I had an interesting weekend this past week….starting Saturday March 3rd, I comped out a couple of hours and attended the annual awards banquet for my fire department, Sullivan Fire Department, hosted by the board of directors for Sullivan Fire Protection District, who provided us with a delicious, well cooked prime rib dinner catered once again by Rich and RuthAnn Lambing`s family, held at the St Anthony`s School Gymnasium. The Fire Department recognized my Dad for fifty years of service and Morris Scott, another member of the department, for fifty five years of service, amongst several other members for various awards accomplished throughout the previous year. It was a nice emotional night.

Then on Sunday morning, March 4th, I slept a few hours and then Missy and I drove down to the secret spot to meet up with Docia and Floyd, and their friends Dave and Julie, from Michigan, who stopped by this weekend to find some druse and calcite on their way to Arkansas for some quartz. My alarm clock didnt arm this morning when I set it for a two hour nap, so I arrived 90 minutes later than I intended to, so I decided to stay 90 minutes later in return.  When I arrived at the lower area, I found Floyd helping Dave look for a pocket in the parking area….they had scraped and dug around, but hadnt found a good solid pocket just yet. In the meantime, Docia and Julie were searching the clay druse area for some druse plates. I switched to my boots and grabbed my tools and gloves and a bag and set off to help Floyd find a pocket for Dave. It was a beautiful cloudy day and the temps were quickly warming up to 55 degrees…

It took a few minutes, but we finally located a pocket to start with,  and after digging out a few single poker chip crystals, Dave came over and helped me start expanding it, working at one end while I worked the other end. Floyd helped Dave at his end, performing the more destructive work on the thick rock cap to get to more crystals and plates. After working it about twenty minutes, it became apparent that we hadnt found a true pocket, but more of a seam of calcite with some crystals deposited in an area about ten inches wide and from Dave`s end to mine, two to three feet long.

During this time, Docia and Julie came down from the mountain and started searching for pockets along the walls. A few minutes after coming over to visit with us briefly, Docia called for Floyd to come help her with a pocket that she had re-discovered along the west wall. Floyd walked over to help her dig it out and you could hear her whooping it up, so Dave decided to stretch his legs and go see what all the hoopla was about. I continued digging my end until the crystal train ran out, then grabbed my bag and went to find yet another pocket. As you can prob tell my now, I didn`t take my camera out of the truck early on.

Within moments of stretching my legs, I again located a promising area, finding a domed dolomite cap and figuring there had to be a way into it around the edge somewhere, after tapping it and hearing the solid cavity under it. After raking back dirt and gravel and rocks, I soon had my answer…a hole opened up under some loose shale and other shale layers breaking up under my mattox…and within about ten minutes I was digging out small druse plates and poker chips…after the hole expanded down to about ten inches deep, I started working the sides and then turned a large combo over and discovered a big chunk of druse with a couple of poker chips attached to it….EUREKA !!!   I hollered over and asked Dave if he still wanted to work a nice pocket, and was promptly informed that he was busy working a wall pocket…so I kept on digging and expanding my newly found pocket.

After another ten minutes, I had added four more large combos to the growing pile of single crystals, some of them measuring about six to eight inches and quite a ways around in diameter as well. I also pulled out a few twins and small clusters.  Here again, I apologize for not having my camera at this point either folks.  I also need to remember to keep my gloves on more often, having lacerated a couple of finger tips yet again. I`m beginning to think they hurt more a couple of days later, than they actually do at the time of the injury itself. Sure am glad we have medications like neosporin,  that helps boo boos heal faster these days.

By this time I had two separate piles of crystals and a few minutes later, Dave came over and started helping me with the pocket. I told him everything in the second pile was his to take home with him and we soon started pulling even more crystals out of the bottom, and then right before our eyes, a second pocket opened up behind the plates of the first one. Docia walked over to show me what she had found in the pocket along the wall, and I could quickly understand why she became so excited…..

…she told me this one was mine and left it on my tailgate for me…she said Floyd was still digging a few more out, the pocket was full of them, dogtooth poker chips on a pretty gray druse…and he had removed one that had about nine poker chip dogtooth crystals all over it.

Well Dave and I continued to expand the pocket and found yet another pocket behind the second one, but by this time Docia and Jule and Floyd were wearing out and it was coming up on 4 pm. Dave and Julie still needed to drive on down to Arkansas before stopping for the night, so they decided to head out and get some supper with Docia and Floyd, and I continued to dig a bit.

I expanded the pocket as much as I could, then took a break and wrapped up my nicer finds and took them to the truck. I grabbed another bag with some wrapping cloths in it and headed to the wall to see if I could find any pockets too. I started on the west wall, stopping to look at the pocket that Docia and Floyd had worked, and then continued to the south wall. I stopped and checked out another pocket that Floyd had worked a bit and then moved about thirty feet further east along the south wall, where I spotted a pocket about seven feet up…luckily for me, there was a nice large boulder sitting right under and off to the side of it maybe a foot, so I climbed up there and peered inside….if you look in the center of the photo below, right above the copyright symbol and slightly left, you`ll see the boulder and the pocket right above it….

 …needless to say I was pleasantly surprised in what I saw inside the pocket…some beautiful gray druse with white poker chips nestled inside the bubbly waves of druse….I reached in and was able to pull some nice single crystals out first and then a couple of small druse and chip combos like these two……..

…and…..

…I stuffed the singles in my jeans pockets and then positioned both of the small combos just inside the top of the same pockets and looked back inside the wall pocket and saw this nice cluster sitting up about a foot inside the pocket….

…and of course, they always look better perched up in the pocket but believe me, I would not have been able to twist around and photograph them up in that pocket if I did have my camera with me,  plus I had to be very careful getting up on that boulder and keep one hand free to hold on to the wall for balance…and once I pulled those clusters out, I had to move back to yet another boulder where I had my bag of wraps, to wrap the cluster and put it in the bag and then gingerly and carefully return to the boulder to get more awesome crystals out.  The next time I looked inside, I saw this one attached to the wall and, using my rock hammer, chipped away some of the outside clutter to get to it…and then pulled it out without a scratch….

…and after removing it, this cluster came out next, sitting back behind it a few inches and attached to the other side of the pocket…

…and the next thing to roll out is this nice double….

Well I removed about half a dozen more clusters and twins, and then I decided to check out one more pocket before taking off…I was def wearing down and was ready to go, after seeing these beautiful pieces come out of this little pocket…something about that pretty druse and those poker chips just nestled in there….wow….plus the druse piece that Docia gave me earlier…I was happy with what I had.

The other pocket didn`t pan out so well so I headed back to the truck and wrapped up the nicer ones and stowed them away in the bed of the truck and then Missy and I loaded up and took off…driving up the hill to the road, I saw this beautiful cloudy sky forming up and the beginnings of a great sunset heading our way….

…and then shot a few sunset photos on the drive home…very pretty….

…I love it when the sun grazes the underside ridges of the fluffy clouds as it sets, and almost sets them on fire with an intense red color that just deepens as the sun goes down….

A great weekend and after a short second nap and great dinner at Cracker Barrel, followed up with a few tylenols, I headed into work late Sunday evening. I`m looking forward to next weekend and finding even more treasures.

I forgot to mention a little roadtrip that Docia and I took a few weeks ago on a weekday I was off with nothing better to do. Or anything to do, for that matter, lol.  We met up down at the roadcut we first started rockhunting together at, on Highway C in Washington County. Its a small roadcut and mainly a clay bank with a few small rock outcrops on a gentle curve with a wide shoulder to park on. Docia was already there when Missy and I arrived, and she showed me some beautiful quartz druse plates she was finding, some with barite on them,  and covered with a pretty iron oxide coating as well.

We walked up and down that first set of small cuts and found a few plates here and there, enough to fill a couple of bags, and then we migrated up to the second cut and started seeing a few more pieces of pretty druse with larger crystals on them. I found a pocket fairly quickly after digging down a little ways into the clay dirt and called Docia over to join me…pretty soon I had two bags filled and went to get another bag. I was pulling out some really nice bubbles and plates with bubbles on them….a few shown here all cleaned up by Mother Nature a few days later…

After that, we decided to drive up to Viburnum and check out a location we go to often and find some beautiful druse plates at…we hadn`t been there since last year and thought we would see if the rains in the past year had washed out any new material. We split up on arrival and within about twenty minutes, Docia hit paydirt in a washed out area and came to get me. We drove back up to the spot and walked down into the wash and started finding big bubbly druse plates right away. She had found a couple that I helped lug back up the hill for her and then I went back down and lugged a couple up the hill to my truck. Here are a few of the ones I brought home with me….

After lugging a few up the hill, we were both too tired to do much else except call it a day and drive home.

Last weekend, I decided to drive back down to the secret spot and check out a few areas down there that I hadn`t checked in a while. I emailed Docia only to find out that she and Floyd were going to be busy cutting wood for their new Hardy stove…apparently it uses a lot more wood than they had originally figured it would, so they weren`t going to be able to meet up and rock hunt. Missy and I loaded up and headed that way Saturday morning, arriving shortly after 10 am. It was a little crisp then, but the wind wasn`t too bad…and I stopped at a few spots on the drive in to check out a few areas where I thought maybe some of the blue hole crystals might have been dumped at. I didn`t find much and drove  on down to the lower spot and as I rounded the corner, found that a new area had been cleared off and ringed with boulders….

…and despite a bigger mudhole now, the entrance up to the clay druse pit was smoother looking as well…

I drove on up into the lower area and started looking around, decided to see if I could locate a pocket first and then while stretching my legs, I could always check out the pile or some wall pockets…

When I walked over to the pile, I noticed pretty fast that the pockets I had discovered the last time there, had already been covered back up…no big deal since I had cleaned them out pretty much and I didn`t intend to look there again, just wanted to use them as a reference point on finding another one. Oh well, no biggie, within moments I had discovered yet another area worth checking out…this time right in the corner and you see Missy walking toward it in the next photo….

and this one located around a few big boulders, one I was able to move out of my way and the other two I could roll out of my way when needed….

….I started to the left of that smaller square shaped rock, finding a narrow seam of calcite when I dug down next to a wall, but that didn`t pan out to be much so I moved to the other side of that rock and within minutes of digging down, I turned a nice druse chunk with poker chips over and decided to explore more….

…and within moments, I had found two large poker chip and druse combos…

…and the pocket started forming as a trench…

…and thankfully was cooperating by moving around that big boulder that I was only able to roll back about ten inches out of the way, to make things safer for me…as I dug down into it more, I hit a shallow pocket that looked like a spring welling up…….and the more I dug down into it, the deeper the water got and I could see it coming out from behind a few plates as well….

….so I got up and went to my truck and pulled out a water bowl for Missy and used it to bail out the hole, and after bailing water for a few minutes, I discovered there was a poker chip ledge under the water that circled around in a U shape, and within that open area, under the ledge, I found poker chip crystals in singles, twins, and triples, and several small soda straw druse plates with poker chip crystals attached….the only bad thing was that the water was extremely cold and I had to alternate my hands back and forth, pulling crystals out, no more than two minutes in that water at a time or my fingers became so numb I couldn`t feel a thing…but pretty soon I had a large pile of crystals from that one underwater pocket alone….

…and then I started removing the plates that were wedged in behind that spring, some of them just hanging upside down and large in size. I took as many out as I could safely remove…kept thinking that boulder might roll down on me if I kept digging out in that direction…

…so I removed as many plates and crystals as I could….

…and then lucky for me, the pocket shifted to the right and started moving to the right side….here you see the water pocket going back right under that huge boulder and the pocket of crystals seemingly going to the right…..

…and closer up….

…and even closer up, you can see a couple of big druse plates hanging at the entrance and a few crystals in the mix at the bottom…

..so I cleared out the crystals in the mix at the bottom and a little cave opened up….

and after about twenty minutes, I had yet another growing pile of crystals and plates stacking up behind me……and up close, even prettier looking….

…and the pocket continued to move to the right, opening up this area of bubbly druse plates…

…and after knocking down some of the top layers of rock, I opened up a little cavern full of poker chip crystals covered with a fine layer of clay mud….

…and plates packed in and around the crystals….

…and behind the initial crystals was a lot of tightly packed in crystals…...and after I removed the tightly packed in crystals, it opened up into another pocket of crystals as well….

…that was chock full of crystals too….I removed some more top rock and behold, yet another pocket opened up behind this one…

….by this time, five hours after my arrival, I was beginning to grow tired…this pocket was about four feet from the original starting point and I had changed sitting positions a few times by now, and had even laid down in the trench a few times to get into the crystal pockets…luckily for me, this turned out to be the last pocket I was able to get into….and again, filled with crystals top, bottom, and each side….

…I had to knock down some of the tops to get to the crystals and once I did that, leaving me with this opening, too tired to pound the hammer on the top plates any longer, I reached back and removed as many crystals as I could before calling it quits…..

…after a short break and cinching up my boot laces, I climbed around the pile again and found a few bubbly yellow druse plates, and then found a few wall pockets and worked them over fairly well, retrieving a few nice gray druse pieces with some beautiful poker chips perched on the druse as pretty as you please.

I then walked up to the clay druse area and found several nice smokey colored plates of soda straw druse and filled a bag before running out of steam and heading back to the truck. I was sooooo tired, it took a few rest stops just to walk back the last 200 feet to the truck. After wrapping up the nicer ones and securing them in the bed of my truck, and putting down towels for Missy in my truck seats. I finally had a chance to sit down in my nice comfy drivers side bucket seat and relax for s few minutes. I grabbed a couple of doans back pain pills before heading for home…and within twenty minutes my back was feeling much better. All in all, a very good day of collecting.

We had so much fun finding pockets last Sunday, the 22nd, we decided to try it again on the 29th and scored again big time. We started a little earlier this time, arriving at 10 am and immediately began finding crystals and pockets. Docia decided to take it easier this time, and brought her own chair for the long day ahead…..

….she began digging down where she thought she was spotting potential pieces of calcite laying around while I decided to work a pocket from the week before and see if I could find more crystals and pockets branching off from the other pockets and trenches…

….we both had success in finding more pockets. I found several nice new poker chip crystals, several singles and some twins and triples even, including some larger singles and some small combo plates.…a few minutes later, I dug down in one spot and bumped into a large plate of rock that was in my way, so I turned it over to find a very pretty gray bubbly druse plate with large yellow poker chip crystals all over it….

….I was now one happy camper….and this one cleaned up very nicely as well….I kept on digging and the pockets kept on expanding….

….so I started raking out the dirt and rocks away from the area I was in, to see how much more I could find and the pocket just kept on expanding even more….I started finding pockets of crystals about five and six feet away….

…and the next thing I knew, a hole opened up, there to the left of my mini mattox up above..…hoping I had hit another subterranean cavern full of crystals…but not convinced of it due to the rocks and gravel I was pulling out of the hole above…these were plain old ordinary rocks and gravel, no crystals or even pieces of calcite coming out….and as it was, turned out to be a drill hole instead.

Docia in the meantime, called out and said she was starting to find plates of bubbly druse in her pocket, which is always a good sign for us that we are in the near vicinity of a good pocket….

…and showed me what her first pocket turned out to be…another drill hole, just like mine.

I continued to work on expanding my pockets around the drill hole I had, and found quite a few larger crystals and a few small clusters popping up out of them….

 ….and then my pocket started deepening and I saw more roof plates emerging as well….

…so I worked that pocket for about the next hour, pulling more plates and some nice crystals out, then decided I needed to find the hole pocket and see what I could pull out of it, since I hadn`t done much with it since I found it. I took a break and then walked over to where I thought it was located, and began walking in circles…Docia asked me if I had lost something and I said, yes, the hole pocket..I cant find it now….after looking around a bit, she said it looked like the heavy machinery had been there again and moved things around. We noticed that alot of the heavy boulders had been moved from one side of the walls to the other side now….which freed up some areas for us to search again but in the process they had apparently covered up my hole pocket too !

After a few minutes though, I found the spot and started to uncover it again, and discovered that the machinery had actually done me a few favors, breaking up some of the heavy rock on top that covered it up, so now I had some nice druse plates to go with the crystals that I would soon be pulling from it as well.

So after clearing away alot of the excess dirt and rock, I again found the opening on the north end and began exploring to the south to find the other side of it and found some other areas opening up as well…

…here are some of the smaller pieces of the roof plate that the machinery knocked loose for me…

…and here are the first few nice plates of druse and a nice combo that I pulled from the dirt on the left side of the re-exposed opening….

…I started working the area to the right of the opening, to lengthen the pocket line and see how far it would expand to the right again, and also started working an area moving toward me from the mouth of the opening that was showing alot of potential in terms of exposed calcite, with the hand rake….

…and as I did so, the foreground area deepened and another small hole opened up…wasn`t sure if this was going to be a new pocket or a back entrance to the major hole pocket, since I could reach into the hole pocket and reach around to my left at a 90 degree angle….

…I took a break and checked on Docia to see how she was doing and she told me her pocket was expanding quite a bit, she had reached in up to her shoulders and still couldn`t reach the back of the pocket, she had dug out the length of her legs and hadn`t reached the back of it yet either, and she showed me that it had widened out at the mouth of it this far….

…so I decided to take a break and stretch my legs and walk over to see how her pocket looked now….

…and see how many nice crystals she had pulled out of it so far….

…I walked back over to my pockets and took an overall photo of the progress I had made so far…the relocated hole pocket opening in the bottom right hand corner, and the expanding pockets moving to the left and around the backside even….

…I was pulling crystals galore out of both areas and then I started working on the right expansion of the hole pocket as well, finding even more of a bluff line of druse hanging upside down with poker chips attacked to them and another pocket opening up on the right side of the bluff line too.

After working the right side a bit, I decided to work on the hole opening on the left and see if I could get some of the druse roof plates down without too much damage to the poker chips attached to them…always more difficult when the thickness of the rock is so great and you have to use a sledge hammer and chisel to knock them loose…chances are the poker chips are going to knock loose as well and fall off, or there is a chance the whole thing could fall to the floor of the pocket and damage crystals on the bottom floor or cause damage to the crystals when they strike the other crystals on the way down….I stuffed a couple of blue bags inside and under the roof plates to minimize any damage and then set about hammering the roof plates out…

…as I suspected they would, they came down in several pieces, but I was able to salvage some nice combos despite how it looks above…

…and one in particular came out with several poker chips attached to it just fine, with minimal damage, so I was very happy to see that….

…I set my camera down in the pocket and activated the flash to give you an idea of what remained inside it…..

…and the next photo shows the progress I have made since then, with the hole pocket now expanded with the removal of the roof plates and some of the crystals and plates up on top piled up….

…and a couple more of the roof plates that came out with little damage….

…I took another break and then while moving around, found yet another spot with some potential showing, not far behind the hole pocket and started digging down and raking back the rocks and dirt until I exposed another ledge…..

…and after cleaning out the hole pocket a bit more, I started working on the ledge pocket…

…for some reason, I didn`t photograph that ledge plate after pulling it up…either it wasn`t pretty or I just forgot….but underneath it and off to either side, I found three more pockets chock full of crystals…

Well the next thing you know, this pocket is moving to the right and to the left on me, by way of a small trench, and I was pulling both small plates and large crystals out right and left in the trenches and in both of these small pockets, and they were tightly packed in there, too.

The next 2 photos show a few of the crystals and a combo plate,  coming out of here…

…while the next photo shows me working my way down the trench which widened out almost into a ditch line and shows crystals just hanging around in the mix of dirt and rock, like taters in a big pot of stew just waiting to be plucked out…

…and here are a few of those crystals after I pulled them out of the stew mix….

..and as you can see, the trench started forming bluff sides, plates of druse and chips hanging upside down, or just druse plates, and there were chips all over the place underneath and in between them as well….

…one of those plates turned out to be this nice cluster combo of poker chips all over a small area of druse….

…as well as a few other nice large plates of druse or druse and poker chip combos, as well as some nice large poker chip crystals alone…and this nice combo of druse and poker chips was the next one to pop out along the sides of the pocket trench….I usually find these plates as part of the roofline of a pocket, but in this case they were lining the sides of this trench filled with crystals and plates. I wasnt complaining at all, I was having way too much fun pulling them out and admiring them as they seemed to be coming out of their without damage for once…

…there was much fun in the hunt as I often hear about…and soon after, I popped out yet another nice cluster.…and soon enough, the trench led to this last pocket of crystals and bluff plates….

…where I found this nice little palm sized guy…

…and here the pocket ended with this haul of nice crystals and plates….

…all in all, a very nice day and just as I arrived home, I pulled off the highway and snapped this beautiful sunset….

…perfect ending to a great day of collecting…

Docia and I decided to try our luck again last Sunday, January 22nd, at the secret spot and take advantage of the forecast for 55 degrees and sunshine. I decided to split my short night, enabling me to go into work two hours later and then return home two hours later in the morning than I usually do. I got a few hours nap time after work Saturday night and then Missy and I took off for the secret spot about 10 am, to meet Docia there at 11 am. It was froggy and a cool and breezy 40 degrees as we passed through Cuba, winds gusting out of the south, so I thought maybe it will warm up alot more in a couple of hours after we get there.  As we arrived, the winds became almost gale force up on the hill so we decided to drive down to the lower area and start there, as we would be sheltered from the wind there.

We parked down at the lower end this time and decided to wait til the clouds cleared to go up above and look for druse, sunshine always makes the search easier, and so we decided to start on pockets of poker chips and druse plates first. As you can see in the photo above, we didn`t get far from the trucks before we started finding pockets.  The next photo shows Docia working on her pocket, located about ten feet from where I started finding some calcite signs right away…

…she started scratching the surface with her mini mattox, and within a few minutes, said hey look at this big crystal….

…and it came from her first pocket shown here….

…and here are some of the crystals she found in those first few minutes…

In the meantime, here is the pocket I started digging into just about ten feet from her…I had walked up on some calcite signs and decided to rake around and see if I could find anything and within moments, this pocket materialized…

…I raked out a few feet around it to see if there were any other areas near it that might be a back way in and within moments of digging into the depression, a hole appeared…

…so I dug in and within a few minutes, it expanded even more…

…and pretty soon I was pulling some pretty druse plates out with some crystals attached and separately….

..and a few minutes later, another pocket opened up….

…and within minutes, I was pulling out more plates and some dogtooth crystals of a deep orange color….

…and now the pocket looks like this, the two openings joined together….

…I decided to see if I could work further back in the direction I was sitting and see what panned out…

..and found a few more nice crystals….

..but after taking a closer look inside the pocket, I decided to remove that top layer of rock above it and see if I could remove the plates inside, some with dogtooth crystals attached to them…

…here are the crystals I was seeing under the pocket roof….

…I took what I could get out, and then let Docia get the dogtooth crystals that were left…she uses many of them for her gem trees…

After cleaning that pocket out as much as I could, I wrapped and bagged my better pieces and plates and carried them back to my truck…then grabbed a few more bags and started walking to the hole pocket to work it some more…Docia was already working another pocket she found just moments before and as I walked just past her, I looked down to see a small ledge and some calcite around it..

…..I kneeled down and began raking at the calcite by the ledge and pretty soon a hole opened up….

..after a few minutes, the hole opened up into a bigger opening and I started pulling some nice large orange colored poker chip crystals out…

the pocket started expanding back toward me, and pretty soon the area I had been sitting on, began producing more crystals…usually the pocket heads toward the crystal pile but not today….

…and here is the view inside the pocket….

I started moving with the pocket down to the left side…to stay with the bluff formation….

..and pretty soon started removing some more pretty plates of gray bubbly druse with hematite balls and poker chips attached….

you can see in the next photo, the small narrow trench moving to the left toward the blue bag, this was the start of the pocket moving left…

…and the depression in the foreground is yet another pocket that opened up and went deep on me…the next photo shows it closeup and it turned out to be another pocket of dark colored crystals with black or dark gray centers and tips……

…and this next photo shows the pocket expanding from behind the bluff line and a nice combo plate I pulled from the area near the dark crystal pocket as well…

…and here it is up closer…

…I then returned to the dark crystal pocket and began pulling some nice crystals out of it, a light bluish gray tint to the poker chips with a dark gray or black dogtooth inside right up to the tip…I had found a pocket of them once before in an area of the upper spot about 100 yards away that was absolutely pretty as could be…these were nice, too, and I was quite happy to see them.

 …and as it turned out, this pocket actually stretched from out in the middle of the expanded area single pocket all the way over to the left side where the bluff line lay…here are some photos showing the darker crystals still in the matrix…

and this next photo shows the dark crystals imbedded in the matrix of the bluff line, at least four feet across from the interior pocket where I found them first….

..and another pocket opening up in the bottom left corner above…that led to yet even more crystals and plates….

…here the pocket and bluff line shown expanded as is….and the extra crystals and plates found as of now….

…so after cleaning out this last new pocket, I turned my attention to the pocket under the bluff at the end of the trench where I started…

…and the first crystal I pulled out of that pocket under the bluff overhang was this beautiful twin poker chip….

…I laid down on my stomach and reached back into that pocket and was able to reach up to my shoulders and still couldnt reach the back wall of the pocket with my fingers…I started widening the hole with my four pound sledge hammer, feeling only a little bit of crystals on the druse plates hanging up side down under four inch thick dolomite rock, to better access the crystals loose on the pocket floor….

…and believe me, there were several in there….

Docia left for home about the time I started working this pocket more…and after getting about two feet deeper inside, and cleaning out what I could, I wound up wrapping everything up and leaving as well…knowing I would be returning this weekend to look for more…

Docia and I were talking online Monday morning, Martin Luther King`s Birthday, and talking about how she wished we could go down to the secret spot today and I told her I could meet her down there, so we opted to meet about 11:30 there and see what we could find. I called work and comped out two hours, which allowed me to go in two hrs later than usual. Missy and I loaded up the truck and headed out fairly soon after, arriving a few minutes ahead of Docia. While waiting, I raked around the big hole I had found to see if there were any back entrances to it, since the day before, I had been reaching back into it up to my shoulders. I checked two sides of it and didnt find any additional entrances, and she arrived about then. She grabbed her bags and tools and set about to checking for more pockets about ten feet away from me…

…and pretty soon she started finding some pockets of her own…which for a bit there, I thought might tie into the hole pocket as well, but they didn`t….I started checking out a small pocket back a few inches from the hole pocket and decided to see where it might lead…little did I know…

…it started going deeper and I thought I might have a back entrance to the hole pocket…since when I reached in, it seemed to wrap around behind me some…and there seemed to be alot of potential for it…lots of crystals and calcite everywhere around it…

…I kept pulling druse plates up and eventually another hole opened up revealing another pocket behind it and each time that happened, I thought I had discovered another entrance to the hole…

..this particular one had some nice crystals all around it….

…and pretty soon, after digging into it delicately, I deepened this initial pocket and discovered crystals laying in the dirt and clay mud all over the place…

..and here are but a few of my initial finds….

..I kept on digging and pulling crystals out of the mix of clay dirt and gravel, and the pocket just kept expanding back toward me and the crystal pile, which I also had to keep moving back…Docia was finding some nice druse plates and crystals in her pockets as well…

and the next photo shows one of the little bluff walls I came upon that had druse plates above hanging down and crystals all over under those plates….

..and we had def picked a nice day to go, 55 degrees, even though there was no sunshine and a slight threat of rain, we def had great weather….in the middle of January….

Well I kept digging and the pockets just kept on expanding, one after another in close proximity to each other and pretty soon I had a large area still near the hole pocket….

..and as it kept expanding, I had to keep moving the stack of crystals found, back to the left and I had to keep moving around as well, cause pretty soon, where I had originally started out sitting, the pocket was moving to….

…and then I had two new areas to work on, the little bluff opening in the upper left hand corner above and the area by my hand rake above…

both of them eventually expanding and deepening together to form one nice big pocket….

that produced the following crystals and plates…..

I apologize for the delay in getting this finished…Docia and I returned to the area yesterday, thinking we were going to be taking advantage of a 55 degree sunny day and while we did show up and find more pockets, some including some beautiful orange dogtooth crystals in all sizes, it was a rainy drizzle day at 40 degrees instead, but we made the best of it.

Continuing from above, as I was digging and expanding this area, another hole opened up…

I started digging down into the hole and exploring it and the first thing I pulled out was this nice twin….

and you can see the little bluff area to the right opening up as well, turned out to expand into a bigger area of little bluffs…where I find plates of druse hanging upside down and often single and twins and triples hidden underneath those plates…

and sometimes when you get those plates down and out of the way, you will find even more pockets of crystals behind that little bluff wall…in this case, it was a pocket of darker colored crystal, even some blue colored ones with dark gray or black dogtooth centers and tips….

like the two in the next photo on the left side….

I haven`t found a pocket of blue colored poker chip crystals with dark tips and centers like this since last year when I found a complete pocket of them about fifteen feet long and ten inches deep.

This pocket of crystals turned out to be about half as big as that one was, traveling along this bluff wall about six to seven feet long….

and consisted of crystals loose in the dirt as well as embedded in the bluff line with druse plates….

and as you can see, they are in the length of this wall from one end to the other…

and while digging the crystals out of this wall, yet another pocket opened up in the wall….

and this one was just chock full of crystals as you can see….

including some larger poker chip crystals this time….

and a few nice large plates with poker chips attached like this one…

and then the pocket abruptly ended in this embedded wall….

what I call a pocket ending wall…and sometimes when digging down into a pocket, you`ll come up against it right way and know you have to dig out the other way to find the rest of the pocket….

and here is the stack of crystals from this small hole expanded to multi-pockets….

including these plates and crystals at the top of the prior photo…

well after going as far as I could with the small hole expansion above, I turned my attention to the hole pocket and began expanding it to the right side…and in so doing, opened up another pocket on the right side….

I had to pound a few plates out of the way to expand the opening, and here are a few of those plates which broke into a few smaller pieces in the process….

and a look at the opening on the right as well as some druse plates from it…some pretty gray bubbly druse with hematite balls sprinkled all over the bubbles….

and a close up of the pocket with crystals all over the place at the bottom of the right hand wall…

and I continued to dig out the crystals and and you cant see it in the next photo, but there is a huge druse plates above all those crystals, hanging upside down..folks I couldnt see it either and I was on top of it, even sitting on it a few times before I got to this point, but boy, once I turned it over…I was elated…so was Docia when she saw it….

and up close….

it was quite pretty and def something I really like finding in these pockets…one never knows when they pull them out what you are going to find, might just be druse and might be druse with hematite balls sprinkled all over, and then you find them like this, or even just a single crystal attached…yesterday we were even finding druse plates with dogtooth crystals attached….what a day that was.

I continued to dig back into the pocket on the right and was even more pleasantly surprised to find more dark colored crystals…another pocket of them….

and even more of them….

I decided I was too pooped to continue digging at this point, so I laid down and reached into the left side of the hole pocket to see how far the pockets went back…and was able to pull a few more nice crystal clusters out before calling it a day….

just a little side note here…I get asked all the time about some of the crystals and plates having damage to them….some are damaged prior to the time when we reach in and pull them out, possibly having fallen off the roof of the cavern they are formed inside, or something falling down on them……sometimes we cause the damage to the plates when pulling or hammering them out of the pocket. This next one, you`ll prob think has damage to it, and maybe it does, but it was done before I got to it, I assure you.

 People also ask me, how do you determine what you take home and what you leave behind….I cant always answer that, but go by one cardinal rule…if its pretty, it goes home with me. 🙂

Last weekend was a nice three day weekend for me, as far as rock collecting goes…after a photo shoot Saturday morning, Missy and I loaded up the truck and headed out to the secret spot to see if we could find anything good…we hadnt been there for a few weeks, and figured I would explore the pocket on the ridge some more, but things changed when I got there. We didnt encounter as much deep mud this time going in, but it was pretty sloppy in places, and when we arrived, I decided to walk through an area that had been graded by heavy equipment to see if any poker chip chunks had rolled out of the piles….

…I walked around for about twenty minutes and picked up a few single crystals here and there, and then in a couple of areas in this section, I spotted what appeared to be potentially more, so I dug down with the mini mattox and hand rake…

…and then dug down some more til I started seeing what appeared to be the top of either shale or druse plates…

…and a few crystals started popping up….so I kept digging down and within a few minutes, even more crystals started poppping up all over the place….

…and within a few minutes, I had exposed the base wall of the pocket and began to branch out and find even more.

I was in for a big surprise….but for now, the pocket did expand to the right side more….

and as it expanded and I kept digging around, a hole opened up….

…and its always been my experience, that when a hole opens up, it usually means leading to a nice pocket down under….and in this case it did again and again and again….

…and as you can see above, yet another base wall was exposed for me to explore…

….and within a few minutes, I had found even more nice poker chip crystals all over and under those plates….

…leading to the right and the promise of even more pockets, such as these next two….

…I know its kinda hard to see them…but there is a pocket under a ledge that opened up and led to a slew of discoveries inside the pocket as well as another pocket branching off in an entirely different direction…a little more clearly seen in the next photo, as well as the growing pile of crystals found so far….

while the next photo shows the pocket that branched off to the left…

and the next photo shows the twin crystal I pulled out….out of which one I can`t honestly remember at this point…I am going to have to start taking notes I guess…..

…and here is the twin up close for ya….

and then I pulled this big boy out next…..

…I was having a hard time reaching in under that ledge to see what I could pull out of the pocket under it, so I decided to knock some of the overhang down and see if that would help me out….the overhang snapped off in three separate large chunks…here is one of them…

..that created alot of room for me to reach back into the ledge pocket and also made it easier to work the new pocket opening on the left side too….and in so doing, the removal of the overhang also created another opening to the ledge pocket, further back to the right as well….

…now one would prob think at this point that I`m going to explore even further back along this ledge and further to the right looking for more pockets, but at this point, I decided to come back the next day and romove the top layer and peel this puppy back even further to see what more was inside and do the same with the pocket on the left, so I bagged up all the crystals I had found so far and then turned my attention to a hole that had opened up early on, that I haven`t mentioned yet, to the left side of this area and see what might be lurking inside it….

…I found a few crystals but the wall eroded quickly into a solid mass of poker chip crystals that couldn`t be removed except by brute force and by this time of the day, I was totally spent…so they are still there today….

…and while exploring this section, another hole opened up so I decided to explore it and see what laid behind it….

…and as you can see from the closeup of the hole, there are crystals right inside it…

well the hole led to a saddle of solid calcite with some poker chips embedded around and on top of it, and to the sides, and a few crystals tucked away inside the hole which was like a little caverns inside the saddle….

…and as you you can see above, another ledge opened up right behind the saddle….

and this ledge is filled with druse plates and crystals under it….

and the next photo shows how much the one pocket expanded into others….

…after moving the pile of crystals back, I removed as many of the base plates as I could, some nice druse with poker chips and a few of just druse alone…

…and found yet another pocket opening up and going, again, under the pile of crystals I had collected…seems like no matter where I start piling up crystals, the next pocket found goes in that direction…always one thing or the other….

…after cleaning this pocket out, I moved over to the far left ledge where another hole had opened up, to explore it and see if there was yet another deep pocket on that side….

…needless to say, it didn`t pan out too much…only collected a few druse plates and a few crystals from it before it ran out….

I took a short break and stretched my legs, looking around and found another couple of areas to look at the next day and see if they panned out into more pockets. I looked up to the west and saw some nice fluffy clouds forming up into a good sunset….

packed my bags so to speak with the wrapped goodies, and then started home….

Stay tuned for Part 2 and 3.

After ten days of being sick and confined to the house two weeks ago, when my weekend off finally showed up, I decided to get out of the house and head for the secret spot…if nothing else, just to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. Missy and I loaded up the truck and took off late Saturday morning last weekend and on the way, I said a short prayer…asking for a safe trip and said I didn`t care if I found any pockets…just wanted to have a little fun by stretching my legs and looking for some pretty stuff. I really could have cared less if I found anything, I just sooo wanted to get outside and do something different…I had returned to work last Wednesday after ten days confined to the house with a bad cold and sinus infection. We hadn`t been to the location in four weeks, having spent the last couple of trips at the Eminence Quarry and finding some beautiful stuff down there. The floor of my kitchen was literally still covered in Emience material, even though I had given quite a bit of it to local friends who enjoy pretty stuff as much as I do. I wasn`t quite sure where I would put more stuff, but we would figure that out when the time came, if I found anything on this trip.

We arrived a little after noon and while driving in, encountered some heavy soupy and sloppy mud, on top of the otherwise normally rocky solid roadway, so I had to shift into four wheel drive just to drive down the hill to the lower spot, something I have never had to do before. Once parked down at the lower spot, I looked back at my truck and noticed all the mud on the sides and snapped this photo….

I walked over to the area that I had dug into the last time there, back when Virgil and Larry were there, and found the two pockets I had worked, half full of crystal clear water with a muddy orange oxide bottom….

…and about fifty feet to the left, the pockets that Virgil and Larry had worked on….

…and after locating the small pocket I had found prior to leaving there that day, I decided to start raking down the area around it in an effort to locate other pockets nearby…..

…within thirty minutes of raking, I located a couple of soft spots and a hole appeared about five feet away….

…the shallow spot on the right side of the photo above near the end of the handle of the mini mattox, and the hole at the end of the handle of the hand rake on the left side of the photo above….the shallow trench produced this combo crystal below….

…and it also produced a pocket of gray druse plates in the initial pocket, however I found no poker chip crystals at all….

…I decided to get up and stretch my legs after all the digging, so I walked over to the former pocket now filled with water….

…and I was glad to see that many of the clusters were still intact as well as the arch cluster….

…so after a few minutes of walking around and resting up…I walked back over and started raking around again, and following the trench which started leading me toward the ridge, right over to the base of it….and pretty soon I was finding some poker chip crystals that appeared to have either rolled down the ridge to the floor below or were coming out of a pocket at the base of the ridge…

…so for the next thirty minutes, I explored the area at the base of the ridge and attempted to find a pocket opening, specially after finding this little jewel….nice poker chip and druse combo….

…I started moving big rocks around and out of my way that were sliding down the hill to the floor. I wasnt able to find a pocket opening in the floor where it intersected the hillside, but I was still seeing single poker chips on the hillside mixed in with the ugly rocks, so I decided to work my way up the ridge hillside and see if I could locate a pocket further up, as it appeared to me that the crystals were possibly originating from up higher on the hillside. Within another thirty minutes, I located a hole that appeared to drop down into a pocket, down below a large dome of heavy dolomite rock….

…the hole located in the right hand side in the middle of the photo above…I decided to see if I could rake around and find yet another entrance to this possible pocket, perhaps one easier to access, as I wasnt looking forward to moving alot of heavy rock around to get in if I didnt have to. As you can see in the photo above, I raked to the left and above about ten feet and then hit another soft spot and stopped where my gloves are, to explore further.

In that depression above my gloves in the photo above, I pulled some pretty druse plates out and set them up above, then started working my way down that little embankment toward my gloves, and then hit another soft spot and dug it out to reveal a bluff line….

…and here are the druse chunks and ball plates I pulled out of the dirt above the bluff line….

….and continued to rake down the bluff line til I came to this large plate…..

….and when I turned it over, I not only had a pretty plate of bubbly gray druse, but a few openings indicating a deep pocket below….

…and as you can see in the next photo, there were several indicators of poker chip crystals and druse plates under the gray bubbly druse plate I turned over….

…so after digging a few crystals out and pulling a few smaller plates of druse out, the top of the pocket soon revealed itself more clearly…

…I didn`t realize it at the time, but the hole on the right side was the start of yet another pocket, leading to a second cavern type pocket…but I concentrated on exploring the pocket in front of me first….I took a photo of the opening of the pocket first….

…and then began removing some of the loose crystals in the pocket under those roof plates….the first one I pulled out was this nifty little poker chip and druse combo……

…and decided to clear some of the bigger rocks off the top of the pocket and away from the entrance so that it would be easier to remove the roof plates later…..

…as you can see, there are some big rocks sitting right on top of the roof plates and off to the side, a small rockslide just waiting to happen. I set the crystals and plates I had already found up on top of the pocket,  and eventually had to move them back away from the edge, too…..

…I then began removing the roof plates of druse…not sure if they were just druse or not…..

..and was pleasantly surprised when I pulled this first roof plate out to reveal….

…and allowed me to look inside and see even more plates with nice poker chips attached to them waiting inside the deep pocket….

…so naturally I removed as many plates as I could and then looked inside again to see even more pocket waiting for me to explore….

….and after getting as much material out as I could, I then turned my attention to that hole on the right side of the calcite face above, and soon after, discovered pocket number two…..

…you can see a nice poker chip crystal laying in the dirt at the bottom of the photo above, as well as a nice druse plate upside down to the right and above the crystal…I started digging out the hole above the crystal and removed the plate and within thirty minutes, here is what the second pocket looked like next to the first pocket….

…and here is what the entrance looked like to the second pocket…

…I cleaned out the entrance crystals and pretty soon it was obvious at the back of the pocket that there was yet another cavern pocket behind the initial pocket, opening up….

…and if you look to the right side of the photo above, you can see alot of crystals under that orange looking roof plate…when I pulled them out, another pocket opened up under it….

…and one of the first crystals I pulled out from behind the mess of crystals and debris above, was this next one….

…this was one very big and beautiful crystal and right behind it I pulled two more out, one really big one….the next photo shows the pocket to the right that developed after I cleaned this pocket out, if you see that white calcite seam to the right side of the photo, there is a bowl depression there with a hole at the back, this was pocket number four….

…and up close…..

..and soon expanded wider….

…and pretty soon I was pulling crystals and plates from the bottom and sides of the expanded fourth pocket….

…including this nice large bubbly druse plate with a poker chip attached to it….

..I actually pulled three plates this size out of pocket four, and the third one I pulled out at the back of the pocket, opened up a hole that led to pocket five….

…and out of pocket five, I pulled out several smaller clusters and crystals and plates of druse, piled up in the next photo…..

…in the next hour I was working the ridge location, I soon discovered a pocket underneath me, this nest photo shows the spot I was sitting on, as well as the pockets in front that I had been working….

…by now it was about 4 pm and I had about 30 minutes of daylight left, so I took a short break and snapped a nice cloudy sky….very pretty day….

…and after a few minutes break time, I decided to stop for the day and return the next day and clean out the clusters.Here is what the pockets looked like when I finished for the day….

After wrapping up the beauties I had collected today and packing the truck, I headed out and noticed the clouds forming up for a nice sunset…I drove to a nearby lake and shot a few nice sunset photos before heading home for the day with a truckload of clusters and crystals and plates….

Sunday morning, after breakfast, Missy and I loaded up the truck and drove back down to the secret spot, this time we went in a different way and didnt encounter any mud. I put my boots on and grabbed my hammer and chisels and bags and walked over and started chipping out the clusters from the walls on the side of the hole….

….. look at that loose crystal in the middle of the photo above, I had started chipping on the sides of the big hole and worked my way around as much as I could, chipping out several smaller clusters and a few bigger ones…I finally got around all six sides and the only thing left was the area in the middle…so after a short break, I started brushing the loose dirt away from the middle clusters so I could get a better idea of what was there…when all of a sudden….

…I pulled a few chip crystals out and another pocket opened up underneath them. I wasn`t expecting another pocket at all, just figured I would come chip a few clusters out and then head home early….but decided to work the pocket and see what I could find…

..including these two chips and the next photo of plates and clusters…

…so after cleaning the floor pocket out, I again turned my attention to the massive cluster in the middle of the floor. I knew I wouldnt be able to remove it all in one piece, that would have been nice, but it was way too big to even imagine that happening. I was able to remove it in about six pieces….

…and by the time 4 pm rolled around, I was just wrapping things up when I decided to check out this square hole in the end wall of the large hole I was sitting in….I had briefly checked it out before I left the evening before, and it appeared to be heading down into a pocket below, possibly another cavern pocket farther underneath…you can see the tunnel hole in the photo above, right above the yellow end of the chisel and below my bags…there was a plate right above the hole and to the left side a bit…I figured if I removed it I might be able to get my hand in the tunnel hole and see if I could pull some crystals out….so I chipped it out of the way and when I did that, WOW, behind it…..

…a whole other pocket opened up, and this pocket is not the pocket I thought the hole led to cause looking in the tunnel hole, the path goes down, where this pocket that opened up after chipping out the plate, is up above the other one…however after removing a few plates and crystals, you could see an opening going down into a cavern so its prob the cavern pocket that the tunnel hole leads to as well….anyway, I reached down into this pocket and the first two things I pulled out where these two crystal combos….

…and in this other photo you can see more crystals hidden in the dirt and gravel right under the surface at the entrance to the pocket….and the roof plates of the pocket just hanging there waiting to be pulled out….

…I reached in again and pulled out two nice poker chip twins….

…I then worked on removing the roof plates and that was no easy task this time…maybe because I was getting tired after chipping out about forty clusters or maybe because these roof plates were in there pretty solid, or a combination of both factors…but I finally did remove a nice section of the roof plates with a beautiful poker chip attached to it….

…and the pocket above, after removing the long roof plate…and a pile of crystals removed from this pocket as well….

and here is a pile of combos that came from this pocket as well….

….and a look inside the pocket toward the back of the pocket at the crystals just waiting to be removed….

…and here is the pocket after working it over and opening it up…..

…and how I left it looking as well, as I was wore out by this time, so I took a photo of the clusters that I had chipped out of the hole in the past few hours…..

…and the entire hole as I finished working it today…..

…and same as the evening before, there was yet another beautful sunset on my way home….some pretty unusual clouds as well….

…hope you enjoyed it as much as I did….hope everyone has a Merry Christmas…