wasnt going real fast and was able to slow down enough to let her get on across in front of me in about three leaps…she sure was pretty, her color a reddish brown, and we continued on down the road. We arrived at the quarry about ten minutes ahead of David and Docia, and I went ahead and changed to my boots and then started digging in the hillside where I had dug the previous pockets out…

…some stuff had been pushed down from above to the ground floor on the other side, so we would have another pile to check out for goodies later on…..

…as it was, Docia spotted a pocket of poker chips near that pile and told me about it later on, and so I checked it out when the pockets on the hillside played out. On their arrival, I gave Docia the gift that Steven and April Gibbs, of MAGS in Memphis, had given to me at Marion, Kentucky, a few weeks back and asked me to convey to her. She opened it up and found a beautiful wire wrapped druse quartz necklace that they had made special for her. She was very happy let me tell ya.

She and David started digging near me on the hillside and quickly began finding pockets of dolomite druse as I had been finding just prior to their arrival. We found several of those pockets, but only very shallow pockets of the poker chips, even though we pretty much covered that entire hillside and twenty feet in both directions as well.

Docia took a walk around the walls and came back about an hour later with some bags of goodies, but was having problems with her blood pressure and so they left soon after about mid morning. Prior to leaving she told me about a section of the wall that looked like an apparent pocket of poker chips. I worked the wall for pockets  near the hillside for another thirty minutes and then drove over to check out this possible wall pocket. I parked in the shade of the wall and left Missy inside with the ac on full blast, since by now the temps outside were about 92 degrees and still warming up.

I grabbed a couple of bags and my mini mattox and walked over to the short wall and after scanning it a few minutes, noticed several poker chips attached to a matrix and began working a few loose from the matrix with the mattox tool. I had some white cloths in the bags and pulled them out and laid these poker chips on the cloths. Pretty soon I had a bag full of chips and some nice dolomite druse plates as well, and it looked like a pocket was opening up to the right of the main pocket I was working on, and behind one of the large chunks I was working on, so I took a break, and went back to get another bag and my four pound hammer and chisels, as it looked like I was going to have to pop a few of the bigger chunks out. After taking a big drink of water, I came back and popped a couple of the larger chunks of poker chips in matrix out of the wall…. 

then chiseled one out to the right, and sure enough, it looked like another pocket of chips was located behind the chunk of matrix to the right of the first pocket, as seen below……

…and closer up as seen below…..

..its kinda funny when I think back now to what I had first found in the first pocket, compared to what I was about to find in this second pocket and then the next pocket behind it as well…there was no comparison…the photo below shows some of the first material from the first pocket, and it doesnt even compare to the photo above….

…and below is one of the chunks I popped from the wall, to get to this second pocket, and you can see it is chock full of gray colored and some green colored, poker chips….very nice after washed off….

and a side view of it as well…..

…and while there was some dolomite druse in this pocket with the poker chips. alot of the poker chips I pulled out were in a brown dolomite matrix mainly, but still quite pretty.  I worked this pocket and then a third pocket opened up behind the second one, and I started pullign crystal clusters out right and left…..until utter exhaustion set in and I just couldnt do anymore. I took a short break, got some more water, and then I spent thirty minutes to wrap and bag all the clusters and chunks,  and we were soon on the way home by a little after noon.

All in all, I filled five bags alone from this one pocket and had about fifteen bigger chunks from it as well as some found on the floor below the pocket that had rolled loose from the wall in colors of green, gray, and black, and a few chocolate browns. I`ll get some extra photos of them posted tomorrow. Here is what the pocket looked like after I ran out of steam…..

On the way home, on the short stretch of Hwy 72, we spotted a beautiful eagle gliding toward us about a hundred feet up or less. I dont always get to see eagles….we seem to see alot of buzzards and chickenhawks….. he sure was pretty and a sight to behold….. they just look so majestic to me when I see them gliding along like that. I still wish I had stopped and tried to get the camera on him.  I know where he roosted, so maybe the next time I`m down that way I can spot him again, and photograph him.

Here are a few more photos of the nice poker chips I found nestled in matrix or dolomite druse down there….

Last weekend I planned to take off Sunday and return to Eminence to look for more poker chips, but some of my co-workers needed my day off instead, so I re-arranged my schedule and came home late Saturday night, then got up early and drove to Eminence and dug for two hours instead. Missy and I arrived about 9:30 am and found it to be a little overcast, even misted on us for about ten minutes on the way down the valley on B Highway, but it was cooler so I didnt mind at all…this is how it looked when we arrived…..

…wound up working the end of the bank on the left in the photo above…which is where I had been digging at on Memorial Day when Mike and Chrissy were here…and was trying to find a pocket of poker chips nestled in the dolomite druse so Mike could work it and take some nice specimens home with him.  As luck would have it, I hit a pocket of them today and was only about ten inches from where I had been digging that day….I walked up to the bank after we arrived and I changed into my work boots, and found chunks and pieces of clusters of poker chips and dolomite druse, that had rolled down to the bottom of that pile….

…so I knew they had to be rolling down from a pocket up above somewhere…so I started digging to the left side of my pocket on Monday, and sure enough, within about ten minutes, I located a pocket of chips and dolomite druse….

…not knowing how big this pocket would be, compared to the pocket I found there in the same bank back in the late fall last year…and knowing I had only a few hours to dig there…I didnt waste any time getting the pocket opened up to see what all was inside….

…when I was there early December last fall, Ashley and I had found a few pockets of the dolomite druse on the bluff at a higher level up…but back then, there was a dirt bank sloping up to the higher level and this time there was no sloping dirt bank up the bluff at all. In fact, as I stood there and looked on down the bluff where that pocket had been located in December, I was a good ten to twelve feet below it and probably thirty feet to the right of it, good evidence that these pockets can be found anywhere in this bluff wall. That pocket in December, also took a few hours to clean out and filled four of my bags and probable four of Ashley`s bags, too.

I decided to expand this opening so I could reach in and pull out crystals without too much trouble, and the first big piece I removed in so doing, was this one….

…a nice chunk laced with pockets of dolomite druse, that resembles chalcopyrite when held in the sunlight, it just glitters and speckles…and this chunk had two nice poker chips perched on one corner of it. The next one I chipped out, was even bigger and had a double poker chip of a chocolate brown color, nestled in a patch of dolomite crystals, on one end of it….

…and seen closer up here….

…and then I reached into the now expanded pocket and began pulling loose crystals out of it…the first one I pulled out loose was this gray colored poker chip on matrix….

…followed by this nice little round dark gray colored poker chip, the center of which was almost black in color….

…I had to do some more expanding and pretty soon, I came up to the back of the pocket, which was the bluff wall, and the pocket turned to the right and then went down into the rock more, but there was evidence that there were more gray colored poker chips in matrix as well….

…I was just going to have to chip them out of the matrix to free them.

I began hearing some bird noise and I turned around to see buzzards circling above the big wall…and then they all landed in this lone tree at the top of the wall….

…thinking there were more buzzards down here than at the secret spot…last time I was there, I saw three circling and sitting on the top of the bluff wall there.

I went back to chipping out the matrix pieces and this was the next one that came off in my hands…

…and then I pulled a few more loose ones out with color like this….

…by this time, I had two bags full of poker chips and two full of dolomite druse. I pulled one more chunk out of the pocket….

…before the pocket seemed to drop into the ground below…I didnt have the energy to follow it so I concentrated on another pocket opening that I had found earlier. After removing a few big chunks, this is what I saw….

…and up close, this is what it looked like….

…and turned out to be mainly a smaller pocket that ended too soon, of dolomite druse…there were one or two pieces with small poker chips on them, but that was all…so now I had yet another bag full of druse.

I moved up the bank a little higher and discovered even more pockets of druse along the underside of a ledge of rock….

…by this time though, I was out of time and decided to head back so I could get a good nap in before heading to work. I got my nap in and unloaded the crystals and then shot this beautiful sunset before heading to supper…..

I drove home from work and picked up Missy and then headed south to Eminence, to meet up with Docia, Floyd, Mike, and Chrissy at the quarry there to rock hunt on my day off. I usually go through Rolla and Salem on Highways 72 and 19 to get there, but 19 can be very curvy the last 25 miles and so after checking mapquest at work the night before, I opted to go down through Steelville, Cherryville, Viburnum, and then south on KK, TT, a short stretch of 72, and then B Highway to 106 and then west about 20 miles to Eminence. It turned out to be twenty miles closer this way and the roads were alot less curvy as well. We arrived around 9:30 am and found everyone busily digging into the small bluff on the south side of the quarry.

…the appearance of this bluff had really changed from when I was there last in December with Ashley, a rockhunting friend in Rolla, when we found the neat pockets of dolomite druse covering poker chip crystals in matrix…so I had to look things over and decide where to start digging in. I opted to start down near the end and see if I could climb up to about the level Ashley and I had been when we found those pockets back then….

…I started down on the right side end of the bluff and worked my way up to the midway point and dug in after finding some small crystals in matrix near the bottom, thinking maybe they had rolled down from a pocket up above. Chrissy found some crystals loose in the dirt over to the right below me and she settled in to dig where you see the umbrella in the photo above. There was a lot of loose dirt covering the bluff and pockets so I had to rake that off and then dig in when I found the pockets….

…there were pockets all over the place under that loose fill dirt and most were full of dolomite crystals in different colors….

We withstood the heat, temps got up to somewhere in the 90`s and it was very hot out there folks…cant remember how hot but we were digging hard and heavy, pulling out goodies galore for a few hours at least….I finally took a break around 11 am…Floyd and Docia took off somewhere in there to return home and put some baby back ribs on for Mike and Chrissy…I was invited too but had told my parents I would be home to eat with them later…Chrissy was finding alot of material over to my right and Mike was still prying around on pockets to my left….I decided to  go up to the upper bench and see what I could find up there…

I got up there and walked into the main collecting area, and was looking down to see what was there…and looked up and to my right for a second and spotted this KILLER piece….

…just sitting there on the ground below the bluff…man I couldnt believe my luck !!!  its a beautiful chocolate brown blending into green and honey yellow poker chip, and its actually like two large poker chips merged into one large one….I went over and picked it up and then started looking around and spotted several smaller poker chip crystals all over in the same colors….I looked up and spotted a pocket of them about ten feet up on the wall and about twenty feet higher, was a twin to this large one, still attached to the wall, and believe me, it was gonna stay there !!!

I also spotted this chunk of calcite that was weirdly shaped, reminded me of the many large chunks of weird shaped calcite that Virgil and his friend Floyd found when they were visiting last year from Tulsa…..

…and here are a few matrix pieces I found up there not far from the pocket in the wall of the chocolate colored poker chips….

and…

and here is a selection of the dolomite crystals that I found and cleaned up later….

…I filled four bags full of goodies up there, this time I didnt find any wall pockets full of poker chips, just more dolomite crystals and since I already had five bags full of them from down below, I didnt feel like collecting even more. I took the bags and two large poker chips back to the truck and rejoined Mike and Chrissy, who by that time, were wrapping up specimens they planned to take back home with them. I showed them the killer piece of chocolate colored poker chip I found up above and Mike showed me a nice cluster of poker chips he cobbed down from a boulder Chrissy had uncovered. I was feeling light headed and while leaning on the bed of my truck, I grabbed two bottles of water and drank them down, waited a few minutes and then headed for the ac in the truck, and headed home after bidding them further safe adventures and a safe trip home.

As usual, I was going to have to work Memorial Day Weekend this year in dispatch…not sure who makes up the calendar every year, but it never seems to fall on my weekend off. Docia had emailed to let me know that Mike and Chrissy Streeter, and Opal, were driving over to Oklahoma and planned to stop and visit with us a couple of days over the weekend. I was able to move my work schedule around and take advantage of some comp time to do some collecting with them, and Floyd was home as well. It was slated to be a very hot weekend though, weather wise, so I allotted some extra recoup time as well. High temps and over exertion work against me all the time, specially when I get around good pockets of poker chips.

I comped out of work early Sunday morning and was able to get a few hours rest before Missy and I drove down to the secret spot. For some reason I thought it started getting light about 6:30 am, but as it turned out, it was light around 5:30 am. We got on the road a little earlier and driving down through the Huzzah valley I snapped this sunrise photo….

…we arrived to a beautiful cool morning and the light clouds in the sky indicated a nice day ahead with temps in the mid eighties….a perfect day to collect and dig for crystals….

Docia, Floyd, Mike, Chrissy, and Opal, werent due to arrive til about 8 am, so I had a couple of hours to expand the waterhole pocket and see if I could find another way into the hollow dome of rock before they got there. I started by draining the big waterhole again and then bailed water from the pocket too….

…looking into the bottom of the hole, I could see more crystals around the edge and the top side in the photo above…I hadnt noticed those a few days before, probably because my light was fading fast when I worked it then….

…so I started working the pocket to the top side and to the right side and started pulling crystal after crystal out of the muck…I pulled this beautiful combo plate out soon after….

…I tried to work back toward where I was sitting as well, having found alot of calcite potential, and a few crystals in the loose muck under my feet, but the water from the waterhole started trying to rush in and I couldnt dam it up fast enough, so I mainly concentrated on expanding the original pocket as much as I could.

At 8 o`clock sharp, Docia and Floyd came driving down the hillside, followed by Mike, Chrissy, and Opal, and pretty soon Missy had a companion to visit with as well….

…within a few minutes, they all split up and went in different directions, Chrissy and Docia exploring pockets along the walls, Mike started checking out some of our older pockets in the floor….

…and Floyd went up above to look for druse plates….

…after a couple of hours went by, it started heating up, for those of us out in the sun, and I looked over and saw that Mike and Chrissy came prepared, bringing their beach umbrella with them….

…the heat really took its toll on Opal and Missy though…they got to where they wanted to stand in the waterholes and stay there. Floyd and the gals found some great plates of druse soda straws up on the hill, filling several bags full of them, Docia showed me a few that were rainbow colored even. Mike found some new pockets in the old pockets we had worked earlier in the year there….

and liberated this beautiful poker chip twin in one of the pockets, it even had dogtooth points in each chip….

..in the meantime, I was wearing down after digging out several areas looking for more pockets…I hadnt found any and the effort combined with the heat was wearing me down fast, plus I still had to get a nap in and return to work that evening again….I was just about to wrap it up when I found a pocket in the top of the dome of rock near my truck….

…I looked down and could see crystals inside, so I retrieved my four pound hammer and chisels from the truck and started hammering with what strength I had left, which was very little by now, and liberated a few crystals and plates, including this dusty twin and a few singles…

…one of the first things I pulled out was a crystal with a small wasp nest attached to it, and I no sooner set it down in the gravel than a wasp came crawling out of the hole looking for his nest I guess…since I`m highly allergic to their stings, I wasted no time in picking up the hammer and smushing him….figured he might be a bit upset with me robbing him of his home.  Soon afterward, I picked up and wrapped up and then packed up and headed home to get some rest before work that evening.  We made plans to meet up at Eminence Quarry the next morning, on Memorial Day, my day off.

Here are photos of the twin crystal and the nice combo plate all cleaned up.