Batesville Quarry

Posted on April 22, 2019 by jwj

I decided to drive down and check out the quarry at Batesville with the Memphis Club MAGS on March 16th…my good friends Matthew & Carolyn Lybanon in the club, had told me about this quarry last year when they first went there and sent me photos of it as well, said there were pockets of fluorite cubes sometimes found there as well as some huge calcite dogtooth crystals…more calcites than fluorites naturally, but still nice stuff. My buddy David Hodge, the Field Trip Director for CAGMAGS, which is a sister club to MAGS and based in central Arkansas near Little Rock, had some nice samples of Phantom Calcites and Dogtooth Calcites found at this quarry, when he came to dig with my group at Tony and Shane`s new Jessieville Mine in November. David set up a dig there for his club on March 30th, two weeks later, and invited my group to join up with his club there that day. I looked up the location on the map and decided I would simply get up early in the morning and hit the road by 4:30 am, and arrive four hours later. Onyx and I were on the road by 4:15 am Saturday morning, March 16th, and drove down Hwy 63 out of Rolla, then took Hwy 289, from Mammoth Springs that saved us about 20 minutes as it dropped straight south from there and skirted around a short mountain range that took us down the valleys instead.

We passed by a little fishing resort called Southfork Resort on the South Fork of the Spring River that looked really nice and pretty, then came out on Hwy 412 just west of Ash Flat, where we continued south on Hwy 167 to Batesville, arriving about 8:15 am. We were the first to arrive so I parked up by the office, entered and talked to a nice employee there about what they find there…he showed me six beach ball sized massive calcites they had pulled out of the pocket they were going to take us to dig at. I met the owner of the quarry a few minutes later, and gave him a poker chip calcite crystal to show him the difference in calcite forms, four hours distance apart. He and his employee were impressed with the poker chips…so I told them I would bring them some more when I returned in two weeks for the other group dig there. Kim Hill, the Field Trip Director for MAGS, and the rest of the MAGS crew showed up in the next 30 minutes….

….and then Bill Pryor, the Arkansas State Geologist, who was to be our Guide for the Dig, showed up as well. Bill and the owner gave us a short history talk on the quarry and then we drove up to the leading edge of the quarry pit, which presents one with a commanding view of the pit and walls….

…that area in the very bottom center, where the two pieces of yellow colored machinery were sitting, is where we would be for the next three or four hours….the next photo shows the left side of the quarry where the road begins the descent into the quarry pit, several stories below…

…and this next photo shows another view of the pit below….from a different angle…

We gathered up on the other side of the parking area of the scenic view, for a safety talk…

…and I snapped a photo of Kim resting on the hood of her truck….

…she is a good gal, heavily involved in pet rescue in the Memphis area big time, too. 🙂

Bill and the Owner told us that if we struck out digging calcites down below, his employees had brought up a truckload of calcites from that pocket and spread them out at our feet and we were welcome to return there afterward and take what we liked, home with us. Plus he had them put some up near the crusher on top of some huge boulders as well. Nice guy. 🙂

We got back into our vehicles and descended into the quarry pit, following the Owner with Bill bringing up the rear in case anyone got lost on the way down….

…if you look closely above the second vehicle you can see a waterfall that started flowing out of the rock above and was flowing pretty heavily while we were there….once we reached the bottom and parked, Bill pointed out the tan colored dirt where the calcite pocket was embedded, so we all walked over there and began picking up crystals almost immediately, that were laying all over the place…before finding a place to dig into the hillside to locate pockets of them….

…that`s Mike Baldwin, the Website Editor for MAGS, pulling his wagon over to the pocket to pull his finds back to his vehicle later….

…look at the top of the photo above and you will see Kim Hill in the brown shirt and hot pink helmet leaning over to the right, working the pocket that I found and allowed her to take over a couple of hours after we arrived and started digging up there. Anne Pinkerton is next to her, then my buddy David Hodge and then Charles Hill, Past President of MAGS, is on the other side of David…

….we did very well up there at the top as there was an extensive sized pocket up there just full of them, waiting to be pulled from their spots in the ooey gooey clay mud. 🙂 We dug up there for at least 3 hours, maybe 3 and a half hours, then Bill decided we should go back up near the top levels and see if we could find any fluorites or trilobite fossils…believe me when I say, many of us did not want to be uprooted from that prime collecting area, but I am equally sure that there were some that did want to go up there and see what could be found up there, too. Here below you see Kim making her way carefully down the boulder field below the pocket, and I mean, you definitely had to be careful with each step of your feet, everything up there was covered in that clay mud so things were a little slick…the quarry personnel had graciously drained the water pond that we had to cross to get to the pocket, but everyone had to exercise caution on every step across there…Mike was nice enough to have his wagon handy and available for anyone to use as well…Charles Hill had some nice big crystal finds and gladly took advantage of Mike`s offer of assistance….

…while David went back to assist Kim with getting her bucket of crystals down that hill safely. Bill was stationed over on the road, trying to get us to move a little quicker out of there with our finds, like a traffic cop….

David was in front of me as we drove up the hill past that waterfall again, so I snapped another photo of it with sunlight on it this time….

Only a few people found any fluorite cubes up above, one in a huge boulder that he tried to cob down to a reasonable size, never did find out if he was able to do that tho…and a young lady walking along the level road up there, found a nice chunk of matrix with a beautiful spray of small purple cubes all over one end of it…right next to Bill Pryor`s suv, too !! 🙂

I`m still cleaning my finds from this trip and the one trip, two weeks later at the end of March, but here are the photos of the calcites David brought to Arkansas to show us what could be found there, and as soon as I get more of mine cleaned up, I will post them here and the next story too…..

Just a quick note…Sadly, this location is no longer available to rockhounds or clubs, due to the Owner retiring a few years ago.

Semi Retirement Mid Nov 2018 to April 2019

Posted on April 20, 2019 by jwj

Well if what I have heard about retirement from all my friends and family older than me is true, and I suspect it is, then I am sure I am going to enjoy it…I found out I do like semi retirement quite a bit, especially the part about sleeping in as late as I want to, and going to bed as late as I want to. 🙂

I heard from one of my bosses soon after returning from my fall trip to Arkansas in November of 2018, that while down in southern Arkansas collecting quartz crystals, they had received two small snowstorms and that ended my seasonal employment, which launched me into my semi retirement a little earlier than expected, mainly because our winter season was about to become a bit rougher than the previous five winters had been. I was ready to start my semi retirement phase…even though we usually get up early to go rockhunting, I was really getting tired of rising way before the crack of dawn for my daily workout. Yes we rockhounds get up early, but rarely do we get up as early as I had been getting up to go to work.

I kept myself fairly busy, got the two and a half acres of leaves raked at Mom`s well after we returned from Arkansas, last few days of November, mainly due to the wet and cold fall season we had, think it was two weeks after raking and leaf blowing before we could burn them, had to wait for it to dry out and then wait for a low wind day to do so….

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Normally we rent a blower from a buddy of mine here in town, a Stihl blower, but found out he stopped renting them out when Stihl failed to keep their word and allow him to remain the sole rental on them in my area…I don`t blame them, they gave him their word, they should have kept their word. Matter of Principle…I believe strongly in that…Stihl blowers are the best product out there…but if you cannot keep your word, you have nothing…your word is your bond, matter of trust. I went shopping at Lowes and found they had a Poulan leaf blower on sale, at an unheard of price, so we bought one of those…runs great, starts great, only drawback I found, is that when you shut it off to refill it with fuel, you then have to allow it to cool down, at least 20 minutes before you can start it again…guess they want you to rest up as well.

During December I cleaned house and basement, put some shelves up in the basement to get things up off the floor, never know when you live in a low area, with two sump pumps running, when something might stop working or something back up and then you have things damaged. That happened about five to seven yrs ago, stormwater sewer backed up into my basement, got about ten inches deep down there, burned the sump pump up completely, was able to borrow a trash pump from my roofer and then replace the sump once the water was removed. I capped off that drain to the stormwater sewer and got one of those trash pumps for that corner, one that kicks on when the water gets up so high on it, hose attached to it takes that water over to the sump pump well in the basement and the sump pump ejects it from the basement. I wanted to avoid that again and organize the basement better, took me the better part of two weeks to do that….

…..I also joined the Rehab Gym here in town and kept walking a few miles a day, which helps my KETO do it`s job a bit better, kept my weight down to 160…over Christmas tho, I put a few pounds back on with all the goodies out there, but by February, I had that back under control again too. 🙂

My friend Tim Weiskopf, who has his own Body Shop, was busy thru December, so I waited til the middle of January to take my truck over to him, to have the damage to the passenger side of the cab repaired…

…he and his sons and crew did a great job with it, looked brand new when he finished with it…and during the process of it, I found out that his son Dillon, also likes to collect rocks and minerals, so I took him a nice flat of various crystals and minerals from my collection, and since then have taken him rockhunting as well. I also had the chance to drive a nice Ford four door pickup during the week that Tim had my Tacoma in his shop…

…it had a lot of bells and whistles on it, picked it up the morning I dropped off my Tacoma to Tim at his shop, and could not find a manual on it, and the Enterprise guy didn`t have time to explain anything, so I drove it to a good friend who drives Ford pickups…Jack Cuneio, and asked if he could show me the basics on it…he came out and walked me right through it all…thanks again, Jack !! About the only thing it didn`t have was four wheel drive, and luckily for me, Tim finished my Tacoma just in time for the first snowfall of 2019….

…and as you can see, it looks like it just rolled off the lot of a dealership…thanks again Tim, you guys did a great job with it !! I finished out January by adding an area in one corner of my basement where I can clean rocks during cold weather or bad weather….

…yes as you can see, I have collected and cleaned up a lot of druse quartz…if you know someone that wants some, let me know…I took several buckets of grab bag material to MAGS, the Memphis Club, back in March, for their show later this month, and still have a few buckets of that if someone is in need of grab bag material. Also had a few dealers visit me over the winter to get some nice druse plates to sell in their locations as well. During February, I was kept busy shooting emergency calls for the local paper…we wound up with a lot of snow this winter and some ice as well, one ice storm causing all night calls for our local responders and snarling I-44 in several spots with overturned semi`s, five of them on the east side of our East Overpass…

…very few injuries, but could have been a real humdinger for sure…maybe the next time the authorities ask people to stay off the roads, there will be a few more truckdrivers comply with that request. We had a commonsense rule when I was driving fire trucks…you won`t do anyone any good, if you cannot get the truck to the scene safely…meaning slow down or stay off the road completely…won`t do anyone any good if you have a wreck or get injured or killed. Duh….

Few nights later was a house fire at the neighboring town…five fire departments trying to save something for the residents with water problems getting in the way…huge house up on a hill and firefighters had problems pumping water up that hill to the hoselines manned by other firefighters…during another snowstorm mixed with sleet no less….

…I can safely tell ya, firefighters do not like to sit or stand around and watch someone`s property or house, burn down….it is the most helpless feeling one will ever have and it just demoralizes us when it happens…luckily soon after I took these initial photos of this house fully involved, they were able to get water up the hill and into the hoselines so firefighters could do the job they were called there to do….

…and then four days later, I woke to the sound of chatter on the scanner early in the morning about a fire at our local truck stop, so I got up, dressed, grabbed the camera, and Onyx went with me to the fire…turned out to be two tractor trailers parked side by side on the back row of the truck stop and well involved in heavy fire…smoke from it could be seen for miles….

the one above was taken by a truck driver parked a few feet away and facing the fire, shot it through his windshield….the others I shot…this fire had many on edge in town fearing hazardous materials were involved, they heard explosions before I arrived…those were the semi tires blowing up….both trucks were carrying food products only….

I got to watch a young department come together with a lot of teamwork at this fire, lots of young firefighters on this department once again, they did a great job and were there all morning long, trying to gain access to the trailer transporting Mac N Cheese Edibles, hence the heavy fire seen before…

Then one day in mid March, I drove out to photograph a car on fire and wound up helping the lone firefighter who responded to the call with the fire truck…the paid crew went to a reported vehicle accident involving a semi and while listening to the second call, I thought he had a crew on board the truck, but on my arrival to photograph the fire, found he was alone, so I offered to run the pump on the truck while he fought the fire…something I had done for 36 of my nearly 40 years on the local fire department….

He had a few minutes of excitement when he trained the hose stream down into the cab of the car through the front windshield and the water stream hit the steering column, obviously made of magnesium which reacts with water and looks like roman candles going off around you….

…then he discovered by accident that the gas tank was obviously leaking gasoline, as the flames kept jumping from side to side underneath the car…refusing to go out…you can always tell flames that are fuel fed, they are extra unique looking….

The paid crews arrived about 25 minutes later as Jimmy was beginning to get more control over the fuel fed fire….I am sure he was glad to see them too…

After posting the story on my FB page, one of my female friends who is a reporter with St Louis Channel 4 News, KMOV.com, spotted it and called me to see if they could use my video for a short story and I gave them permission to do so…she put together a very nice story on it….thanks again Paige !!

https://www.kmov.com/news/watch-photographer-puts-down-camera-to-help-put-out-car/article_378c96ca-45ff-11e9-8dd3-e3855fab331b.html?fbclid=IwAR3zQsERq7rMDF9eS8BgOb1YxH8R_FZ5t8LcYRToZb14i-8KB7fNutEZd50

By this time in March, our weather was beginning to lighten up and warm up, and I was looking forward to doing some rockhunting in the weeks ahead…:)

My Fall Vacation in Arkansas 2018

Posted on November 21, 2018 by jwj

This year was the coldest fall season in southern Arkansas I can remember…been going down there for about ten years now for my fall vacation and I don`t remember a day when the temps fell under 60 degrees down there in years past. For ten years before that, I used to drive out west, starting in Breckenridge, Colorado and would spend about a week driving around the state before driving to Utah and then south to Page, Arizona, near Lake Powell and spend a few days there before making the long drive home. It was always cooler out there, sometimes I even saw snow, specially at the higher elevations, even drove thru it at times, usually on my way to Aspen to photograph one of the prettest locations on God`s Green Earth…the Maroon Bells…if you ever get the chance to go there, DO SO…you will not regret it…especially if you go in the fall when the aspen trees are turning color…best time of the year to go in my humble opinion. 🙂

The last time I was there was 2012, when I took Mom and Dad out to Colorado to see the fall color for their 50th Anniversary…we got there before the sun came up over the mountain behind us…which is why that shadow on the left is so deep, you have to wait til 9 am for the sun to come up over that hill and fully illuminate the left side of the lake and hillside…we were there long enough it finally did so…

…btw, the Bells are those two twin mountain peaks covered in snow…they appear to be towering right over the top of the lake, but believe it or not, they are actually 28 miles behind the lake…and one other thing, if you have to stop multiple times on the way up the road leading to the Bells…only one way up there and back out…don`t feel like the Lone Ranger, cause I don`t know anyone, myself included, who could come up that road or drive back down without stopping about every 50 feet to shoot the gorgeous color and scenery. One of these days, I wanna return to Colorado and just spend a couple of weeks shooting the scenery and rock hunting !!

The only thing I didn`t pack for my trip to Arkansas this year, was my heavy winter coat…I recall thinking I might need it if it turned cooler than normal, which it did, and was a bit cool on the way down there too…but for whatever reason, I did not pack it in my truck, but I sure did miss it a few days and nights down there. Onyx and I dropped Mom off at Fort Smith at the hotel and then we headed over to Sallisaw, Oklahoma, to visit with my buddy Adam, who used to do a lot of quartz and wavellite hunting in the Mt Ida area, in his younger years…these days he is into knapping big time. He was going thru some of his older collection the other day and found a bucket of old wavellite from the Avante area…he told me to come by and visit and check it out, so I did. We had a great visit for about an hour and then he had to get to his new job and we had to head south.

I wanted to get to Mt Ida by 4 pm, but that didn`t happen, so we motored on down to Hot Springs, arriving at the condo with just enough daylight left to unpack the truck. I like to get there with a little daylight left so I can capture the nice sunset, but there would not be a nice sunset this evening, unless you like two or three tone gray colors in your sunset…

…the sunrise, the next morning, was a little better, not alot, but some better….

…and while it appeared to dawn clear and bright…it didn`t last long…clouded up and rained most of the day so my plans to drive back up to Mt Ida and visit some dealer friends fell through. I did get a chance later in the day when the rain shut down a few times briefly, to photograph some fall color at a couple of my favorite places in the area….this one is a waterfall I like to shoot occasionally near Hot Springs…

…and this is a house on a pointe across from the condo I stay at…called Tanglewood Pointe, they have lights down by the water all the way around it that stay on all night long…

and another one of my favorite places is De Soto Lake on the north side of town, with a man-made dam….

…about 50 yards below the dam, there is a neat little stone building with a huge steel water wheel attached to it, an old motor inside the building with gears and wheels…it`s an old pumphouse that generated electricity for the Colonel Fordyce Estate up above the lake and pumphouse…usually very pretty in the fall season but this year the trees around it had already lost alot of their leaves, so here is how it normally looks in the pretty fall season as it did here in 2014….

…the stone bridge in front of it, has a little waterfall below the opening too…and the road that runs along the lake above is named after the bridge, Stone Bridge Road….however there is another stone bridge at the other end of the lake, so it might be named after that one….decisions, decisions…

…stunning huh ? one of these days I have to get up on the hill and check out the estate up there, see if it`s as pretty as this. 🙂

The weather finally cleared off by mid afternoon and I was headed up to Mt Ida when I received a phone call from the condo owner, she had been trying to reach the direct tv people in Hot Springs for me, to come fix the main tv in the condo for me, and she finally had them on the way, so I had to turn around and head back to the condo to wait on them, as there was no one else in the area that could let them in. Not long after they arrived and fixed it, I heard from Slade that he had made it into Hot Springs, was checking into his hotel and could meet me for dinner earlier than 7 pm…I let him know I would meet him at the Hibachi Sushi Buffet about 6 pm. Everyone else that was coming in for the Friday dig, would be arriving later that evening and we would meet up at the Valero the next morning and drive on up…John and Mary from Northwest Illinois were driving in late that night and were staying in Mt Ida, along with Pete and Mary from Ohio, and would meet us along Hwy 270 up there the next morning. Slade and I had a great meal at the Buffet as usual, they have American and Chinese cuisine both, as well as a 30 foot long sushi bar. I asked Slade how much room he was gonna have for the trip back, cause I had six flats for him to take back to Harry Polly and Larry Huffman for me, they purchased some poker chip and druse quartz combination clusters from me…he said he brought some cases to put them all in and thought that would be the best way to transport them back…I thought that was a great idea and commended him for good thinking. Onyx and I drove over to the home made ice cream place called Scoops, to get another quart of turtle tracks for me and some vanilla ice cream for him, before heading to the condo. I heard from John just before 10 pm, that he had just crossed into Arkansas from Missouri…he had drove down thru my town on his way to Salem to deliver some Linwood Barites to a buyer, earlier in the day…I figured he had at least another three hours of driving before he reached Mt Ida.

The next morning`s sunrise was very pretty…

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…an hour later, as Onyx and I were leaving the condo complex to head up to the Valero Station to meet up with the others, I shot this looking west…

….the news that morning said something about a chance of rain that morning in the Mt Ida area…the clouds looked at that moment, like rain clouds to me…I hoped it would be done raining by the time we arrived. We got to the Valero Station to find Slade there parked and waiting, ready to go and a bit worried that no one else was going to show up…I let him know it would prob just be us and Julie, and we would pick up John, Mary, Pete, and Mary at Mt Ida, and Tony would meet us at the mine gate at 9 am. Julie arrived soon after in her big van, with her daughter Stephanie, and we took off westbound on 270 toward Mt Ida. We stopped briefly at Burl`s Country Smokehouse so I could get a sandwich for me and Onyx, however they were not even open yet…which from years past, is highly unusual…we have stopped there several times early in the morning like this and found them open at daylight…we drove on to Mt Ida and a few miles out of town, I called their Subway to make sure they were open…they were so I let Mary and Pete know we would stop there for sandwiches for lunch. We arrived there a few minutes later and found Mary and Pete waiting for us…John and Mary were still at the hotel but drove by while we were inside getting food and they went on to Southfork Mine to meet us there. When the rest of us pulled up to the mine gate about 20 minutes later, we found John and Mary waiting on us, and shortly after, Shane Manley pulled in and parked on the right in front of my truck…he is Tony`s partner and was bringing some flats of smokey crystals for us to purchase. I have talked to Shane by email and Facebook several times, he was very helpful on several rockhunting matters, and we finally had the opportunity to meet in person. He also brought four baskets full of crystal points with very nice prices on them…Tony arrived while we were looking thru the baskets and flats of goodies….

….they did not last long with my group there, let me tell ya….as I was talking to Tony about where we could dig the next day, after our plans had been changed twice before we even arrived down there, explaining to him how Wegner didn`t stay in touch with us and kept changing the rules on the second truck for the Phantom Mine trip….Shane suggested that we drive over to the new mine and dig there on Saturday…we were ecstatic to hear that and we quickly said YES !! We agreed on a time and location to meet up with Shane the next morning and then we loaded up, crossed the creek and drove up the hill to the top…the first part pretty and easy….

…Tony had his expansion order approved and brought in a logging operation to help him clear the area…they in turn had messed up his road going up the hill.

Normally it`s a solid road, has a few ruts, but we have never had any problems going up or down it…this time, it was a different story, soft mud, limbs down, a BIG boulder close to the uphill left side, and deep ruts…John and I stopped Julie who was in front of me and behind John, and we convinced her to park in the wide spot behind us and then walk up the hill, her van would never make it even halfway up and she might get stuck blocking the road, so she decided to take our advice and park down below…a few minutes later, riding up with Tony and his dog in his powerwagon pickup, she was glad she made the decision to park below…..

…the rest of us had no problems either, although even with new tires on mine and in four wheel drive, I did slip and slide a little…fun ride tho, nothing like off roading once again, felt like a youngun again, lol. 🙂 We all got up there, got our boots on, grabbed our tools, our buckets, our wraps, my camera, and headed up to the mine to look around and start looking for pretty quartz crystals…when I got up there and looked to my right, where Tony had started digging a new pit, I spotted Slade on the other side holding up a nice big crystal point that he had found within minutes….

…then I looked left and spotted Ohio Mary down below clowning around in the red clay dirt…

…and behind me was Tony`s trackhoe with Stephanie and Julie getting organized to the left of it….

…when we arrived at the top of the hill at the old and new mine combined, there was a small black and tan dog waiting for us, looked as if it had been dumped and she was as cute and nice as could be, well mannered, hungry and when she saw Onyx and Tony`s dog, she lit up and you could tell she just wanted to play. She stayed right with those two dogs the entire time we were there, and later when Tony headed home, he took her with him, which I thought was very nice of him to do…here she is with Onyx following John up the tailing pile hill because he had ” treats ” in his hands….

John and Slade went up and over the hill and down into the old mine area and began working the walls looking for quartz pockets…and found some…they were still down there working them when I wandered down in the afternoon. I started surface collecting in the upper end of the new pit area, found several fist sized clusters and single points right away and dug in to the soft clay dirt in a few areas and found even more small clusters. I filled a bucket pretty quickly and returned to the truck to empty it, wrap up the good ones and then return for more collecting.

As I did, I spotted Julie and Stephanie over on my right, above the old area and just behind the new pit area…

and I looked down below and spotted John talking to Pete along the old wall, while Mary was surface collecting the center tailings area…

…and looking back toward the entrance at the top of the hill, there was Julie and Stephanie on the left side and Ohio Mary down in the pit Tony was digging out….

Tony decided to climb up into his trackhoe and clean out the upper end of the pit for us to comb thru some more…

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….I spotted Slade`s pick on the other side and went to retrieve it before Tony got to it with the bucket, let him know I was going after it, and then I climbed up on the hill on the other side…Julie held on to Onyx for me so he would not naturally follow me over there….

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I took a lunch break after retrieving Slade`s tool and ate my half of the sandwich, well all but the last few bites, gave that to the new dog, and Onyx his half as well. I then grabbed my mini mattox and bucket and headed down to the lower area where John and Slade were working the old wall, wandering around the tailing piles, picking up small clusters and single points too, that were laying all over the place. I came across a couple of skinks in the clay dirt, one under a rock and another out in front of the rock…John was seeing them all over the place too….

…while I was up on top of the hill, I also let the others who were driving down that evening, know we were going to the new mine tomorrow and as expected, the reactions were much the same as ours…everyone was excited !! David Hodge called me to check on our plans for Sunday and when I told him where we were going the next day, he forgot about Sunday and decided he would meet us at the meeting place the next morning instead. I made a wide loop around the base of the old mine on top of the hill and then made my way thru the pines on the south side like I did last year, finding a few more nice small clusters to add to my bucket. By 4 pm, everyone was pretty much ready to leave, including John, so we made our way down the hill and to the gate, which I had to re-open so we could all get out, as Tony had locked us in when he left earlier in the day. I was pretty tired by this time, luckily Pete was right behind me and he came up and helped me with the heavy steel gate after I finally got the lock opened. After everyone got thru the gate, John came back and helped me re-secure it and then we headed back to Mt Ida, where Pete, Mary, John, and Mary dropped out of the wagon train and the rest of us headed back to Hot Springs. At some point we lost Julie to a gas station along 270…I heard from Fred who had arrived in Hot Springs a little earlier and was hungry, asked where we were eating supper and what time. 🙂 I let him know we would prob return to the Hibachi Sushi Buffet about 7 pm and let Julie know as well. Slade and I got stuck in some slow traffic til we got to Royal and then things finally opened up a bit for us and we then made good time to Hot Springs. We met up with Fred at the HIbachi just before 7 pm and had a great supper. Onyx and I returned to the condo for some ice cream and tv before bedtime. I had a few text messages from the others letting me know they would likely be in late and Chuck, who was riding with me in the morning to the new mine, so his wife and kids could go shopping, let me know he would be outside my door at 6:15 am, as we were going to have to go pick up Justin, whose car was in the shop. The sunrise the next morning was absolutely gorgeous and I had just enough time to shoot this image and some video of it…

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Well I had just enough time to post the sunrise on my FB page before Chuck and I took off…I had Justin`s address, he forgot to give it to me the night before and texted me about 5:30 letting me know he was awake and ready to go…think he was like everyone else, supercharged and excited for what we might all find there. Tony told us the day before that all we were going to have to do was sit down at the tailing piles and dig in, and the crystals were so plentiful that they would just roll down into our hands and laps…I haven`t been to a mine like that yet, so I think we were all looking forward to seeing and experiencing that. We arrived and picked up Justin and then headed over to the Valero Station…Slade was again the first one there and lined up ready to go…we had eight more this morning and there had been eight of us total on Friday, so we were now at 16 rockhounds. Everyone but Patty, Colby, and Gabriella Herman had arrived at the Valero meeting spot….I had let them know last night to meet us instead at the De Soto Park parking lot, on Hwy 7, just north of the Hwy 7 Business Route that runs thru the National Park Campground. We arrived there at 7 am and did not find them there, so I called Patty and she said they were at Whittington Park, I let them know to get on Hwy 7 and go north and they arrived a few minutes later, and after talking a few minutes, we headed northwest, forty minutes later we arrived at the meeting spot to find John, Mary, Pete, Mary, waiting for us…a few min later, David showed up and soon after, Shane and his son-in-law arrived too. After paying him our fee, he took us up to the new mine and helped us park, then explained the boundaries to us and turned us loose to dig and hunt.

…sure was pretty on the way up there….

…here are the tailing piles around the pit….

….which had some water on one end, but luckily Tony and Shane had told us where to dig, so we would not get wet….and let me say this…what Tony said the day before about digging in the tailing piles and the crystals rolling down into our laps…was SPOT ON CORRECT…cause that is EXACTLY what happened to us !!

Here you see John and Slade down in the pit digging where Tony and Shane told them to, while Colby, Justin, and Chuck are up above on the other side, checking the tailing piles….

….there were several piles around the pit and they all had some GREAT stuff in them, from single large points to baseball sized clusters to candle stick size points…Justin found one that was like a scepter of two long crystal points somewhat blended together. Many nice ones were found both in the pit and in the tailing piles. A few of us took off and backtracked along the road to a few other dig sites and checked them out to see if there was potential for the group to go to one of them and find some nice stuff as well, however we did not find much of anything at any of those spots, and we returned to the new mine pit shortly after. We took a lunch break and David came over to show me some beautiful calcite crystal plates that he had found at a quarry in north central Arkansas…I had heard about this quarry from some friends at MAGS…this first plate he showed me has a few sharply pointed crystal tops with very small pagoda caps sitting on the very top edge of the crystals…

He also showed me some phantom calcite crystals that were very pretty and unique as well…

….I called John over to take a look and he was like me, very interested in each type of crystal that could be collected at this location….

Justin walked over and was totally mesmerized by one of the pagoda calcite crystals…you can slightly tell by the look on his face….lol….

David also brought some large dogtooth calcites to show us…

….and John was very taken with them as well….

we dug for another four hours and then began to get out of there and off the hill and back to Hot Springs to clean up and go to supper at the Hibachi Sushi Buffet again. I was pretty tired and intended to take a nap when I got back but for some reason, I did not do that. We were to meet at the Hibachi about 6 pm…I shot the sunset…..

…..and then stepped outside to drive to the restaurant….Chuck and his family offered me a ride there in their new Chev Traverse SUV and I wish now I had taken the offer. When Chuck and I returned to the condo, I had backed in to the parking spot at an angle and I did not straighten it out…I should have, but didn`t…so when I got in to head out, I came out at the angle I was in there at, and struck the rear bumper of a pickup sitting next to me…I stopped and got out to look, and found my cab doors damaged and paint removed as well at the bottom of both doors, just from hitting the bumper and tail light of the other truck, which was smaller than my truck..wow…kinda bummed me out a bit. I had not seen the truck there before, and had no idea where the owner was, but there were only a few condos occupied, so I went to the two below me and found the owner in the second one I checked. I let him know I had struck his truck, think he was a bit upset at first, not that I had struck his truck, but that I was taking him away from the Arkansas football game on tv….he and Chuck assisted me in getting my truck unhooked from his bumper, he finally had to pull his truck forward about a foot in order for me to do that, and then it was obvious that I had damage and his truck had none…all he had to do so was buff his bumper and tail light with a cloth the next day and it was fine. He was very nice to deal with, we exchanged info and he told me that if he felt there was any damage the next day after looking at it in the light, he would call me. I never did hear from him…I took some photos the next day after I got back from the mine…

…and reported it to my agent on my return home…first accident I have been at fault, in 42 years of driving…Fred called while we were exchanging info, he thought maybe I had napped and overslept or forgot to set the alarm…let him know what was going on and that we would be there soon. We arrived about ten minutes after the meeting time, there were about 14 of us there and they ushered us into a private dining room. I think some were afraid to talk to me, thinking maybe I was mad, but like I told Slade and Fred, my doors still open, close, and lock just fine, and this is exactly why you have insurance and full coverage at that…I have always carried it from the time I began driving because back then I was driving to fire calls and it was pretty much required, so I have just always continued to carry it and you never know when you might run into someone that has no insurance, even tho most states these days require it, some still fall thru the cracks. As I said earlier, I was a little bummed out that the guy`s smaller truck bumper was tougher than my Toyota truck doors, but what can ya do about it…take it to the body shop and let them restore it to it`s original luster is all. While at supper, I called Shane to see if it was okay for us to return to the new mine the next day about 11 am…I told him we wanted to visit his Dad at his rock shop about 9 am and then drive over to the new mine, and he said that would be fine, he would meet us at the same spot at 11 am. A few of the group had heard of the forecast for bad weather north and east of us, so they decided they would be on the road home early…Slade for one, as he had a good 12 hour drive home to North Carolina and didn`t want to hit that bad stuff on Monday instead. Chuck decided he would drive up to see Mr. Manley at his rock shop with us and then return to Hot Springs, pick up his family, and head home too.

So the next morning, we met at the Valero Station once again..we had a little speed bump in the road when Patty called and said they were apparently at the wrong Valero Station cause they didn`t see any of us there…they were at Central Ave and 270 Bypass, so I told them to get on 270 westbound and go half a mile and look for us on the shoulder, and then we would motor on up the road and pick up the others at Mt Ida, so that is what they did and we were soon on the way west, arriving to find John and Mary already there and talking to him at 8:45 am. We had a great visit with him, I think everyone bought something from him, he still had a few pieces of smokey quartz from the new mine that was found in February earlier this year…and some great wavellite too…I purchased a few quartz pieces and some wavellite for sure too. We then bid Chuck good bye and then we headed toward Jessieville, arriving just ahead of Shane, who was again out deer hunting with his son-in-law…Shane had shot a deer just moments before we arrived at the meeting spot…he opened the gate for us and then returned to clean the deer, said he would check on us later. I decided that this time, I was going to check out a test hole dig down the hill a bit from the main mine first…I found a few down there, but nothing really super nice…John came down there for a few min and found a couple of nice points too…then we walked back up and I sat down where David was sitting the day before, and immediately started finding several crystal points just rolling down into my lap, much as it had been the day before…here are a few that I put on the tailgate a few min later….

…as I was arranging the crystals above to take some photos, Colby came back to his car to retrieve a pick, and I mentioned something about the ski gear he had on to stay warm, it was much colder today at 11 am then it had been the day before…he posed in his gear with the pick in his hands for me…

…thanks again Colby…great job !!

I grabbed another bucket and decided this time to get down into the pit and dig into the wall next to John and see what I could find down there….

….he put me in the spot Justin had started in the day before…just left of Mary in the photo above where the pick is leaning up against the dirt….

….and within seconds, I was finding several nice crystal points and some long slender crystals as well as a few nice clusters….I was giving some to John as well and within 90 minutes I had filled two five gallon buckets and decided to take off. I had a friend driving over from the Memphis area and I wanted to get back and cleaned up before he arrived, in case he got lost on the way in…I took a few more photos before leaving…here is Patty and Julie, with Stephanie behind her, digging in the front tailings pile…and doing well I might add….

…and Patty`s plastic tub of fried chicken that she brought to share with everyone…I mean her plastic tub of crystals that she found…they look like fried chicken up close….

…and up close with crystals she just found in the pile….

…and Julie with her phosphorescence pink bucket….I woulda swore that was fuscia colored myself….lol 🙂

…I took off shortly after and headed back to the condo to meet a friend that was coming down from Tennessee to visit with me while I was nearby. It rained pretty much the whole day on Monday so we were limited what we could do and he headed back home by early afternoon, so Onyx and I just cleaned up and prepared to head home the next morning. I had my last quart of Turtle Tracks and rested up a bit. I figured I would try to contact two of the dealers in Mt Ida the next morning on my way home, but both were unavailable so I continued to head to Fort Smith, even thought about stopping by the family farm to visit with family, however Mom had told me by phone the other day that they would be in the woods hunting til about 11 am, which is about the time of day that I picked up Mom and headed north toward home.

** I want to explain one thing about this trip….maybe this will prevent someone else from going through the same bs that I experienced. My group and I went to Wegner`s Phantom Mine one day last year in November 2017, and enjoyed it so much, we returned in March of this year for two days in a row, and again, had a great time, although most would prob tell you that the one day last year in November was much better than the two days in March, and that would be because they had 18 inches of rain the week before we arrived in March and we were limited to the tailing piles only, which had not been turned over for sometime. I contacted Wegner`s a few months back and started inquiring if the dates of Nov 10th and 11th were available for us to return there again…they were I was told, so I let them know my group would like to return and reserve those dates, my initial head count was 20 rockhounds and I requested two trucks so that it would be a comfortable ride, I let them know that Mr. Wegner had told us in March that if we returned with at least 20 folks, he would commit to two trucks for us. When staff checked with him, he said we would need at least 22 people before he could commit two trucks…two weeks later my head count was 23 rockhounds and I updated staff…they checked with him and I was advised that he now wanted us to bring 30 rockhounds before he committed to two trucks…my response was not pretty nor did I intend for it to be…when I get aggravated like that, I get pretty sarcastic…I told him to pick a number and stick with it, keep his word !! Staff promised to find us seven additional people so we could have a second truck…a week went by, then ten days, and I checked with my group, told them what was going on, let them know I had a backup mine we could go to, possibly for two days, they were all fine with that, plus it was going to be less money. Wegner wanted $ 44 per person for four hours dig time, including that amount for three kids that were going to be there, two of them under the age of ten, the other mine was going to be less than half that cost, we could stay all day, and no charge for the kids. I let Mr. Wegner know that we were cancelling our trip and he replied that they had found us seven more people to go in with us…I told him too little too late, he could have, and should have, communicated that much sooner, we exchanged several emails, I told him he was going to miss out not only on our full amount times 23 people, but each time we had been there before, everyone in my group had spent even more money in his nice rockshop and he would miss out on that as well, mainly due to his inability to keep his word and his inability to communicate with us…but of course, none of that was his fault, he placed all fault on me…I still have the emails to prove it if need be. He did promise to refund my deposit that I had paid a month out for everyone in my group…however he did not put it through, staff did that a few days later once they became aware, through me, that I had cancelled the trip…he didn`t even update his own staff that we were not coming down there…makes one wonder for sure. **

Other than that, we had a great trip down there this fall season….Mom, Onyx, and I rolled into Sullivan by 4 pm on Tuesday, Nov 13th, a day ahead of the big snowstorm headed our way. Had a great time, just wish it would have been warmer down there, hope everyone else had as good a time as we did. 🙂

Here are a few of my crystals cleaned up from the new mine….

David Hodge Comes to Visit and Collect With Me

Posted on November 17, 2018 by jwj

I had a phone call a few weeks ago from my buddy David Hodge, who is the Field Trip Director for the CAGMAGS Club, sister club to MAGS, the Memphis Club I have been a member of for several years now. CAGMAGS is located in central Arkansas near Little Rock, they come up with MAGS sometimes to collect with me up here and sometimes they just contact me and come up on their own and invite MAGS to go with them. David let me know he was going to be in St Louis for a marching band event for a few days and would be returning home after the Saturday event, asked if I could take him rockhunting on that Sunday morning. I told him it was his lucky week cause I had planned to go rockhunting that Sunday and assured him he was going to love it. We planned to meet up at a familiar pull off spot nearby, and I took him to the SSQ area and showed him the smokey druse plates I had been finding there. Needless to say, we found a bunch of them and had a great time, before he took off for home. He contacted me a couple of days later and asked if he could come back the next weekend and do that again and I said sure…cause I needed to get some together to take to Arkansas with me on my upcoming trip there…I let him know where we were gonna go down there and extended an invitation to join us at the privately owned mines we were going to. The second trip to the SSQ was a bit wet when we arrived….muddy I should say, they had quite a bit of rain the day before apparently….our trucks got muddy just driving up the druse road…..

….but it only sprinkled on us a few times that day and we did quite well and found some really nice stuff once again…this one right outside my truck as I stepped out….

…and once we climbed up the tailing piles, it was literally laying all over the place….prime for the picking….

Needless to say, by the time we left, we were both exhausted…David spent the night closeby before heading home the next day as he had about a six hour drive.

SSQ During October

Posted on November 17, 2018 by jwj

During October, I had a few nice visits at the SS Quarry, one visit producing a few unique combos from pockets….

….one producing some nice sunbeam photos….

…and then after some surface collecting, I decided to stop at another place to check for druse quartz…and discovered some nice plates of bubbley smokey quartz druse plates…

…I grabbed up several nice ones and then washed them off when I returned home, so I returned to the same place the next day and picked up several more…

BEAUTIFUL STUFF !!

Geode Fest 2018

Posted on November 17, 2018 by jwj

Luckily, I had the weekend off for Geode Fest, but had to work Friday, so I drove up early on Saturday morning, arriving about 6:30 am, which gave me some free time to register and get signed in for it before the crowd arrived. I also had a little time to walk around and visit with the dealers there that I knew…Robert Kuhn was there from Hot Springs with his new girlfriend, Solara, so I got to meet her and visit with them for a bit…..

…..Ken Vaisivil was there as well and visited with him for a bit…love his geodes display he had in front of his booth too….

Soon after that, my buddy, John Oosteryk, arrived along with Charity and Jamey, set their booths up, and then Abbi woke up in her Jeep in the parking lot and joined us after getting registered to dig that morning too. We all soon left for the Barrow Pit for the morning dig…this is a location we went to last year for the first time it opened and it was a pretty good site with geodes laying all over the place. The landowner had brought in machinery and dug out a good sized area near a pond, about ten miles south of Wayland on Hwy 61 and there was speculation that it could be the old C-61 site as well, or close to it. Prior to going up there, I had made contact with a landowner a few miles south of the Barrow Pit that had an open area on the hill above his house, where it appeared there was a small quarry…he told me that was an old map view on Google Maps and that it was just a big open field now. That information led many of us to believe the Barrow Pit could very well be the old C-61 site. Pat and Alina Klein and their boys, Finn and Coen, came to Geode Fest as well and had brought a few extra boys with them…they decided to go to the Barrow Pit and join up with John, Abbi and I there…we started surface collecting on the northeast side of the digging area and found a few nice ones that were pulled up by the bucket on the trackhoe and in good shape. Eventually we moved over to the northwest side and dug into the ground to find even more of them, this year many of them had a gray, white, and black colored calcite crystals inside that had a poker chip look to them in some and thin fan like blades in others, pretty neat looking stuff !! I didn`t take any photos at the Barrow Pit this year, but we sure had a good time there…John and I helped the boys and their friends find some nice ones and then pretty soon after, Finn and Coen were finding some nice ones on their own, as well as their friends G and Taylor. John returned after a couple of hours and the rest of us stayed at least an hour more before returning to the parking lot. By this time, even more rockhounds were arriving for the event….

…and when I returned, I saw John was busy with customers galore at his booth….

I walked over to the other side of the lot to talk to Charity and Jamey, found Charity breaking open geodes for customers like John was doing….

Afterward, Pat and Alina and the kids decided to go to Jacob`s Geode Mine with me for the afternoon dig…we had heard good things about it and there was supposed to be a new mine area there as well, so decided to give it a try. I had not been to Jacob`s in at least ten years…wish now we had gone to St Francisville instead….when we arrived we were directed up to the old mine on top of the hill and because I had four wheel drive, I was directed to cross the creek and drive up there. Parking on the hill at the old mine was scarce and there were no signs on where to go to park, so I just grabbed the first spot on the right that I came to and others went past me and made a right on the way to another spot for parking on up above..however someone in an out of state suv blocked that entrance to the hill parking lot and created a huge bottleneck instead.

Eventually, that owner was located and the suv moved to where others could park as well…one problem solved but another one presented itself shortly after and the host for this site, decided not to come up and help any of us solve any of the problems up on the hill, prob due to the fact that he had created those problems in the first place. After parking, grabbing our buckets and tools, we walked over to the walls…the lower wall at the old mine on the hill was the only one that was producing geodes, albeit smaller than expected geodes…and the lower wall was completely covered by diggers from the morning group…they had not left the site, they were still on site and digging away, shoulder to shoulder….

There was absolutely no room for anyone from our group to get in between any one and start digging out our own geodes…so we all had to go up on the upper ledge to the upper wall and start digging into that wall. After about 20 minutes of that, I heard a few comments from people strung out down along the ledge we were on, asking others if there were actually any geodes to be found up there because NO ONE was digging any out…one guy even commented that he believed all we were accomplishing was someone`s excavation work in the upper wall.

We found out later, that the host was not making anyone from the prior group, leave or return to the parking lot, they were allowed to stay as long as they wanted and dig where ever they wanted to, so when those of us in the afternoon group arrived, there was no productive areas for us to dig into…just unproductive areas like the upper level wall….and for the first hour, many of us found absolutely nothing to put into our buckets. I guess this is a good thing from a public relations angle, but it did nothing for those of us, or those coming in later groups for that matter and actually it just ticked quite a few people off…several of them left within two hours of arriving. When I left after three hours, I found the host sleeping in his pick up down by the creek, unwilling to do anything other than collect his bucket fees from diggers.

I called John to find out from him where the newer mine was located there, told him where we were at and he advised we were at the old mine. I told him what had happened so far and like he said, that was a CROCK that no one was directing us to the newer mine nor up there trying to make things better for the newer diggers. We walked down to the bottom of the hill, crossed the creek and then walked up the side road off the lower parking lot to the newer mine area, however there were several up there digging and they were finding very little as well, so after about an hour there, I decided to go back to the parking lot and visit friends and shop. I felt like had Pat, Alina, and the kids not been there, much of my time at that particular location that afternoon would have been a total waste of time.

Needless to say, I won`t be returning to this mine anytime soon, I didn`t have more than a few geodes in my bucket…however, Finn, Coen, and their friend G, were digging into the lower wall when I left, after others had finally vacated those areas, and they were finding several golf ball sized and marble sized geodes, and Alina and Pat were working the right side of that lower wall and finding geodes as well…..

…and since many of the prior diggers finally left, others were able to tap into the far left side of the hill mine as well…

As I was walking to my truck, Finn turned to ask me where I was going and show me what was in his bucket now…..he, Coen and their friend G, were putting in good effort there and producing quite a few geodes…and I was simply wore out….

…there were a few geodes in the wall nearby that had been struck by hammers accidentally and broken open, leaving half an opened geode in the wall….

…that Coen is a real hoot to dig with…when I was headed to my truck, he started pulling his boot off…I asked him if he had some rocks in it, he said yeah, he was collecting geodes with it. 🙂

On my return to the parking lot, I spotted this huge geode in the pick up truck parked next to me, plus some basketball sized ones as well….

I stayed overnight at a home rented by Charity, Jamey, and John, just north of Keokuk along the Mississippi River…I appreciate the roof over my head as it rained a bit that night and was a bit cool…I slept like a rock despite a certain person sleeping not too far away that was cutting down timber and sounding like a McCulloch chainsaw in overdrive. 🙂

As soon as I headed up the road toward McDonalds for breakfast, I stopped in the middle of the street and tried to shoot the sunrise….

After breakfast, I shot a more enlightened sunrise as I crossed the river headed to Hamilton….

I picked up a few goodies to take home with me from a few dealers before heading home, one was a friend of John`s who had several types of agate on a blanket for sale…they were very pretty and I purchased several from him….

I also had a good visit with Dennis, another dealer who is another friend of John`s and hopefully soon, will be joining us on some of our group digs…I also purchased a few smokies from Dennis that were collected at Hallelujah Junction, a famous location for smokeys and scepters. Dennis is a great guy to talk to, he has a lot of great stories about his adventures too. I would have made good time going home, but had to take a detour off 61 at Bowling Green by the Fire Department, due to a gas tanker overturning on 61 near Eolia. I wound up taking Hwy 161 down to Montgomery City and taking Hwy 19 there on down to 50 and coming in the back way, adding about an hour to my trip home. From the perspective of seeing good friends and visiting with them and one good collecting location, it turned out to be a pretty good weekend after all.

SSQ Right Before Kentucky Trip

Posted on September 26, 2018 by jwj

Onyx and I drove down to the SSQ again on August 19th, turned out to be pocket city that morning…we returned to try and clean out the huge pocket in the corner that I found the week before….I didn`t write about that one either at the time, due to my work schedule, was putting in several days in a row at work without a break, so by the time I would get home from work, I was too exhausted to do anything but take an hour nap, go to supper, watch a little tv, and then hit the hay to get up and repeat the next day…after about six to nine days in a row of that. you are ready for a break, believe me. As I age, that type of routine gets old fast, so am thinking next year I am going to have to get a different schedule at work cause I don`t like working that many days in a row without a break. Since both visits were in August, hottest month of the summer, and since I am now used to getting up each morning around 4 am for work, I know that we arrived both days around 6 am and collected during the cool early hours of the morning while there…this is how the quarry looked when we arrived the week before….

…and I remember walking over to the right side wall to re-check the big pocket in the wall that I found two weeks before when Abbi came to visit, to see if I missed anything….and discovered that either Abbi or I had failed to remove a couple of small clusters from the rocky floor below the pocket…so I put those in my bucket and then climbed up to peer inside the pocket again, pulled out a few smaller crystals and a few baseball sized clusters, then grabbed ahold of some crystals in the bottom, midway back in the pocket floor…low and behold, they moved…the cluster was loose, so I was able to pull it free from the floor of the pocket !! and here it is on my tailgate a few min later surrounded by some of the loose smaller ones I pulled free….

…from there, I ventured over to the left along the main wall and decided to walk over to the left hand wall corner, to see if I could find anything worth taking home or a new pocket…that is a very vuggy area sometimes but requires a closer inspection because it can also be unstable looking from afar. As I approached it, I started seeing poker chips laying on the ground under a large rock sticking out from the wall about six inches…I kneeled down to take a closer look and discovered a very large area of poker chips spilling out of yet another pocket opening up under that ledge of rock…flabbergasted would be an understatement for me. For one thing, standing where I parked, and looking over to that corner, you could not see anything due to a large pile of rock blocking your view from there..I literally had to walk over to it to see it, but then again, this was going to turn out to be yet another huge pocket and the last few weeks had been several huge pockets, one after another, so flabbergasted was very appropriate. 🙂 I do not have any photos of that pocket from the get go nor to the finish, but I can show you what the initial finds were that I pulled from it ….

…and these along the ledge of my sink came from a black dogtooth pocket along the main wall not far from the corner pocket….

…I was working the black dogtooth pocket when I looked to the left the week before and spotted that pocket at the foot of the wall in the corner, then walked over to check it out. It took me about ten minutes to clean out the opening of that pocket under the ledge rock sticking out from the wall…that ledge rock turned out to be a roof plate…I decided to leave it in place til I was able to clean out the opening and once I was about a foot inside, and had everything cleaned out under that front roof plate, I removed it and turned it over…big bubbles of shimmery gray druse with poker chips attached…it was gorgeous…I set it aside and out of my way and continued pulling poker chip after poker chip from the opening of the pocket, some were singles, some were doubles, some were triples, some were combos, and many I was pulling from the left wall inside the pocket were dogtooths. The further back in the pocket that I went, the more dogtooths came out of there…pretty soon I was in there to my shoulder and within 30 minutes I had two buckets completely filled with wrapped crystals. By then it was about 11 am and beginning to get quite warm so we decided to head home, quite happy with my finds. 🙂

So a week later, I returned to see about cleaning out the last pocket…the corner pocket, see how far back it went into the wall and see what else was there. Onyx and I arrived about 6 am and it was a bit foggy on the way down there, so we waited about twenty minutes for the quarry to lighten up…..

As soon as the light improved, I started walking over to the corner pocket I had found last week, but as I was making my way over there, I came across an area at the base of the wall where many poker chip crystals were laying around, so I stopped to check for a pocket and began digging at the base of the wall…can see where I stopped in the photo below, where my bucket and rags are located…

…to the right in the corner, you can see what appears to be a rockslide of sorts…the last pocket from last week is under that pile of rocks and I was going to have to dig it out first…I spent about 2 hours digging around where the bucket and rags are above…and found several poker chip and druse combo pockets, as well as several smaller shallow pockets…

…and the first pocket I found along that wall was a pretty good sized one and deep inside…triangular shaped opening as well…

…and here are some of my crystals from this big pocket…

As the videos show, it was pocket city on the wall there, many were shallow and full of a few small pieces of shimmering gray druse only, some had some dogtooth crystals inside, and some had combo pieces of druse and poker chips, but it provided me about 3 hours of work and fun. I finally did get on over to the corner pocket, and liberated it from the rockslide tho…

….it`s a good thing I cleaned it out when I did, two weeks later it was completely gone with a new blast. 🙂

Protected: Annual Labor Day Weekend Trip to Central Kentucky

Posted on September 5, 2018 by jwj

Abigail Comes to Visit

Posted on August 5, 2018 by jwj

I received word that drilling activity was happening during the last week of July and that blasting could take place by the end of that week, and after letting all my nearby rockhound friends know, I started hearing from those that were interested in going…namely Chuck Reed, Nathaniel Reid, and even Abigail Evans from Nashville. Abbi believed she was healed up enough from her serious back injury that occurred back in December, and decided to drive up on Saturday morning, July 28th to visit and go rockhunting with us. Chuck and Nathaniel could not go on Saturday, so we decided to meet at MFQ on Sunday morning early…and I took Abbi to the Secret Spot Quarry on Saturday morning. She and I had a late breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then headed out…..by the time we headed that way, she wasn`t feeling very well, possibly due to eating food not approved for her diet. I told her just take it easy and if she needed to leave for a bathroom break, that would be fine.

We arrived about 2 pm and once out of my truck and looking across the water hole at the wall, I noticed even more rock pulled out from the base of the wall since the week before. I also noticed what appeared to be several openings in the wall near the base of it, and all along the length of it…

….what appeared to be several pockets including one potentially large one in the middle of the wall at the base…seen above in the lower left hand corner…below in the middle of the wall…. just staring back at me….

….and I began to get excited about what type of day it was going to be. I had my boots on and all I had to get was my apron on as well as grab my mini mattox, wraps and bucket and start that direction…I took the right side along the edge of the water, and as I neared the area of the wall where I found a nice pocket a few weeks before, I nearly stepped on this cluster….

…let me rephrase that…this beautiful cluster…and since I am in the habit of looking around when I find something this nice in amongst a lot of ugly rock, I did exactly that, made a 360 degree turn and look movement, and immediately spotted two more large clusters like this as well as multiple single crystals and some twins and triples too…EUREKA !!!! I looked around for Abbi and spotted her heading my way but slowly and surely, but once there, she didn`t stay long, as her stomach was not doing well so she headed for the nearest bathroom spot. She left me her bucket and I began to fill it with many crystals just in case. I looked up on the wall above the area of crystal filled debris and spotted what looked like a potential pocket to me…top of the next photo where the hole in the wall is located…sure looked like a pocket to me…and crystals outside it and just below it really just cemented the idea for me…

…in fact, there were crystals dangling along the rock wall all the way down to the debris pile below, that I was standing in the middle of….you can be sure I was very careful where I stepped and how little I moved around then….I stepped back to the edge of the water figuring it would be safer there, but then looked down and spotted several small clusters in the water, pulling them free and placing them in our buckets for safekeeping.

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I also dug down into the debris pile and rescued several small clusters and combos for about 20 minutes, then began to work my way up the pile and along the wall to the base of the potential pocket….

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…notice the druse on the left side in and around those big rocks on the left side ? make note of that and in a few minutes, those will be come clear to you as well as it was to me….I climbed up on that debris pile after setting a few pieces of the dolomite up there to stabilize my footing, and then began to dissect the opening of the pocket…

As soon as I opened up the entrance to the pocket, after picking up all those loose crystals at the base of the opening, I knew I was going to have my hands full. There were gorgeous poker chips attached to beautiful bubbley gray druse that was in turn, attached to the walls and ceiling of the pocket….

…and then there is that pile of loose crystals inside the pocket along the floor of it…I knew I would have to carefully pick thru that to fully collect this pocket the correct way…time consuming, but it`s a good thing I did it that way, as there were several small dogtooths in amongst that pile of crystals and pieces of the roof plates that apparently came down during the blasting.

BTW, here are the two entrance rocks that were guarding the pocket opening, note the gray bubbles of druse that match up with the druse you saw a few photos back….

…it was a while before Abbi returned from her bathroom break and when she did, she stayed close to her suv and wandered along the edges of the piles surface collecting only.

…and she photographed me and Onyx a few times as well….

I remained and collected the pocket and continued to wrap and put some in her bucket as well as mine…here is another look inside the pocket…you can see I had sorted thru and cleaned out the initial pile of crystals at the front of the pocket interior, now I was back to a second pile and once I sorted through it, I was barely able to reach the third pile at the very back of the pocket…down to my fingertips on the reach, so I decided to take a break, go back to my truck for another bucket and more wraps, some gatorade, and get my handrake which would give me an extra foot of reach….

Soon after I had my bucket filled, so I took it back to my truck, and took a photo of the pocket from there…Abbi`s bucket remaining below the pocket….

This large crystal in the image below, was nearly at the very back of the pocket, I wrapped it up after pulling it out with the aid of my hand rake, and put it in Abbi`s bucket…I have so many large crystals like this, I figured she would prob love to have it for her collection….

It took me another hour to reach the back of the pocket and pull out the remaining loose crystals that were inside, using the hand rake to reach and pull many of them out…there was one huge cluster of bright yellow poker chips attached to a big and heavy plate of large bubble of pretty gray druse, here it is all cleaned up…

…and this next small plate with dogtooths attached at both ends of it, came out of the second pile of loose crystals inside the pocket….

many of the dogtooths found in the pocket as well….

here is a flat of the combos I pulled out of the pocket when I was sorting thru the second pile inside the pocket….many attached to that bright gray sparkley druse….

…and several others attached to a yellow druse….

….here is the pocket emptied out…it only took me a few hours to clean it out….

Abbi wandered over about the time I finished cleaning out the pocket to see what was inside her bucket…I photographed her from the truck as I was putting some yard rocks in the bed of my truck….

we got out of there shortly after, and headed back to town…after checking into the hotel, she decided to drive over to CB and get a light salad for her supper. I headed home to clean up and then went to our Mexican Restaurant for a late supper, and then bed…we were going to be getting up early to drive to MFQ and would need all the rest we could get…I could only hope she did the same. Here are some of her beautiful photos from that day….

Great Photos Abbi !!

The next morning, after I got up and was nearly ready to go, I looked out front and saw Abbi parked in front of my house, dome light on and she appeared ready to go as well. I got my truck packed, Onyx inside and away we went, stopping only for gas at the Phillips 66. We made good time getting down there, arriving just ahead of Nathaniel and Chuck, they were 10 to 15 minutes behind us. As we pulled in, I parked to the right of the new blast pile on the east side of the quarry….

We all spread out and began searching the pile for pretty crystals…Chuck and Nathaniel wandered over to the west side of the pile, which stopped on top of the little hill behind the main rock crusher…Chuck found some huge boulders over there full of green and brown poker chip vugs and was able to harvest some for his collection. Nathaniel worked his way over to and down the wall to the west side of the coved area, where he found a new dogtooth pocket, he came and borrowed my ladder so he could get to it more safely. I found a nice vug half way up the pile on the east side near the wall with a nice set of black dogtooths inside, called it to Abbi`s attention but after awhile she did not think she could get up there to it, so I let Nathaniel know and he never came back to even look at it. I should have just taken it out, but I wanted to go up to the second level on the west side and see if there were any new pockets up there instead. On my way up there, I found Chuck over by the big boulder pile working on extracting some large brown dogtooth calcite crystals attached to the side of a large boulder….

Nathaniel discovered the boulder and dogtooths attached, pointed it out to Chuck, who wasted no time in trying to remove some, while talking to Abbi about rockhunting….here is Nathaniel showing me a couple of small ones that he was able to remove from a vug in that same boulder…

…and here is the pocket of calcites Chuck is working on up close…

…and one of the vugs on the left side of the boulder, that Chuck said eventually tied in with the pocket he was working on…

Chuck sharing a dogtooth cluster with Abbi above….and then he hammered on….

…while Abbi admired the cluster…

When I got up to the next level, Nathaniel was up there looking for pockets already…he wasn`t having much luck tho, he said…most were up higher, so I asked Chuck to bring my ladder up when he could and we looked higher along the wall, finding mostly shallow pockets up there…

..he did manage tho, to find some very pretty druse pieces….

I went further down the wall from him and found a few small pockets like this one…

We took off soon after, Chuck and Nathaniel headed back to St Louis area, while Abbi and I drove back to the Secret Spot Quarry for another round up there…here is what the west side of MFQ looks like now all cleaned up…

Abbi and I started taking a look at the pockets along the base of the far wall on the other side of the big water hole and I told her to check out the bigger pocket that I had worked at the end of the day before, and take home some of those big bubbly druse clusters that resembled the grape agate clusters you see for sale from Indonesia…the gray in the pocket resembled the purple color of the grape agate. While she was checking out that pocket, I was working the pocket where the yellow rain jacket is sitting to her right…it was raining when we arrived so we wore our rain gear for maybe ten minutes… then it became so humid we had to take it off…I left my camera in the truck due to the rain…

…so you can`t see all five of the dogtooth pockets I found to the right of her….but they were definitely there and possibly more.

Soon after we left, but stopped off at Missouri Hick for some great BBQ. Abbi felt her stomach had returned to normal by then and then we hit the hay, completely drained of all energy by the time we got back to town. Abbi headed for her home in Nashville the next morning after a good night of rest…she decided she was going to check into the KETO diet that I have been on and lost 30 lbs from in the past year, it`s alot easier to maintain and go by. Good luck Abbi, think you will love the results as much as I did and do !!

Secret Spot Quarry on my Birthday

Posted on August 5, 2018 by jwj

My birthday is July 22nd and for the past fifteen years I have always taken my birthday off from work if scheduled and gone rockhunting somewhere…when it falls on a weekend, I always go to one of the quarries, this year it was the Secret Spot Quarry that I decided to go to. I let all my close rockhound friends know and Al was the only one that could go with me…I took it easy on him and we didn`t leave til around 6 am…we worked several pockets around the walls while Onxy did a lot of swimming in the water holes….

and we noticed the pile nearly removed from this section of the wall, so we worked our way carefully over to that section…as we did, we noticed that someone had been really nice to leave a large beach ball sized poker chip cluster laying next to the edge of the pile…I picked it up later and gave it to Al to take home as his very first yard rock. here it is….

After a few hours of searching and combing thru several pockets, we split up…Al stayed on one side of the pile when he found a large area of pretty white druse plates, he took several home with him…meanwhile I was on the other side and found a nice dogtooth pocket in the wall, and began pulling some clusters big and small out of the pocket. Al came over to assist me, bringing me some extra wraps and buckets, I let him know as soon as I had them cleaned up, I would let him pick some out to take home if he wanted. Here are a few of them all cleaned up with Iron Out a few days later…..

…and the one on the bottom in the image above, looked quite nice all by itself in the image below….

….and here is one of three larger clusters soaking in the Iron Out, has two large calcite crystals on it….

…I cleaned it up along with several pieces of wavellite that I collected back in March, while I had the Iron Out working for me…back to the quarry tho…we got out of there shortly after the dogtooth pocket as the heat was coming on strong..on the way back, despite his need to return home by 5:30 pm…he decided to stop off at Missouri Hick and buy me a late lunch for my birthday…thanks again Al !!

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Batesville Quarry

Semi Retirement Mid Nov 2018 to April 2019

My Fall Vacation in Arkansas 2018

David Hodge Comes to Visit and Collect With Me

SSQ During October

Geode Fest 2018

SSQ Right Before Kentucky Trip

Protected: Annual Labor Day Weekend Trip to Central Kentucky

Abigail Comes to Visit

Secret Spot Quarry on my Birthday