Spring Fluorite Machine Dig

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This year I started planning for the machine dig at the Eureka Mine in northwest Kentucky back in January. From several trips last year it was apparent that I had several friends that were interested in joining my small core group this year, contributing to the cost of the machine as well as physical labor during the dig after the machine was shut down. We have always utilized the machine for a day and then the second day, any digging needed is done physically by hand and strong muscles. I stayed in touch with Bill Frazer, who was able to arrange the trackhoe from the excavation company that we again wanted to work with. Bill also let me know about six weeks out that he and his brother had purchased more land right down the road from the Eureka Mine and this year we could also dig into the tailing piles at the MaryBelle Mine. Bill also was able to acquire a backhoe that we could use for two days, which would keep our machine costs down quite a bit, so we decided to make a donation to the museum in addition to the investment in the trackhoe.

After a few months of getting things in place we set the machine dig dates for Saturday and Sunday, March 18th and 19th,  and I kept the other fifteen rockhound friends that were going to join me and my core group updated along the way, including the update that we would also visit the blue fluorite mine on Sunday morning, then return to the Eureka Mine to dig the afternoon….everyone was excited and looking forward to the trip, with some rockhounds traveling down from New York state, western North Carolina, northern Georgia, northwestern Illinois, and eastern Texas, to join us. Two of the New York state rockhounds would be instrumental on this dig due to the fact that they had both dug in the pit after we dug there last year with the machine, and they had removed quite a few nice plates of cubes during their digs. 

A few days out from the week of the machine dig, I received a call from Bill advising me that there were some legal issues that needed to be worked out on his end, before we could proceed with the machine dig, and it was going to take possibly the remainder of this year for him to work through those issues…so the decision was made to cancel all public and private digs for this year.  I know for a few seconds at least, I was at a loss for words or thoughts even, as many of us had taken off work and invested money in equipment that we planned to use all weekend at the dig, not to mention the reservations made at area hotels. Bill told me he was advised of this all of a sudden and that it had nothing to do with our group, but was something that they needed to work through and get back to the business at hand eventually.  He was very worried about us, knowing we had a large group coming to help them out, as we have done this for more than the past ten years. I told Bill not to worry about it, we would stand ready to go as soon as he was able to work through it and resolve the issues, and we would figure something out for the weekend.

I immediately reached out to one of my core group rockhound buddies on Facebook to let him know what was happening, and then made a phone call to the landowner of the blue fluorite mine, to see if my group could come to his farm both days instead. I explained the situation to him, told him the group would be a bit bigger than the group I had when we visited his mine last fall. I had secured his permission a few weeks before, to come to his mine on Sunday morning, March 19th and dig for a few hours, before returning to the Eureka Mine. After a few minutes of thought, he called back and gave us the go ahead to come dig at his mine on Saturday and Sunday all day instead. I told my buddy on Facebook that we could go dig at the blue fluorite mine instead and he was just fine with that. I then sent out another update by email to let everyone know of the change in plans and the reasons for it.

By the next day, eighty percent of the group had advised me by email that they still planned to make it down for the dig. That night, the northeastern section of the US was hit with a huge snowstorm, dumping over thirty inches of snow on New York state and beyond…despite all that, three of the four New Yorkers who had planned to drive down and dig, emailed to let me know they would still be there for the weekend dig. Talk about dedication !!  I told everyone to bring some rocks and minerals to swap on Saturday morning at the mine, and to bring some extras for the landowners daughter, to add to her budding collection, as we did on our prior fall trip, especially since the landowner was gracious enough to allow us back and wasnt going to charge us anything either.

I had taken a week of vacation as I usually do, giving me a few days to ready and pack the truck, so Onyx and I drove down on Thursday the 16th and stayed overnight at Marion, Illinois. I had been in contact for a few weeks before with a coal miner in the Harrisburg area, who had an old fluorite collection for sale. I visited with friends from southern Illinois Thursday evening and then drove over to his home on Friday morning to take a look at his collection and make an offer. He had some beautiful clusters of large cubes, some with barite attached to them, as well as some barite clusters, some calcite clusters, and some quartz crystals and clusters, even one smokey quartz crystal, all from mines in the Rosiclaire area, that his grandfather had left to him…his grandfather had been a miner at some of the Rosiclaire Mines about seventy five years ago. I had seen photos of some of the pieces in the collection and wanted to see them in person before making an offer. Here are some of the nicer pieces that were in the collection….

As you can see, he had some very pretty and unique pieces in his grandfathers collection, over 100 pieces, many were of the barite clusters, which I had never seen before as something coming from the fluorite mines of Southern Illinois. I have to say I was a bit skeptical that the large quartz crystals and two smaller quartz clusters came from the fluorite mines, especially the smokey quartz crystal..mainly because they resembled Arkansas quartz crystals, but he pointed out two small quartz plates, both of the type commonly sold in the spirit quartz genre, and he told me that he had purchased those somewhere because they appealed to him. It was verified to me later that day, that indeed, smokey and clear quartz crystals were found in several of the fluorite mines in the Rosiclaire area. I made an offer to him and he accepted it…while his collection was not extensive, he had to sell it due to moving to another house soon and no room for it there. I did leave him with a few key pieces with great sentimental value that tied him directly to his grandfather. After wrapping up each piece and loading them into the cab of my truck. Onyx and I headed down to see and photograph some waterfalls that I had heard about, also located in southern Illinois.  Burden Falls is located in the National Forest about a twenty minute drive south of Harrisburg, just west of Hwy 145 on Burden Falls Road…if there has been heavy rain in the area and one suspects the creek feeding the falls will be flooded, one can also come in from the south on Water Tower Road, which merges to the right with Ozark Road after a few miles, and then you make a right turn on to McCormick Road/Burden Falls Road. The creek runs across the road and the first set of falls is just a few feet from the creek crossing on the north side…

…and the lower falls are even higher than the upper falls near the road…this trip I chose not to shoot the lower falls from the base though…

Onxy finally got to stretch his legs a little bit…we didn`t stray down the path very far, as I wanted to get on down to Gary`s place and check out the beautiful new fluorite that he had told me about, a few days before, that they had been hitting in some new pockets where he mines it with his son. He also told me that he had purchased an old collection of fluorite with some ” butterscotches ” in it…those are the cubes of fluorite that came from certain mines and are a butterscotch yellow color and are quite gemmy…these butterscotches that he purchased with the collection were quite old and had been buried in the forest on the guy`s property…Gary dug them out and cleaned them up and said they were quite pretty.

We headed south, and on the way,  came upon the Iron Furnace that my buddy, John Oostenryk, always talks about, on Big Creek…..Onyx and I stopped to check it out briefly…

…this was probably the neatest Iron Furnace location I have ever seen, mainly because someone went above and beyond installing a historical storytelling sequence of small columns around the front perimeter of the site, in color no less. We drove further south to Gary`s house,  and found he did indeed have alot of gorgeous fluorite for sale…this was without a doubt the prettiest fluorite I have seen for sale at his place since I started going there…

…the photo above and next few below of fluorite, include some of the ” Butterscotches ” that Gary purchased in that old collection….

…the clusters that are whitish and a lighter yellow are also butterscotches, just faded out by the sun.  Gary also had some beautiful two color fluorite cube clusters that were quite pretty, some from the old collection and many from some new pockets from the mine….

…he had a lot of clusters of cubes that appeared to be stacked one on top of another that were such a deep purple they nearly appeared to look black…he also had a whole area full of the raspberry colored fluorites…this color really appeals to me when thy are lit properly…

I purchased a few pretty crystals from Gary that day…even a couple of octohedrons that he chips out himself, one was a pretty small one with a pyrite chip in it, and another one was a two color octohedron..purple and clear or white colors…some call them fluorite diamonds, and they are very popular worldwide. Gary is a good ole country boy and great to visit with and purchase from, he always has some beautiful fluorite for sale.

Onxy and I took off shortly after, crossing the Ohio River on the ferry at Cave-In-Rock,  and drove over to the Clement Mineral Museum at Marion, Kentucky, where we barely caught Tina and Sherry before they left for the day. I visited with them for about 30 minutes, then we headed to the Days Inn hotel at Kuttawa…we always stay there because its a nice and clean hotel, rooms are always reasonably priced and a few doors down is the Oasis Southwest Grill, which is a great steak and seafood restaurant with great atmosphere and good food. Right before we got to the hotel, Slade Harvin texted me to let me know he had arrived from Hickory, North Carolina, as well as Dale Walker and his wife Barb from New York state, so I met up with them shortly after checking in. Fred Mahaffey was driving in from Eastern Texas but arrived soon after, and Chuck Reed had to wait til 3 pm before he was able to leave St Louis County, so we waited til 6:30 pm before we all headed over to the Oasis, joined there by David Bruce from northern Georgia, who was staying at the Relax Inn over on the north side of I-24. We had a great supper there, their menu offers a great variety of steaks, chops, seafood, and smoked bbq there, so if you go away hungry, there is definitely something wrong with ya. We all walked back to the hotel stuffed full and ready for bedtime…I let everyone know we were gonna meet on the south side of the hotel about 7 am, and then drive over to the mine to meet up with David and Janyce, who were bringing their medium tractor with a backhoe attachment, and John Oostenryk and his friend Mary, who were staying at Harrisburg.

Despite a little fog on the way over to the ferry crossing, we made good time getting over there…I nearly struck a deer on the way there, coming around a curve in the valley to find a big doe tentatively stepping out into the roadway, but luckily for me she turned and hightailed it back to the field, sailing over a barbed wire fence like it wasn`t even there. We pulled up a few minutes later to the crossing as the ferry was coming back to the Kentucky side to pick us up….

…we picked up Matt, another New Yorker, in the parking lot on the other side of the Ohio River a few minutes later, and drove on over to the blue mine, where we found David and Janyce as well as John and Mary, waiting for us. While David and Janyce were unloading the tractor and did some initial preparation digging into the tailing pile, the rest of us swapped crystals from our respective areas…an hour later, the rockhounds new to this mine, started sifting thru the dirt that David had laid out on one side, so they could get an idea of what to look for….

….sometimes you will pick up chunks of ugly chert that resemble the fluorite, til you hold it up to the light and figure out you cant see thru it and know that its the ugly chert instead. It takes a little while to get used to it, and the rest of us were helping them acclimate to finding the good stuff….although I have to say, I still make mistakes and bring home the ugly chert too. I just add them to the potholes in my driveway. 

Left to right on the front line are Mary, Dale Walker, David Bruce, Slade standing, Chuck Reed kneeling in the overalls, Fred Mahaffey, Janyce carrying buckets, and far right is her husband David, they brought the tractor to help us dig into the tailing piles…this pile behind the tractor is the main one….David dug into the end of it where we left off in November, and where we were finding much of the pretty fluorite on that trip. Eventually everyone began moving around to look for fluorite in other locations, below you see Slade, John, and Chuck up on the right side of the large tailing pile…

…and soon after I joined Slade down there on the face of the tailing pile where I started digging in at the same lower level where we found several nice fluorites back in November…I showed Slade where to dig to find the better ones and he was soon finding as many good ones as I was….and soon others were gathered around us and digging in as well. Doug, the landowner, stopped by to check on us several times throughout the day and see how we were coming along, we handed off several minerals and crystals to him to give to his daughter for her collection as well.

Dale and Barb wound up over on the backside of the tailing pile by the creek and after digging there a long time that day, Dale uncovered  a very pretty plate of cubed fluorite crystals, giving the rest of us hope that more cubes could def be found there.  We just kept digging and finding beautiful blues…..

…well we dug all afternoon til we were too tired to do anything other than drive back to the hotel to clean up and get some more good food at Oasis….so we loaded everything up and headed out…this is how the tailing pile looked after digging all day Saturday….

….and as we approached the ferry crossing at Cave-In-Rock, I noticed the setting sun on the  Ohio River, turning the water to a shimmering bright yellow color….so I set the parking brake, grabbed my camera and walked down to the waters edge to shoot some images…

 

 

While I was down there shooting, Chuck took a photo of me shooting the sunset….

The ferry came in to unload and then load us all up for the trip back over to the Kentucky side….

…and once we were on the ferry, I kept on shooting that beautiful sunset…a first for me, shooting a sunset from a ferry, even shot some video of it….first one is looking upstream on the Ohio River….

We had another great evening at the Oasis, more good food…it seems David Bruce decided to try the marinated chops that I have been having their for years and he found out why I like them so much. The plan the next morning was to drive over to Gary`s house and do some shopping first, then go back to the blue fluorite mine…at breakfast we were joined by Mark Bishop, who had driven up from northern Georgia early that morning. We all loaded up and headed out at 7 am once again, this time seeing deer once again on Hwy 91, but this time no close calls. We arrived to find the ferry making its way across the river to get us….

…and then drove on over to Gary`s place…his son Walter and his Dad, named Guy, were there as well and we had a great time talking to them….I purchased some more fluorite, another couple of flats, including a ” butterscotch ” plate…it has some holes in a couple of the cubes, with jagged edges…some of us thought that maybe they were from acid of some type with rain possibly washing out the acid and stopping the process of eating thru the fluorite. After an hour or so there, we all headed over to the mine and began digging once again.

It was a bit crisper temps this morning than Saturday morning, so many of us stayed bundled up a little longer, but we again had a great time digging for beautiful crystals. Some of us wandered up the hillside in search of other areas to dig into and David followed us with the tractor and dug into a few areas for us. However, we didn`t find anything of any quality like we had been finding below, so we returned to the big pile and resumed our digging there. Above and below, you see Mark Bishop in the yellow rain pants, David Bruce in the blue pullover and white pants, and John Oostenryk in the bright blue pullover and blue jeans with a woolly hat on. 

Doug came by and suggested that we check out the creekbank along the field so after David and I started finding some nice blue crystals along that bank, a few of us dug in and started pulling several pretties out of the dirt. Fred joined us and within moments pulled out a huge pretty yellow crystal…I am hoping he will take a photo of it and send to me, when he held it up to the light it just glowed with a very pleasing luminescence !! Chuck had to head home that morning to get ready for a father – daughter dance, and Mark headed home that afternoon with a bucket or two full of blue fluorite. We stopped digging a little earlier on Sunday afternoon, tired and a bit sore yet from all the digging we did on Saturday, but we all left very happy with what we had found. David did a great job of widening the roadway we had created with the fluorite free tailings at the foot of the pile, as you can see here….

Most of us were driving home early on Monday morning, so after cleaning up, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and have yet another great supper at Oasis. I believe I was the last one out of the hotel Monday morning, other than Dale and his wife, who were staying in the area for a few days as part of their vacation. David sent me a FB message a few days later, letting me know that he found some nice crystals while washing off his tractor tires….

…and here is one of the pretty ones I found after I washed it off with soap and water only….

As to the situation at the Eureka Mine in Kentucky, I can only hope that they are able to resolve the legal issues soon and get things back on track…the Eureka Mine and the folks at the Clement Mineral Museum have been a bright spot in the lives of many rockhounds across the USA and around the world for many years, they provide a great service and location to go and dig for crystals in a time when its becoming increasingly difficult to find such places to go to. As I told Bill Frazer, we stand ready to return to help at any time. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dynamite Dogtooth Pockets

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It`s been a great winter so far, only about six weeks of normal cold weather and two weeks of very cold weather, and then in February, we started warming up like it does in May…we still have March to go thru, it may come in like a lamb as it did this morning and go out like a lion, but who knows…I just know that everyone really likes the weather we have now, we hit 76 degrees yesterday alone !!  Last weekend, Nathaniel Reid and Chuck Reed joined me on a trip to MFQ to check out the quarry on another warm day, we had not been there since November last year, mainly because there had not been any activity down there. I received word from my good friend Jim a few days before the weekend that they had blasted the northwest corner of the quarry. In the past year since they began removing rock from the west side of the quarry, we never found anything more than the poker chip wanna bees on that side, but we had not been there in a while so we decided to go down and look things over…glad now that we did.

Onxy was in rare form that morning, rarin` to go do some rockhounding with me, cause he had not been with me on the St Louis County trip to look for Union Road Agates a few weeks before. Chuck and Nathaniel joined me on that trip as well, where we walked in a couple of creeks in the South County area and found quite a few of the geodes for the few hours we were there. There was a third location that we wanted to check out, but didn`t have time and instead went to a buddy`s home, where he sells geodes from the Keokuk area. I had purchased a few flats of geodes from Ken a few weeks earlier, to include in my bathroom remodeling project…have my tile guy place them into my shower walls with the barnwood tile. When I went there to pick them up, Chuck met me there and Ken showed us his private collection, this time we had Nathaniel along and he got to see it as well. We got up early on Sunday morning, Feb 19th to discover heavy fog outside…visibility was maybe quarter of a mile…thick enough Nathaniel got turned around on his way to my house to catch a ride with me to the quarry.

We got on the road about 7:30 and an hour later, the fog was starting to lift with sunlight burning it off. Thirty minutes later, the skies finally cleared off and remained that way til we were within two miles of the quarry, then the fog enveloped us once again all the way to the quarry. We arrived soon after to find Chuck sitting on a rock up on top of the blast pile, cobbing down a boulder and wrapping up specimens to put into his bucket….

and some fog still hanging in the wind….

Nathaniel grabbed his tools and bucket and headed to the west side of the pile while Onyx and I started up the east side along the wall, toward Chuck….

About midway up to him, I spotted some green calcite at the base of the wall and stopped to check it out…there was some brown mixed in with it and pretty soon, I pulled a few dogtooth crystals out of the pocket, showing them to Chuck, and decided to park myself right there and explore some more….

…here is the pocket when I got about halfway down into it, after removing at least one bag of wrapped crystals and clusters….

…and some of my finds…I also passed a few of them off to Chuck as well….he came down and started looking closer at the wall below me at the same level my pocket was at….

In the meantime, Nathaniel started shouting to us that he had found some huge yard rocks and some nice smaller clusters over on the west side of the pile, some of them covered in what looked like aragonnite….here they are on my tailgate….

Soon after, Nathaniel and Chuck took a break and drove over to the other side of the quarry to check out the walls there, while I continued to dig out my pocket…an hour later and I had it cleaned out, all the way around the sides and down to the very bottom, which took awhile cause I just kept pulling clusters and doubles and triples out of the bottom of the pocket…for awhile I thought it was gonna be a bottomless pocket. Many of the crystals are dogtooths, a black or brown center inside a green or brown poker chip, and then I was able to remove a few of the top and side wall plates of clusters, as well.

By this time, I had three bags completely full of wrapped crystals as well as three large clusters that I had no room for in the bags, so had to make two trips down to the truck, where I took a short water break, got Onyx some more water in his bowl, and then took another bag with me, back up to look along the wall for more pockets. When I got to the top of the pile, I located more pockets and soon after, Chuck and Nathaniel returned from their exploration break. Nathaniel joined me up on the top wall where I had located four pockets close together. I worked one pocket and let him have the others, as I was beginning to tire already….before heading out, Chuck grabbed my camera in the truck and snapped a couple of Nathaniel and I working the wall too….

I filled one bag halfway up with wrapped crystals and then walked down the west side of the pile to take a look at the two huge yard rocks he found over there…he said they were too heavy for him and Chuck to lift and then carry to my truck. As soon as I got to the floor of the quarry, I spotted them sitting there…

I got my four pound hammer and chisel and cobbed down the plate on top of the first boulder, getting one large plate and a smaller plate intact. I remember someone telling me that calcite was only a hardness of four…sure didn`t feel like a four to me, more like a seven…seemed like it took a lot longer to hammer those two plates off than it should have…I was wore out by the time I carried them to the truck. The second boulder had a lot of damage to the crystal tops, many sheared off, so I didn`t even try to cobb it down. Nathaniel decided not to try either. Chuck left a few minutes prior headed home, so Nathaniel and I wrapped up our crystals, loaded up my truck, and headed to my dealer buddy`s house to see what he had in Viburnum Trend minerals. We hadn`t been to his place in a few months and he had let me know that he had some new stuff, buying a few collections in the past few weeks. We arrived there about an hour later and found that he did indeed, have some beautiful new stuff, and after about 30 minutes, we both had a flat full of some nice new crystals…the first two of mine were smokey calcite clusters from an old collection, the clusters from the forbidden crystal cavern at Brushy Creek Mine, likely removed from there over twenty years ago…..

here is the second smokey calcite cluster….

…plus when he purchased this collection, it came with a nice barite piece from an Iowa quarry that was super sweet looking, so I got all three for one price….

..and some chalco pieces on druse, one with a green crystal on the end of the plate….

…sure ended a very nice day of collecting, that`s for sure !!

 

 

 

Blue Fluorite in Southern Illinois

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My apologies to all of those who have been watching for my story on my latest trip to Southern Illinois to dig blue fluorite a couple of weeks ago…between catching up and my schedule at work increasing in the past few months, its been tough to find some free time to work on my story…and getting the photos edited up is half the battle as well, but here goes….

I had taken off the entire second week of November for my annual fall vacation to Arkansas for the elusive quartz crystals, and had been talking to a landowner in Southern Illinois by email all summer, who has an old fluorite mine on his property. The trip to Arkansas was a success and by the time I returned from there, I had about a week to prepare for the trip to Southern Illinois, but luckily with the help of good friends who were going to join me there, it all came together quite nicely.

Joining me on this trip were Chuck, David and Janyce, John O, Pete, and Virgil. Pete had the longest drive in, 14 hours from Philadelphia, Virgil a close second with an 8 hour drive from Tulsa, and John in third with a 7 hour drive from NW Illinois…talk about dedication and a love for fluorite !!

When I began looking at lodging in the area back in October, Chuck and I were able to book the last two log cabins close by, just down the road from Garden of the Gods. Unfortunately there was no pet friendly lodging in that entire area, so I left Onyx with my Mom this trip. It worked out for Chuck to bring his entire family with him, while I was able to offer John Oos and Pete a place to stay as well, since they are two bedroom cabins with a sofa bed couch as well. I also researched a few places to eat at nearby…nearby meaning at least 15 to 20 miles away where the closest towns were located from where we would be, deep in the sticks. Luckily there was a gas station closeby that had a little convenience store and warm food and sandwiches served daily, where we could meet each morning for breakfast. Chuck arrived on Friday afternoon, Nov 25th, about 30 minutes before I did…I was taking the scenic route getting there, going through some of the old coal mining areas on my route, while he skirted around Harrisburg to get there. Soon after pulling up in front of my cabin, Pete called me to let me know he was nearby and would arrive soon…little did I know that he was up on top of the nearby hill at Garden of the Gods, til we all drove up there to catch the last rays of the setting sun and found him at the entrance gate. We got up there with a cloudy sky and just enough light to allow me to shoot a few photos at 400 speed ISO….

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Trust me, the images look like I shot them mid afternoon, but thats what good editing can do for you and a good editing program as well. it was dark up there and luckily the paths going to the rocks are brick lined and nicely put together, so you arent tripping over rocks and tree roots all the way down there and back…we had just enough ambient light to see our way in and less on the way out. 

Garden of the Gods is one of those magical places that just has to be seen to be appreciated tho and it never fails to amaze me…

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We drove back to the cabin and got Pete settled in, then headed to Harrisburg to have supper at Morello`s Italian Restaurant on Main Street…highly rated for fine dining there. Finding a parking place proved to be a challenge and after driving into the third lot, located across the street, we were able to find one finally. We walked inside to find a fairly well packed dining area and we were greeted warmly by staff and seated quickly. I had every intention of having Italian food that evening, but when I found out they had a special on filet mignon, I changed my mind and ordered the steak instead.

Everyone else ordered Italian and said it was all good, as was my steak and food. Afterward, on the way back to the cabin, Pete and I stopped off at DQ so I could get a blizzard for dessert…shortly after we arrived at the cabin, John showed up and moved his stuff inside…Chuck came over shortly after and we had a pretty good mineral jam session til it was time to retire for the night.

The plan was to meet up with David and Janyce the next morning, they were bringing up their tractor on a trailer to assist us with digging into the tailing piles at the old mine. John rode with me to save parking space at the mine, so we drove over to a local meeting place at 7 am, and after Virgil showed up, we all went inside for some breakfast…the place has a deli inside and can grill up biscuits, gravy, and eggs, plus they have sausage and egg sandwiches too. Afterwards, we drove down to the landowners residence, so he could lead us down to the old mine. I had stopped by to see and visit with him earlier this summer on my way to a dig at the Eureka Mine, and he had offered to allow me to bring my group to his mine and dig into the tailings to see what we could find. We stayed in touch and he decided to let us bring and use the tractor as well. He led us down to the location and helped us with parking, directing David to a flat spot so it would be easier for him to unload the tractor. After introductions, we all gave him some nice crystals and minerals from our respective areas and he then showed us where we could dig and hazards to avoid, and soon after we had all spread out all over the huge tailing pile in front and began there…I brought a rake with me and used it to rake down the heavy carpet of forest leaves from the pile…John had offered to bring a gas powered leaf blower to make things easier, but I told him it would take up a lot of room in his car, and possibly deprive him of space in case we hit the jackpot in goodies there.

David unloaded his tractor and started digging around in various spots up and down the hill around the main tailing pile….

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…and pretty soon we were all finding some pretty blue colored fluorite in the pile….

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David continued to move up the hill digging in various spots with his backhoe attachment, while Virgil and Janyce combed the dig areas to find the elusive fluorite pieces. Pete, John, and I were mainly working on the back side of the tailing pile, concentrating on the lower end where it met up with the creekbed on the other side from the others, while Chuck and Mackenzie were digging into the top of the pile….

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…and by noon, after a break for food and water, we all wound up down at the northern base of the tailing pile looking for goodies, which seemed to be naturally just falling out of the dirt and into our hands each time David made a pass with the bucket into the pile…David spotted me taking photos and said I had better get down there cause everyone was finding some nice stuff….

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We all got a good workout in that day, digging out the loose dirt and pulling out the gems hiding inside, covered by the clay, discovering not only blue fluorite, but colors of green, yellow and clear as well. David would dig into the hillside of the tailing pile with the bucket and drop it out at our feet, and then we would rake it back and spread it all out to find the hidden gemstones…lots of fun and lots of hard work..we dug this way for about four hours, stopping as it began to get dark. 

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The landowner stopped by to check on us a few times and see how we were doing, we showed him our finds and he was happy as well. We loaded up the tractor and tools, to head back to the cabins to get cleaned up before heading to Golconda for supper. Virgil headed back home before that, antsy to see his new grandson and wanting to stop off at a quarry on the way. Since John had never seen Garden of the Gods, I drove him up there to see it at sunset and snapped a few photos of it again as well…

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Over on the left point, above image…there were some guys from Texas that were admiring the view and in front of us, below image…there was a young couple admiring the view…

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…and an entire family on the point to our right…below image….

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By the time John and I returned to the cabin, everyone was ready to go get something to eat, so we followed David and Janyce to the small town of Golconda. While researching places to eat at, I had come across a bar and grill named Diver Down, located on Main Street in Golconda, known wide and far for their catfish fillets, chicken fingers, and steaks, all fresh food prepared and cooked to order. We arrived soon after dark and walked in to find the place nearly empty, the staff seemed a bit surprised that we had a group numbering nine but quickly seated us and provided us with menus. I discovered that they had a special on prime rib that night as well as catfish fillets…so naturally I ordered the prime rib and everyone else decided on nachos and chicken fingers. The wait was long and there were a few smaller groups that came in after us that seemed to get their food quicker than we did…but the food was good when we did finally get it and true to their word, it was definitely fresh food, not frozen at all. The chicken fingers at this place are large, but they don`t come with fries or anything else, so you have to order fries or anything else with it, possibly because they are so big. I helped Chuck`s wife Lynn, who wasn`t able to eat all of her chicken fingers, that is how I know they were freshly cooked and good tasting. 

We headed back to the cabins and had another mineral jam session, this time John bringing in some crystals and minerals to share with us from the Iowa quarries that he goes to collect at, and some barite specimens to buy from his dealer friend Craig….

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We woke up the next day to a very frosty cold morning, a bit on the froggy side too and frost so heavy it looked like a dusting of snow everywhere….

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David left the tractor and trailer with us at the cabin, so the next morning they arrived about 7 am and then we all drove down to the local meeting place for breakfast again. After arriving at the old mine and digging for about an hour, still finding alot of blue fluorite pieces during that time, we decided to stop and head over to Etown and visit with Gary, who mines fluorite in yellow and purple colors nearby….Gary also sells the fluorite and makes octohedrons by hand as well. I met him and his son at the Eureka Mine Show earlier this year and found out they have some beautiful stuff that they sell by the flat. David has bought from them as well so he and Janyce led us to Gary`s house. Gary had several pallets completely covered by purple and yellow fluorite, plus he had some raspberry colored fluorite as well, so we all grabbed a flat and started selecting what we would like to buy from him. While we were doing that, he chipped out a couple of octohedrons for Janyce….

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I shot some video of Gary creating these octohedrons for David and Janyce….click on ” Download File ” and it will come up and play in a separate window for you….

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…that is Gary`s dad, named Guy….in the background he is talking to Gary about lottery tickets while Gary chips away at the fluorite piece….and carrying on a conversation with David as well. Here is a video showing a pallet full of beautiful purple fluorites that he has for sale there….

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When we got back to the mine, Chuck headed home, leaving Pete, John, David, Janyce, and I to continue digging for a couple more hours..

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David and his tractor made the work much easier for all of us and helped us enjoy the dig and hard work we all put into it as well….thanks for bringing your tractor David….

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We thanked the landowner once again before heading home. I arrived home about 7:30 pm Sunday evening and by midnight had heard from everyone but Virgil and Pete…luckily this time John made it home safe and sound without any mishaps along the way as he did on the conclusion of his journey home from Arkansas…he didn`t hit any wildlife and no wildlife jumped out in front of him. Pete arrived home about 4 am safe and sound, and from the looks and sound of it, everyone was pretty happy they had made the trip down there as well. Here are some of my cleaned up goodies….

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and one of the only ones I found with any cubes on it in deep blue color no less….

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…another successful and enjoyable trip to wrap up 2016 very well….if you have any questions, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com 

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hot Springs Arkansas November 2016

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Onyx and I were up and at em as they say, early Tuesday morning, Nov 8th, preparing to south to southern Arkansas for our annual fall vacation…as we stepped outside to finish packing the truck, I noticed a gorgeous sunrise in the skies above…..

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….my Mom always travels with me down there and we drop her off at Fort Smith, usually to stay with one of her ” little brothers ” to visit with everyone in the area, but this year we dropped her off at the airport to pick up a rental suv so she could stay at the Marriott and visit with her older sister who was driving in from California.  One of my Springfield area friends was going to go with me on this trip, but he was mugged the night before, the thief stole everything from him including his phone, and I was unable to contact him once we got down there, so had to continue on without him. He was in need of a good vacation before that and we motored on down the road hoping that he could borrow someones phone and call me before we got too far down the road to turn around and return to pick him up…unfortunately, that never happened and still to this day, I have not been able to contact him, so can only hope for the best. I have discovered that its nearly impossible to find out anything about anyone in that area, for some reason.

We arrived in Fort Smith around noon and after dropping Mom off, Onyx and I drove over to Sallisaw, Oklahoma, to see my buddy Adam Lagaveen. Adam and I have become good friends in the past couple of years, he is into quartz crystal collecting, and while he likes other pretty rocks and minerals too, his passion these days is for knapping Native American knives and arrowheads out of native rock…he also uses glass too but he is especially talented when it comes to rainbow and mahogany obsidian and novaculite too. He heat treats this material which really brings out the colors and makes the minerals easier to work with, from what I have gathered over the years about knapping. It has taken over his garage and work area at his house and slowly but surely, he has allowed me to take over his older collection of quartz crystals and minerals to make more room for his knapping collection. Today he was a bit tight on his schedule, so I picked up some more quartz from him, some wavellite as well and a tub of Iowa geodes that he had laying around, as well as a big chunk of petrified wood that was in his way. It was great visiting with him again, as always, and we were soon on our way back to Fort Smith to pick up Hwy 71 south.

After stopping off in Waldron to fill up my truck at the Phillips 66 there, we headed on south to Hot Springs…Waldron is the area that my Mom and Dad were both born and raised at…on dairy farms about ten miles west of town out near the Oklahoma line in the mountain valleys. Its an area that I have become fond of visiting when down there and we have many relatives and friends in that area. Onyx and I arrived at the condo that I rent each time I go to Hot Springs, located on Lake Hamilton near the Sunbay Resort, just after sunset…I dont mind getting there in the dark anymore since I know the area pretty good now…it was a little daunting the first time there, but am very comfy with it these days. Onyx seems to remember it well too, he runs around the area lawns there very knowingly and seems to remember we are going up the stairs to the upstairs unit as well. I dont even put him on a leash there anymore, he is so used to it. I really enjoy this condo, as it has a balcony that is right out over Lake Hamilton and the view out there during the day and the nighttime, is just phenomenal…here is the standard night view….

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As soon as we unpacked, Ray Roth, my friend from New Orleans who meets me there each year to go quartz crystal collecting with me, texted to let me know that he had snacked all the way up there on his trip, so he wasnt going to join me at supper. Onyx and I soon headed to Habachi Sushi Buffet, near the mall in Hot Springs…not for the sushi, but for the great buffet they have there, serving American and Chinese food, plus a sushi bar if you are into that type of food…I am not…and one can eat there for ten bucks a meal. Afterwards, I stopped by the Scoops Homemade Ice Cream Store to pick up a couple of pints of ice cream and then we headed back to the condo to settle in for the night.

For what was prob the first time down there, I actually slept in til 8 am the next morning, missing the gorgeous sunrise, which is totally a first for me, but I def needed the rest too. The next two days there, I scheduled a few photo shoots and planned to visit a mineral dealer friend as well. Ray and I had breakfast at the Best Western Hotel near Oaklawn, where he was staying at, they have probably the best continental breakfast I have seen at a hotel in a long time, serving not only muffins and cereal, but scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon, and biscuits and gravy, albeit the wrong flavored gravy in my humble opinion. Later that morning I had a photo shoot scheduled and another one the next day, but also wanted to go by and see a mineral dealer friend of mine. Ray decided to take his little dog and head up the mountain in town to the tower to see the view. I texted Justin, my rockhunting buddy in Hot Springs and made plans to meet him later and take him to see my mineral dealer friend Gary, who had some Elmwood pieces that I wanted to see and possibly purchase from him. I knew Justin would appreciate this type of visit and he brought along some of his crystals that he had been finding lately to show to Gary, and Gary was able to give him a good appraisal on them as well as give him some good solid information on them as well. I let Gary know that I would be joined by about a dozen friends later that weekend and he said we could come by on Saturday evening to visit. Soon after getting back to the condo, I shot this sunset over the lake to the west with some fishermen boating by…..

 

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…and then the Belle of Hot Springs coasted by on their daily night tour of Lake Hamilton as well….

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Onyx and I woke up at our traditional vacation time the next morning at 6 am, in time to catch the beautiful rays of sunlight illuminating the wispy layers of fog floating across the waters of Lake Hamilton outside the window….

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Onyx and I met up with Ray at 9 am for breakfast at Best Western again and then we did some shopping before returning to the condo. I usually drive around the area looking for pretty spots to photograph, but the color down there was nearly non existent, the leaves had already turned brown in many places and simply fell off. I had an email from a rockhound that had been down to the area back in September, who said that he had found some baskets of quartz crystals, clusters, and plates, at one of the area mines, so I decided to drive over to both of the Coleman mines and check on it. I found one dirt basket at Ron Coleman`s mine that looked like a lot of broken quartz crystals, so I called ahead to Miller Mtn Mine, which was under new management this time, and was told they had fifteen baskets there. I decided to drive on up and take a look at them…Ray and I both have purchased baskets from there in the past when Bill and Faith were operating the mine for Jim Coleman, however since they had retired from operations there, things had not been going so smoothly there since. The new caretakers were a country couple and were very nice to talk to, however the baskets there were full of broken crystal plates and not worth the asking price at all. I did find a couple of burr clusters for sale tho that were bargain priced so I purchased them instead, paying what I would have spent on two baskets, they were coated on both sides with quartz crystals and many burrs of crystals as well, both of them beach ball sized. I was happy. I didnt know it til later, but my good friends David and Janyce Sorrells were over in the tailing piles at that time digging for quartz there…I found out the next day when they joined me at the Southfork Mine.  I headed back to the condo for another shoot and shot this gorgeous sunset…..

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Later I met up with Ray for supper at the Outback Steakhouse, everyone else was traveling in and arriving later that night, some not arriving til Friday night to go to the quartz mine with us…..think it is going to become my new steakhouse favorite, it was delish !!  

Onyx and I retired early, as Friday morning was going to be an early one, meeting up with everyone who was going with us to Southfork Mine. We woke up just before 6 am again, to some gorgeous hues of red filling the eastern skies…like the sunset last night, this appeared to be a gorgeous duplicate of last night and just got better and better every few minutes….

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…and a few minutes later, it morphed into this stunner as well….

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..and just kept getting better as the skies lightened up….

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…simply gorgeous is all I could think that morning….one of the best sunrises I have seen there for sure. Onyx and I drove up to McDonalds to meet up with Chuck and MacKenzie there for breakfast..they were already there waiting on us. We then drove over to the Valero Gas Station on Higdon Ferry Road just south of Hwy 270 to meet up with Jon and Ray, and then motored west to meet David and Janyce at the pull off spot across from the Crystal Inn, before heading on west to Mt Ida. More folks would be joining us the next day.

We met Tony at the entrance to the mine road and he led us down to it and thru the gate, that he had already opened for us…he had acquired a newer truck, this one a full size Dodge pick up with a flat bed on it, giving him more power and more cargo room than his older model Toyota pickup, which his girlfriend told me later that he still has. Chuck and MacKenzie went on up to the top of this mountain to start up at the older mine while everyone else walked into the newer mine to check things out. Janyce walked past and then backed back up a nice vug that was chock full of plates with large points all over the sandstone rock…

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Janyce was so excited, she called David down from the top wall to check it out and then he got excited and called John down to take a look at it, that was fun to watch and listen to….

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…after that John came up to my location on the upper wall to check out the vertical pockets in front of me and was quite impressed with this potential area right below me…

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…hard to see in the photo above but there were crystals laying everywhere in that clay mud…I climbed up higher on the wall and worked another area that was chock full of crystals as well…while David and Janyce set about trying to liberate the crystal plates from that pocket down below…

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…and John appeared to be trying to figure out where to start on his wall section…..

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…and here is what I was looking at in front of me….

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After prying several crystals from the pockets in front of me, an area including this pocket above and then an area above and below it about 2 feet wide by 8 feet high, for about four hours, I decided to get up and go get some water, and then do some surface collecting up on top. I let John know he could work the pockets if he wanted to, and Onyx and I headed up to the top of the mountain. Tony and his girlfriend had headed into town and locked us in, locking the gate behind them so we would not be disturbed by anyone else. He had some friends camped out nearby so we were definitely not going to be bothered by anyone. I got up on top of the mountain and parked down by Chuck, found him chiseling plates from a wall up there while Mackenzie was resting up……

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…he told me that he had found some great plates and was able to liberate quite a few nice ones…I checked out the wall and saw some great little burrs of crystals all over the rock as well as some big points that were two to three inches in length. While he continued to hammer, I decided to walk the entire area up on top so I would have a good idea of what to tell everyone else when they returned with us the next day. Onyx and I walked down to the area right above the newer area where John, David, and Janyce continued to work…

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…and then I turned around and began to look for crystals…finding several all the way back up the hill to the tailing piles above….they were literally laying all over the place, just like back in July when we were there and last fall when Virgil, Doug, and Ray joined me there for our first dig there….here are a few that I spotted, some I dug up and took with me and some I left for others…

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…the last one above is a yard rock that I dug out the rest of the way, then rolled it over, the top of it was really nice, so I grabbed my four lb hammer and chisel, then popped the top of it off, came off very nicely, too. After that I took a few minutes and wrapped up my finds and downed another bottle of water…by then it was starting to get warm up there on top of the small mountain…course wearing a long sleeved sweat shirt didn`t help either. We loaded up and drove back down to the lower area to check on the rest of the crew, finding them tuckered out like we were, and ready to head back to Hot Springs to get some supper.

We did just that and had some great time at Habachi Sushi Buffet, David and Janyce stopped off at their camper to clean up and then drove down to join us there. Alan and Debbie had made it into Hot Springs by then, driving in from Memphis, so they joined us as well a few minutes after we started eating. Afterwards, Onyx and I headed to the Scoops Ice Cream Shop again, got another pint of chocolate chip and then headed to the condo to rest up.

The next morning, I grabbed a sausage and egg biscuit at McDonalds, then drove up to Valero to meet up with the rest of the crew including the Tyler, Texas folks that drove up Friday night to join us for the Saturday dig. As I pulled in and parked to lead out, Fred Mahaffey, the Field Trip Director from the Tyler Club walked over and let me know that he had a few folks along for the dig. Chuck and Mackenzie joined us soon after, as did Alan and Debbie, and John. Ray decided he had too much fun the day before at the quartz mine, and was going fishing that day instead. We loaded up and headed west to Mt Ida, picking up David and Janyce at the gas station on the west side of town, then drove on out to the mine. When we stopped at the gate this time, those of us not wearing neon orange or green shirts,  donned our orange protective vests and proceeded up the hillside to the mine…this was the first day of gun deer season and we wanted to make sure no one mistook us for a deer.  Fred, Jim, and Sydney, Jim`s daughter, Alan and Debbie, followed Chuck and Mackenzie up to the top of the mountain to search up there, while Janyce, David, and John returned to the new area to work the wall some more. Onyx and I drove on up to the top to see how everyone was doing and after the strenuous day before, I decided to simply help everyone new get started on finding some nice quartz. By the time we arrived, Alan and Debbie were doing pretty good surface collecting and the Texas crew was moving around finding some nice ones as well. I showed Fred, Jim, and Alan the wall that Chuck had been working and let them know that there were literally crystals laying all over the tailing piles as well. I spotted a few and handed them off to Fred, who started surface collecting in the piles near me in the middle….

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….then noticed that Chuck and Mackenzie were surface collecting the old pit wall today…she was all decked out in multi colors today, in addition to her orange vest….

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..in the meantime, Alan and Debbie were surface collecting…Alan down by the walls where Chuck was located the day before, and Debbie up on top of the hill…

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After I could see that everyone was finding some nice stuff, I took a water break and then grabbed a bag and my mini mattox and set off in search of crystals once again. I started in the pit, found Jim and Sydney working the crystal wall and Fred looking around the backside of the wall…

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…and then I climbed up on top of the hill to check out the boulders up there. Lo and behold, once up there, I discovered some nice clusters of small burr like crystals embedded in dirt in the top of a small boulder…small but not so small that I could get it into the bed of my truck…so I walked over to the truck and retrieved my hammer and chisel….here is what they looked like up closer….

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…and here they are in the dirt on the boulder up close….

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…I took a stretch break and looked around, spotted Janyce walking down into the old tailings area and Mackenzie and Sydney were working together at the bottom of one of the piles….

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…Alan and Debbie came over to check out the clusters and I gave them a couple of them…then after clearing the boulder I decided to do a little surface collecting at the top of the hill piles and spotted some smokey colored crystals, so I sat down and started digging in..within a few seconds, I pulled out a big ball of clay that turned out to be a gorgeous burr cluster the size of a baseball in my hand. After I pulled out yet another one, Alan decided to sit down and dig into the huge pile next to me..within seconds I had a third one removed…all in all, I think I found about half a dozen of them…not all of them were smokey colored, but they were definitely pretty…I gave Alan a couple of them too. It was now approaching 3 pm so I wrapped up my clusters and then drove down to the new area to check on everyone down there. I found Janyce and David ready to pack up and head out, and John had a big smile on his face…

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…..he was working on removing a huge burr cluster at the top of the vein he had been working all day. I let him know that he had about 20 minutes to do so and he started working on it a bit more earnestly…Chuck and I helped him as much as we could while he worked on getting it out intact….I found out later that he had a good reason for not having removed it earlier, he was also able to remove a couple of big points while we were there with him as well….

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….and here he is trying to chip those out….

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…and after removing those, he then started prying out the huge cluster above…within a few moments he had liberated it from the confines of that clay pocket and that smile on his face moments earlier now turned into a huge grin….

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…soon after getting this wrapped up, I carried his tools down to his car, Chuck helped him carry the goodies to his car, and after he wrapped everything up safe and secure, we headed down the hill and out the gate, and down to Gary`s residence…to look over some beautiful Elmwood calcites, fluorites, sphalerites, and barites combined into gorgeous specimens. Gary has been collecting for 44 years, at one point he had a quartz mine of his own in the Mt Ida area and not only is a neat guy with a wealth of information but has a great collection of crystals and minerals as well. He enjoyed the visit with everyone as we did with him, and soon we were all headed back to Hot Springs for supper at various locations. The Texas crew headed to the Purple Cow and then headed home to Tyler…Chuck and Mackenzie headed to one of the Mexican Restaurants, David and Janyce headed back to their camper, and the rest of us, Alan, Debbie, John, joined me at the Habachi once again. We made plans to meet up again at the Valero the next morning about 7:30 am to drive down to Magnet Cove for a visit to one of the novaculite quarries. Onyx and I picked up a pint of butter pecan at Scoops and then retired back to the condo.

The next morning we had yet another foggy sunrise over the lake…

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I decided not to eat any breakfast that morning as I would be leaving about 10:30 am to drive up to Waldron for our annual family reunion at the Thomas Family farm, my uncles and cousins cook and prepare a huge feast up there for many friends and family members who show up by early afternoon there.  Onyx and I drove over to the Valero and found David, Janyce, Mackenzie and Chuck waiting for us, they were browsing inside when we pulled up…I checked my gas gauge and decided to fill the tank…as I was doing that, Alan and Debbie pulled into the next pump over to fill theirs as well. Now we were just waiting on John…I knew Ray wasnt going to make it cause he doesnt like novaculite like the rest of us do…I tried to call John a few times, called the hotel where he was staying and there was no answer so we decided to just give him a few minutes…and oila…he suddenly appeared…he had to load up the goodies he had brought for me to purchase from him and to trade with the others. He was also going to trade with Gary later that day for some luna agates from Mexico that Gary has in his collection. I called Mr. Parker to let him know we were running a bit late and he said he would wait for us at his shop in Magnet Cove. We took off and luckily the fog that was up on the hill in Hot Springs did not extend down into the valley of Magnet Cove, so we made good time and arrived shortly after our agreed upon meeting time of 8 am…then followed Mr. Parker over to his quarry, that required a bit more time as it was over some rough and super dusty gravel roads to reach it. Soon after arriving, he led us up to the area where they find many colors of novaculite and gave us a short history on the area first….

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Mr. Parker is a super nice guy, he has owned and operated the Magnet Cove Stone Company for many years, it has been in his family for many years beyond that as well, operated by his father and grandfather both. He allows rockhounds and mineral clubs to come and collect there, as well as knappers, and sells much of the beautiful colored and translucent material to commercial markets, some of them overseas. Some of his material has also gone up in space on one of the space shuttles, used in the protective heat shield of the shuttles. There are about ten colors at the quarry in different sections there…I prefer the gray blending into the deep reds, found in the location we were standing in….

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…and when we arrived, we met one of his employees who was cleaning out the rock in one of the new pits they had just dug out up there, he was also his best jackhammer man….

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…we then all divided up and began looking for some pretty stuff to take home…Chuck and Mackenzie were finding some nice stuff pretty quickly….

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…I picked up a couple of pieces there and then wandered over to the area on the other side of the vehicles, where I found John in the gray and red section…I found several nice pieces there that I wanted to take home. Mr. Parker only charges fifty cents a pound which is a good price for collectors and knappers alike.  John broke out some of the material he brought down for me to look through, and some of the others came over to look it over too, and pretty soon they were all trading and buying from him. I was soon out of time and had to head out…I led David and Janyce a different way out, shortcut over to Hwy 70 where we turned west and headed back to Hot Springs, they going back to their camper to load up and head home to Paducah, and me on west to Waldron to my family reunion. Chuck and Mackenzie left about 30 minutes later headed home to St Louis County, Alan and Debbie headed back to Memphis, and John drove out to talk more with Gary and do some trading with him, before then heading on home to Illinois. Onxy and I arrived at the family farm about noon and visited with family members before the meal.

I had cousins there that traveled in from California that I had not seen for a few years, two sets of Korean cousins, of the four, my cousin John is a rockhound while cousins Marilyn and Carolyn are simply quartz crystal fans. It was about 2:30 when everything was done and everyone was fed and beginning to leave…I wanted to get back before dark if possible, so Onyx and I headed out soon after.  I heard from Chuck by email when he and Mackenzie got back to the St Louis area safe and sound, and John kept me updated on his progress as well, he had the longer drive, ten hours at least. About a week after, he told me that when he was close to home, he struck a huge raccoon that came out into the highway in front of him, leaving him no choice…this thing was soo big that it took out a chunk of his bumper and also completely damaged his radiator…he spent the night in a gas station to keep warm and then his parents brought a flat bed trailer down to transport his car back home the next morning…his parents sound just like my parents…ready to help whenever needed. Onyx and I were relaxing down in the condo watching tv when I looked outside and thought things really looked bright out on the water…I walked out on the balcony and looked east and saw the moon rising up over the lake, looking HUGE….

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…it doesnt look like it in these photos but it sure did look big there…it was super bright out there for one thing…I had been seeing it about five nights in a row by then and I didnt remember it being that bright the other nights…I shot some video of it that night as well and then shot some closeups of it as an airplane passed by it….

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…we were now in relax and wind down mode, I had scheduled my vacation to include a few days of it, some at the beginning and one full day of it at the end…I really intended to sleep in the next morning but for whatever reason, was unable to do so..in fact we got up before the sunrise this time… I took Onyx out and saw the super moon dropping down to the horizon in the western skies right over the lake once again….

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…and a few minutes later, the sun did come up in an orange glow at the other side of the lake….

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Since I didnt hear from anyone else, it was a safe bet that by Monday morning that Onyx and I were the only ones left down there, so after repacking the truck for the return trip home….I visited with friends all day and one even drove up from Camden to have an early supper with me that evening at Outback…soon after he left for home, I took this pretty sunset photo….

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…and after yet another relaxing evening with ice cream and tv shows…Onyx and I retired to bed and got up about 8 am to finish packing the truck, then we were on the road by 9 am headed to Fort Smith to pick up Mom and head home from there. I had four large yard rocks and three bags of wrapped quartz crystals, a flat of wavellite, a tub of geodes, and some novaculite pieces, and just enough room left over for all of Moms luggage…all in all, another great Arkansas vacation. If you have any questions, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com 

 

 

 

Some of My Geode Finds at Geodefest and Keokuk 2016

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Finally had some free time to get some of the geodes I found at Geodefest a few weeks ago, at Keokuk, cleaned up…used Super Iron Out, also now known as Iron Out, to clean the gunk off some of the ones that were discarded by others and left to rot I suppose..I was quite pleasantly suprised at many of them, how gorgeous they were once cleaned up, even found that one of them was a citrine colored snowball half. I`m also posting below, some of the beauties that my good friend John Oostenryk brought and traded with me, some gorgeous brown irridescent calcites that shimmer in purple, pink and green colors and some gorgeous brown barite clusters from a few of the Iowa quarries that are no longer accessible by rockhounds…thanks again John….

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…this set of geodes above and below, I purchased at Geodefest this year from Ken Vaisvil…he is a dealer I always see at the Park Hills Show and he always has some gorgeous geodes big and small there…this one appeared to have a poker chip calcite crystal in it, and it was the only set he had like this…since I am known as the Poker Chip King in some places…I decided I had to have this one for my collection….

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…and here are the goodies John brought me to trade with me for the goodies that I brought him…

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Thanks again John, was great to finally meet you, rockhound with you, and trade goodies with ya as well…look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks. 🙂

 

Joplin Mineral Show, Field Trip, & Geodefest 2016 All in Same Weekend

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On Friday, Sept 23rd, Josh Click joined me for a full weekend of mineral shows and rockhunting field trips at two different locations at opposite corners of the state of Missouri. The third weekend in September is utilized by both the Tri State Mineral Show in Joplin and the Geodefest Show and Digs at Keokuk, Iowa and Hamilton, Illinois, so we were going to take in both shows and sets of digs, splitting the weekend up and traveling from the southwest corner of the state to the northeast corner of the state in a matter of hours.

So about 10 am Friday morning, Josh and I headed west on I-44 to Joplin, to take in the Mineral Show there for the first half of the weekend at Schifferdecker Park, with plans to join some members of the Kansas City Mineral Club in a joint field trip with Friends of Mineralogy as well on Saturday morning at some tailing piles that were still hanging around the area. I say hanging around because in the past few years, the EPA has been active in remediating many of the left over tailing piles from many old lead mines, scattered all over kingdom come in the tri state area, which is where Joplin is located, smack dab in the middle of that lead mining district. Many of the mines folded back in the 1960`s and the rest were pretty much done ten years later, yet the tailing piles remained for many years, wasting away, some creating a blight of the area even after the EPA created the Superfund plans to clean up the blighted areas and remove the piles to restore the lands. Here recently, those plans have started to see movement finally in terms of action from the EPA and only a few of the tailing piles remain, many of them located on private land, sometimes those lands entail many owners and co-owners, permission to look thru the piles a daunting challenge to any rockhound or group of rockhounds that would like to comb thru them in search of buried treasure. We visited with some friends Friday afternoon on the way down there and then I took him and one of our friends to Grand Falls on the west side of town to show him one of the prettiest waterfalls in Missouri and the Midwest. 

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A friend of mine named Carrie, is a member of the Kansas City Mineral Club, she told me of a friend of hers named Bruce, who was heading up a group to go to some of the old tailing piles to look for galena, sphalerite, and calcite on Saturday morning, said they would be meeting at the Tri State Mineral Museum in the park, where the Mineral Show is also held at, and going out from there. She contacted Bruce and secured permission for me to join them on their hunt that morning. Bruce had contacted all of the owners of this tract of land where the piles were located and obtained permission to hunt there that day.

Josh and I arrived at the museum…..

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….by 8:45 am Saturday morning and met up with Bruce and a few of the members who were already there. I gave Bruce a couple of flats of poker chip calcite crystals and let him know the members there that day could have as many of them as they wanted. One of the members who showed up, was Larry who owns the Rock Shop in Rolla…I have hunted with him on some of the MAGS sponsored trips as well. Larry is a geologist and works in the oil fields of central Illinois quite a bit.

By 9 am about twenty rockhounds had showed up and Bruce gave us a run down on what to find and what we could expect to find over there and then we headed out, following him to the northwest side of town. Bruce stopped briefly to let a deputy sheriff who lives nearby, know what we were doing and who we were. We then proceeded to the first tailing pile on the property, right across the driveway from the deputy`s home and we spread out trying to find some pretty stuff to take home. Bruce had been to this location before and said that galena cubes had been found there in some places…there was also some massive calcite chunks spread out all over the place as well. A few people did find some sphalerite and some galena there, but nothing real spectacular, so after about an hour, we drove on down the drive….01-nw-corner-of-joplin

 

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…..into a larger area where huge tailing piles and even a very large pile of rocks awaited us…Josh and I hiked over to the huge pile of rocks with Larry and a few others, including some new rockhounds to the group, while Bruce and some members of the KC Club drove on down into the valley to check the piles down there for goodies. 

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…our group checked out an old tailing pile in front of where we parked on the other side of the brush line from the parking area, first….

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…and then on over to the huge pile of rocks, when no one found anything but crushed gravel on the pile…the huge pile of small boulders was under the canopy of forest and next to some old concrete foundations of what appeared to be an old mill with a water race possibly next to it. The new younger rockhounds, including a few gals and a guy, began climbing up on this huge pile, every bit of 60 to 70 feet high, small boulders stacked up on top of each other, similar to pyramid type structure…the base was several yards around it…and it appeared someone had cut some trees down in an attempt to create a road around the huge pile, possibly preparing for remediation very soon. Josh climbed up on this huge pile with the newby rockhounds and pretty soon I heard him call out that he had found some nice chunks of calcite up there…most of the rocks and small boulders appeared to me to be leaverites. I checked the time, because he and I had to leave by 12:30 to get back to the hotel in time to clean up, then go to the mineral show for a bit, and then head home…where I would repack the truck for the trip to Keokuk, Iowa and we would get a few hours of sleep and then hit the highway headed north by 3:30 am Sunday morning. We had a little time left, so I left him with the folks on the huge pile and I walked down to see what Bruce and the others were finding before we headed out. Bruce and his crew were up on a tailing pile in the valley and were finding some nice galena cubes and sphalerite down there as well…

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…here is Bruce showing me some galena cubes they found on top of some boulders at the base of this pile in the valley…they were finding even more boulders with them as well….

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…I let him know that Josh and I were headed out and that we enjoyed hunting with them, we wished them great success on the remainder of their hunt that day and hoped to visit with them again sometime. Josh and I headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up, change into fresher clothing, and then after checking out of the Candlewood Suites, which I might add, was a very nice hotel to stay at…we drove over to the take in about 90 min of the Tri State Show. I parked under the shade of a huge hedgeapple tree there…

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Mike Shumate had asked me to say hi to a couple of dealers for him, so I looked them up while there and passed on his salutations to Marv and Jimmy…I remembered buying some Brazilian Quartz and Southern Illinois fluorite from Jimmy several years ago when I first visited the Joplin Show. I purchased a pyrite sphere from a dealer there that was a Marine veteran and visited with him for a few minutes, he had some very nice stuff for sale at his table…he pointed out Marv to me as well, who was just across the way from him. After visiting with Marv a bit, we walked over to see my buddy Virgil Richards who had a booth there as well, manned at the time by my Tulsa rockhounding buddy Doug Cunningham, and his wife, while Virgil was doing his normal routine at shows, working the room and gabbing with other dealers. Doug gave me some cracoite from Australia and a Fulgarite from California that Virgil had set out to give me when I arrived there…he also had some very old minerals from the Tri State District that he had picked up in an old collection. I visited with Doug and Virgil for a bit and then we headed for the front door…stopping briefly to look inside the neat Tri State Museum there….

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 We stopped off in Lebanon to fill the gas tank and had supper at Bandannas BBQ as well, before heading on home. We arrived home about 7 pm, I quickly repacked the truck for the Iowa trip, and we headed to bed soon after…3 am would arrive soon enough….and did, believe me…but luckily after six hours I was good to go, once again, and didnt even have to drag Josh out of his bed either. I checked with Chuck, as soon as we got to Hwy 109 and started north..he was two hours north of us on Hwy 61…said he wasnt able to sleep so he got an earlier start on the road, than we did…we made one pit stop for gas at Bowling Green, then as we approached the turn off to Keokuk, I stopped for this sunrise photo…told Josh to look for a water spot on the right side of the road…he spotted this small pond and it worked great for a good reflection of the gorgeous sunrise that morning…

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..and then soon enough, we were turning on to Hwy 61 to continue northeast now to Keokuk, as the four lane continued as Hwy 27 up into Iowa. We stopped a few min later on this bridge over the Fox River when the sunrise deepened….I shot a few photos of it and had to wait a few minutes while a dump truck crossed the bridge from behind me, the weight of his truck caused the bridge to sway pretty good…

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…we arrived in Keokuk just a few minutes later, and drove across the Mississippi River by the Lock and Dam, into Hamilton, Illinois and then north a little ways to the Chaney Creek Access Parking Lot, where Geodefest 2016 was being held. Arriving about 7:20 am, we quickly spotted Chuck`s truck and parked. Very few folks were stirring yet this early, we had arrived early so we could get registered and pay our fees for the last dig of the weekend, however we soon found out that registration would not open til 8 am on the last day, so we had some time to kill, so we went looking for my buddy John Oostenryk, who I had been talking to online for about six months, introduced to him by my KC friend Carrie…John is a museum curator at his local college in Rock Falls, Illinois and also a huge mineral collector too. John and I agreed to bring each other some goodies..to trade with later today and then he would take us collecting the next day as well. He told me that he would be operating a 600 lb geode cracker under a blue and red canopy, which we found easily enough, but discovered that John had not yet arrived and was due any moment. We decided to wander around the booths set up already and see what we could find…I quickly spotted Ken Vaisvil at his booth about two down from John`s booth and we walked down there to see what he had for sale…I always see Ken at the Park Hills show and he always has some nice geodes of all sizes for sale. Within minutes, I spotted one with some citrine colored quartz inside it and a medium sized gray colored poker chip calcite crystal inside as well…I purchased it from him and everyone was impressed with it…it was the first one I had ever seen with a poker chip crystal inside.

As we were wrapping that up, someone at Johns booth pointed to a silver van that had just arrived and said that was John arriving. After introducing him to Chuck and Josh, we were soon talking about prior emails, Carrie and her son Bentley, Bruce, the Joplin show, and past trips I have taken to collect minerals, as well as some upcoming trips too. John also told us we should forget the location for Rods, due to the fact that not very many good geodes were being found there this year as opposed to years past, and he recommended another location, so we went over to the registration booth and signed up for that location instead…which is located on Railroad Creek just outside of Hamilton. Rockhoundblogspot Bill and Debbie showed up soon after and we made plans to go rockhunting later in the day after the initial dig with the Geodefest folks. A little after 9 am, we followed our guide, which happened to be John`s friend Diane and headed south out of town to a nice farm. We parked next to the creek in a huge creek valley area….

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….and started unloading buckets and tools, getting my boots on, grabbed gloves and gave Josh a mini mattox to use, then listened to the guide on directions regarding the creek and a ditch nearby that was full of geodes as well. Rockhound Bill had advised us to go upstream to the railroad bridge, so we started that direction after another guide showed us the path leading there….for some reason, he told us we had a mile walk up the creek to the bridge, but as it turned out, it was more like a quarter of a mile…not sure how they were so far off on distance like that much….

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…we crossed the creek back and forth in a few spots and went up thru the brush in a few spots to avoid deeps spots and slippery rocks, making record time…finding another couple up there ahead of us searching on up the stream….

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…and they may have been looking for certain types or certain sizes of geodes, yet they were laying literally everywhere in the creekbed…we were told there was a discard pile up by the bridge as well, but we never saw one…could have been already gone thru by the time we arrived on the third day, too. This location is known for snowball geodes and most of the geodes we were seeing were from baseball to grapefruit sizes. I was finding several that were already cracked open, halves if you will, that appeared to have some interesting centers inside them, some that were shaped like snowballs too. Within five minutes, I had my bucket half full….Josh and Chuck spread out in the creek bed and began hunting as soon as we got there….

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Pretty soon, all three of us had some nice geodes in our buckets and we decided to turn back and search more diligently going downstream…there was another railroad bridge upstream, but we were not sure how far it was up there and we only had about 90 minutes before we had to be back to the parking lot, per the male guide. Chuck was the first to head back in that direction and by the time I got back to the bridge, he was already fifty feet down below the bridge and on the other side of the creek…he let me know that it was shallow if I hugged the left side of the creek and then crossed over a set of rocks that stretched all the way across the creek to where he was located…the first thing I noticed when I came out from under the bridge was this beautifully curved tree stretching out across the water and creating a beautiful reflection in the water….

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We were back at the trucks within the hour and found we had at least another hour left to hunt if we wanted to…apparently the big male guide didn`t know nearly as much as he claimed he did…after a water break and loading up the geodes we had collected upstream, Chuck took an extended break while Josh and I wandered over to a branch that went up into the woods off the main stream. I had talked to a guy in the parking area who said that if we walked up that streambed, dry for the most part, there was a bend and high bank up there that was just geode city he said…I wandered over to the bank and found these two geode halves just sitting there….

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and then I didn`t go far before finding these two halves…sitting there waving at me…

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…and was stunned both times because all of them had pretty crystals inside…okay, I reasoned, they didn`t have snowballs inside but they were PRETTY !!!  I was bewildered as to why someone would leave pretty geodes behind….so in my bucket they went….I called out to Josh to see how he was doing and he said the guy was right, there were geodes in the bank that could be dug out and laying all over the place upstream in the creek bend. Here is a shot of the streambed at my feet….

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…and the forest floor where I found several more just laying around…

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After loading up another half bucket, we loaded the truck bed one more time and then paid our bucket fees to Diane before heading back to the parking lot at Chaney Creek Access. Some dealers were starting to pack up to head home, so we did some more shopping…then discovered that John had suffered a traumatic injury while we were out that morning…he was cracking open a large geode for someone with his hydraulic geode cracker, when a large rock splinter came off the geode and penetrated the towel he had the geode wrapped in…likely speared thru that, and then penetrated the heavily padded welders gloves he was wearing and lodged inside his ring finger. He told me that they were able to remove the splinter, and he applied a copious amount of neosporin to the wound, and then wrapped it well. i told him he had done well in that respect and it appeared he had controlled the bleeding as well. Others were pushing him to go to the area hospital and get stitches, but he was hesitant to do so, asking my opinion of it, I guess due to my experience as a firefighter. I let him know that in my experience, I never had stitches for wounds like that, and I had had plenty of them…that I had merely done what he had done..applied neosporin heavily and then wrapped up the wound….neosporin is some great stuff and works wonders on healing up such types of injuries. I asked him if there were any medics on scene, and he said there were some in a trailer a little ways down in the parking lot, but they had both gone into town for some supplies, he said he would have them look at it on their return. They returned about an hour later and gave John the same prognosis I had….he was relieved because he really didn`t want to have to go get stitches. 

In the meantime, Chuck decided to lend his muscles to one of John`s hometown friends, Jamie, and they continued to crack open geodes for folks that brought them to John. This continued most of the afternoon until everything wound down and then we were able to load up and head over to Macomb to check out some areas for rock and mineral collecting. We had about 90 min left before the sun set…Rockhound Bill and Debbie went with us as well as a female friend of Johns named Abigail.  I didn`t shoot any photos til the sun started setting there, here you see a pile in the middle that Bill and Debbie were checking out….

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From here we bid John and Abigail goodbyes as they were heading back to Rock Falls from there and we headed back to Keokuk to our hotels to get cleaned up and then go find some place to eat at…problem is that Keokuk rolls its sidewalks up on Sunday nights. After checking in to the Super 8, where Chuck, Josh, and I were staying, we discovered that the place next door, the former Golden Corral, was now a bar and grill called Vs…so we decided to check it out instead of going to a fast food place. We called Bill and Debbie, who met us there instead…lo and behold they had great food there. I had the chicken fingers and fries, and let me tell you, they believe in feeing you there, plus it was not high priced either. We decided to sleep in a bit the next morning…Bill and Debbie were going to take us to a private location nearby…I woke up around 8 am and went down to clean up the truck and re-arrange the bed load too. Josh woke up about an hour later and we met Chuck over at V`s for a hearty breakfast, leaving us enough time to gas up and get Josh an extra pair of jeans at Walmart, then head to the meeting spot, which we amended to a different location soon after. Bill and Debbie soon showed up at that location and we followed them down to the creek location that they were taking us to…we quickly parked and headed down to the creek with them to see what we could find…

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…we walked upstream past this wall and to the railroad bridge over the creek, watching a passing BNSF Industrial Lead train pass by overhead…..

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…..Josh and Chuck walked up above the bridge to see what they could find while Bill, Debbie, and I walked back down to the wall…I found a couple of softball sized geodes in the bank on the way to the high wall. Pretty soon Josh and Chuck returned and we all decided to work the wall and see what we could find…here you see Josh up above us checking out the higher part of the wall…

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…and Bill checks the lower wall for geodes, while Chuck watches from the creek…

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…here are some of the geodes we were looking for…in a line down low on the wall and another line of them up higher, out of our reach….

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..some were whole and nearly out of the wall, so we had to get our hammers and chisels out to chip these out of the wall…as we did, the sun really began to warm up and this wall was going to be in the sun all day long…needless to say, we got a good workout in getting a few nice ones out of the wall..mm

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..and here is Chuck patiently working a nice geode half out of the wall….

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…we decided to wrap it up shortly after this…here are a couple of Chucks really nice one that he chipped out after a lot of patience and hard work….looks like a small snowball of quartz inside it….

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..and a couple of my finds as well….

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we decided to go north to another creek location or two, but after driving over there, we discovered that the 14 inches of rain received by central Iowa locations the day before, was making the Des Moines River rapidly rise to bank full in many places, which in turn was going to make it nearly impossible for us to collect in those areas…we finally found one creek where we were invited to search by local residents in the Bonaparte area…while we did find a few, none of us have cracked any open to figure out what is inside them…I will keep you posted on that tho. From here, Chuck and I decided to head home about 3 pm, so we loaded up and took off for our respective homes…stopping off in Hannibal at the Caseys Store, across from one of Hannibals Fire Stations….

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…..to gas up and grab some eats…Chuck texted me about 7:15 pm to let me know he had made it home safe and sound, five minutes before Josh and I rolled into my driveway. We were soooo tired that we left the truck loaded til the next morning. After a good long soak in the hot tub, my bed never felt better and I was sound asleep soon after. We did manage to sleep in the next morning tho. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Justin Comes to Visit

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Back in July, my good friend Justin emailed me to see if he could come visit with me and asked if I would take him rockhunting here in Missouri. I met Justin a few years ago on one of my annual trips to the Hot Springs area of Arkansas…one of my quartz crystal excursions in the fall time, and we quickly hit it off and became good friends. I met him in the parking lot that evening shortly after I arrived at the condo I stayed at on Lake Hamilton. I brought him some flats of Missouri crystals and minerals and told him back then to come visit with me and I would take him rockhunting up here…so he was finally taking me up on the offer. Justin is a neat guy, very mature acting for his young age…he works in what some of us would consider a stressful job…hospice care…a very vital and caring field these days and one that is much appreciated as well by many….so I highly respect him even more for choosing such a field to work in. He drove up a few weeks ago on a Friday and arrived early evening…he checked out my collection inside the house that evening since it got dark soon after his arrival, and then the next day checked out my rock gardens during the daylight. I have heard many refer to my interior collection, like ” walking thru a museum ” but Justin thought the outside gardens were like a museum as well, although they could prob use some weeding and its been way too hot for that this summer.

We decided to drive down to MFQ the next morning, getting up and headed out by 7 am, stopping off at the donut shop so I could get one of my favorite donuts, the unfilled white icing long john with nuts sprinkled on top, and a chocolate milk. Soon after, Onyx, Justin, and I were heading for the quarry. They had done some blasting there a few weeks before and I told him that maybe they would have that pile cleaned up to where we could check the lower wall for dogtooth pockets, as we had found several in that wall there years prior. As we started down into the valley, we noticed some heavy fog and I told Justin that we might have some fog at the quarry as well, and sure enough we did have just a little bit of it when we arrived soon after, stopping off briefly to get some water for Onyx that I forgot to bring….here you see Justin halfway up the pile finding some nice calcites…

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…he had his boots on when we arrived, so he took off and started walking and searching for crystals before grabbing a bag or anything to put them in….he was too excited to even grab his gloves or tools…as you can see, he made do with his shirt tail when he started finding them up there…..like a kid in a candy store believe me…..

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…and as you can see from the photos above, the blast pile was hugely still there, little had been worked to remove it…stretching back to the west much as it was the last time I was there. Soon I had my boots on and grabbed my gloves, tools and a bag and headed up into the base of the pile…and soon I was finding alot of dogtooth crystals, or what I would refer to as wanna be dogtooth crystals, five to ten inches long and a beautiful nestle chocolate brown color to them…many were upside down in what appeared as pockets blasted down from the wall intact and held in place by dirt and rock around them. It appeared they had been uncovered by the machinery recently, because they sure were not to be found or seen when I was there last…Justin was hollering every few minutes about finding something here and there, showing me some of his finds…..

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…..and finally made his way back to the bottom with his shirt full of crystals…

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…one thing was for sure, we  had a beautiful day to collect there….gorgeous sky and nice weather, and it was warm, just without the humidity, if I recall correctly…but we did eventually warm up….

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…I pointed out the coved wall and told Justin that when MAGS was there in April, the quarry personnel had cleaned off the upper ledges and hundreds of dogtooth crystals landed down below on the floor and in the smaller piles near the coved wall….so he migrated over there to see what he could find…

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…and actually did pretty good this time as well, eventually having to use his hat this time since he shed his now dirty shirt for the heat….I had forgotten to tell him about the short cleft wall we had pulled down with prybars when the Tyler Club was there with me, mainly to make it safer, but we also found pockets behind it and Justin was able to find several under the rocks in that area, many that made him happy. 🙂  

Here are some of my finds that morning just doing some surface collecting mainly….1718

 

 

 

 

 

That cluster up above was one that I just found sitting in the pile and picked up…has a little damage to it but very nice spray looks like…I don`t have it cleaned up yet or would post a photo of it, but will eventually….

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…I also found a few small orange dogtooth crystals too, here and there….

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Justin had so much good luck on the right side of the coved wall, that he went back over there and looked some more, and found even more good stuff, this time using his hands and arms to hold them…

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…then we moved back over to the big pile to look for more dogtooths…by the time we finished I had four bags full of them and I know Justin had more than I did, he was ecstatic over them too. 🙂  Pretty soon he was back up near the top of the pile looking for more….

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…by this time, it was approaching 1 pm and we wanted to go to Rocky Falls and cool down a bit, then go see my buddy Dave so I could show Justin the pretty minerals and crystals that come out of the Viburnum Trend Doe Run owned mines, so we did a little high grading….or I should say Justin did….

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…and then we headed over to Rocky Falls for a bit of a cool down…found a church group there…we hiked up to the top for the bigger view….

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..and then we drove over to see my friend Dave, where Justin learned even more about lead minerals from the Viburnum Trend in Missouri. all in all a great day.

The next day we drove down to the druse spot…..we didn`t get an early start, slept in a bit as we were wore out from the day before. I had told Justin all about this location, assured him he would have no problem finding some nice stuff to take home, depending on what colors he liked in druse quartz…I think he was a bit skeptical of me…but within about five minutes of arriving, all that skepticism went right out the window. Onyx and I were up on the hill above him and we could hear him talking about it…sometimes to me…sometimes to Onyx…and sometimes I think, to himself…I even captured it on video…

 

 Took Justin a while, but he finally made it about halfway up the hill to where Onyx and I were hunting….

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…he was like a kid in a candy store and fun to watch…I don`t believe I have ever seen one person so enthusiastic about finding druse quartz, at this location especially !! I also don`t believe I have ever seen anyone load up as much druse quartz to take home with him from this location…he was starting to worry about having enough room in his car for it all by the time we got done.  In the meantime, I was finding some nice stuff up the hill and to the south a little ways from him…

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…next thing you know, Justin is halfway up the hill toward us, as Onyx and I are starting to move to the south to search the erosion ditches on the hillside…

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…and then I found a smokey druse pocket….

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….at the same time,  Justin made it to the top of the hill and then checked out a freshly dug out area, where he also found some nice smokey plates and a ton of other nice stuff including some bubbles that he was searching for. A couple of hours later and we were fairly exhausted…Justin had a few buckets full plus his backpack, and I had a couple of bags full of wrapped pieces.  We drove up to the local store nearby, and took a snack and water break. 

From there we drove to the SS Quarry to see if we could find some poker chips or dogtooth crystals…while we were searching for pockets, Onyx decided to go wading and swimming….

01-onxy-goes-wading0403bJustin got his hard hat on and took off up to check out the old pockets at the base of the west wall and started exploring…due to his size, he was able to squeeze into some of the smaller pockets and pull some crystals that remained, out of them….

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…I looked down at my feet and was surprised to see golden rod growing in the floor of the quarry….see it in the fields all the time, never expected to see it growing out of the rocks….

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By this time, I was quickly running out of energy, having spent most of it at the druse spot and using up much of the rest of it trying to find Justin a dogtooth pocket so he could take home some beauties….it`s great to receive minerals and crystals as gifts but everyone likes to find them on their own even more, the thrill of pulling them out of a pocket is just much more exhilarating. I wasn`t able to find anything substantial, so Justin decided to try the wall on the north side, which is more vuggy and has produced many of the huge pockets I have found in the past. He walked over and came in from the top, taking my advice on how to reach the bottom, watching for plates of druse quartz that are often found over there…he did….

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…and after about an hour over there, he finally had a shirt full of crystals and was ready to leave as well….

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I`m not sure, but I think I was more worn out than he was…but a good meal at Missouri Hick really helped us both out and restored us just a little bit and the hot tub finished it up later on. After sleeping in again on Monday morning, Justin took some time to pack his car from the front seat to the trunk and then set off for home at noon, arriving about eight hours later safe and sound.  It was great seeing him and rockhunting with him once again. See ya again in November Justin !!

 

Green Poker Chip Pocket at MFQ

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Friday afternoon I received word from my buddy Jim, that more activity had occurred at MFQ that morning. Since I had to work that weekend, I let my buddy Chuck Reed know about it and he decided to drive down Sunday morning and see what he could find. I had driven down there the weekend before and discovered then, that more activity had occurred on the west wall of the quarry again, but they were drilling up on top of the wall between the cove and the west wall, and that wall had been full of dogtooth crystals pockets some years back. I let Chuck know this and wished him well. I called him Sunday evening on my way to work to see how he did, and he told me that he did pretty good, so I decided to take Onyx…despite the forecasted heat…and drive down Monday afternoon and see what I could find. After dealing with morons all Sunday night at work, I got a good five hour nap in Monday and then we headed down there. Here is what it looked like when we arrived…the cove is on the right side and to the left it tapers down to the ” West Side “, which you really cannot see in this photo below……

32 New Blast

I parked about midway down and rolled the windows down, got my boots on, my apron on, and took the next few photos with my camera….

01 Coved Wall02 Blast Area Just West of Cove

…and the next photo shows the activity on the newly created ” west side ” of the quarry…

03 New Blast Area West of Cove

…after that I started hearing some rumblings of thunder just to the north of the quarry, and started studying the clouds above…to see which way it was moving…took awhile to figure it out cause they were moving extremely slow to the southwest…too bad, cause that blast pile was extremely dusty looking and I would have had no problem sitting in the truck waiting for a good washing off. I also started seeing some neat sunbeams…aka windows to Heaven…all over and above the quarry…I took them as a good sign…and maybe more than that….

07 Sunbeam City10 Sunbeams to West

Beautiful Sunbeams on Arrival

…everyone that knows me, knows I LOVE sunbeams, sunsets, and sunrises…pretty much in that order, rainbows too, but they are much rarer to capture….and my Dad knew that I liked sunbeams too…and here I was at one of my favorite places to rockhunt at and within a few minutes, sunbeams started popping out all over the top of that quarry….

13 Sunbeams

14 Sunbeam City15 Sunbeams Before Storm

…and I took that as a good sign of things to come and more…this happened yesterday and today is my Dad`s birthday. Onyx and I took a quick sashay around the front of the blast pile to see if we could find anything interesting, looked at the big boulders in the pile and checked for vugs…..didn`t see anything worthwhile, so I left my bag down near the bottom and climbed up along the wall starting on the west side to check the walls out for pockets….

17 Started On West Side

18 Moved Across to East Side

…and moved to the east side along the wall…finding very little of anything but the calcite that looks either rotten or ill formed, or looks like it belongs in a cave. I moved all the way across the east side and then came to a point sticking out….

 

 

…and as soon as I rounded that corner sticking out, I spotted about four pockets, but only one really caught my eye, due to the content of it that was plainly visible to my eye…

20 Pockets To Right of Broken Wall

If you can see my red handled mini mattox in the photo above, look to the left of that about ten feet to see the pocket I saw….if you still can`t see it, here it is below…

24 Pocket of Poker Chips in Red Druse

…filled with greenish brown poker chips nestled in red dolomite druse and several came out nice and intact, while some did look like they had some blast damage, which does happen from time to time. Shortly after cleaning it out, which took about 30 minutes to do, I looked back to check on Onyx in my truck below….

29 Truck in Cove

…and then pulled this huge center plate out of the pocket, revealing two smaller pockets behind it…which took only a few minutes to clean out each one of them, and then we headed for home, stopping off for ice cream at the Bourbon Family Center and then on home for a late supper. If you have any questions or just want to give me a shout, my email addy is jwjphoto7@gmail.com