Kentucky Central Trip 2024

My Kentucky Central trip over Labor Day Weekend this year, turned out to be a hard lesson learned for me, situation I hope to never encounter again.

In a nutshell, a few weeks out from the trip, a friend of mine called and told me that he had lost his job and would like to go rockhounding with me and my group…at the very least, I probably should have asked more questions because he had never expressed an interest in rock collecting before, and I have known him for five years now, had visited with him on a couple of my quartz collecting trips in Arkansas a few years back even, not a peep out of him then about it. I also knew that he had some type of medical condition, recently diagnosed, and I did not ask about it, because in some cases, such as a disability, it is against federal law to do so. They can voluntarily give you that information, but you cannot ask them for it, or worse yet, try to force them to give you that information. I knew he was taking medication and thought it was pain relief or similar.  I made the mistake of picking him up and taking him along, and it went south Saturday evening…. he didnt take his medication Friday evening, and I saw a side of him that I never want to see again, think along the lines of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. It involved an ambulance trip to the hospital with police assistance, and after a lot of advice, I made the decision to leave him behind on the basis of safety for everyone in my group as well as Onyx.

On Friday morning, we drove over to visit with my good friends Gary and Walter, who operate a fluorite mine in southern Illinois…they had recently got into some good specimens…one of my rockhunting friends,  Ryan Shaffer, drove down that morning from Rolla, Missouri, and met us at the gas station where Gary was eating breakfast at and visiting with some of his local buddies there. When Gary left to go home, we followed him and picked out some fluorites to purchase from him. Walter joined us a little later that morning after he woke up…he works night shift and sleeps til about mid morning. We had a good visit, and Ryan and I were able to get some pretty stuff in purple and yellow colors, before heading southeast to Danville, Kentucky.

We arrived at the hotel in Danville about 4 pm, checked in, and just had time to get cleaned up before heading to dinner at the Bright Leaf Golf Resort Restaurant for their seafood buffet. After an hour of great fellowship and dinner, we drove back to the hotel in Danville to set up for the swap and sell tailgate event.

Onyx and I were up early, about 6 am after a good night`s rest, and after a good breakfast, we headed to the front of the line to lead everyone over to Caldwell Quarry. We met Clay at the Office and taking a group photo in front of the big rock outside the office, Clay gave a brief history of the quarry operations and then led us down to the ground floor where we all parked. He pointed out the collecting areas, changed alot from last year, and set us loose. His safety guy Jeff, stayed with us as he has in the last couple of years we were there…we always appreciate his watchfulness and assistance, and tip him well before we leave. Several rockhounds found some nice vugs in the boulders there and harvested some beautiful brown calcite crystals…

I came across Don Lapham working on a boulder that had a few vugs of beautiful honey yellow calcite dogtooths inside…he had them marked with a few of his colorful handkerchiefs….

…this one had an exceptionally gorgeous calcite flower in the middle of the dogtooth vug….

…absolutely stunning….and Don was able to remove it completely intact !!   He found another one at Caldwell that morning that was nice as well….

Can`t remember who found this one….

…and here is another one of Don`s finds…he left another marker there with it….

…and a few more that I am not sure who found….but they are spectacular as well….

…and I believe it contains calcites, pink dolomites, and fluorite cubes in the bottom and left side of the vug….

 

After four hours of collecting there, we drove down to Junction City to look for geodes.

Larry Huffman and Harry Polly always led the group on this part of the trip in years past, but sadly, we lost Larry to a heart attack back in April, and Harry didn`t feel like making the trip this year…they were both very close friends and I know all of us regulars, understood exactly how Harry felt about it. I can safely say, without a doubt, that their presence was seriously missed by all of us there.

We arrived to find a mostly dry creek bed at the private landowner`s farm near Junction City, they were locked into the same drought as we in Missouri, suffered through all last year. Clay had mentioned that as well,  and the quarry did seem awful dusty this year, compared to years past. We were still able to find some nice geodes, had to go upstream and downstream to find the bigger ones, but everyone managed to find some nice ones to take home.

…that is Ryan Shaffer working on some geodes at the creek in the photo above.

Onyx and I returned to the hotel to get a nap in, however,  we were going to dinner at a local steakhouse…. which I figured might fill up early…. so while Onyx and I were getting cleaned up, Slade and Dean, two of my North Carolina buddies, called and made a reservation for the group of us, and that helped us get in the door quicker, and out of that heat, soon after we arrived. We had a good dinner, food was cooked well and delicious.

We all returned to the hotel…some stayed in their rooms due to the heat outside, and some of us were out in the parking lot visiting. Normally in years past, the swap and sell tailgate event would be held Friday and Saturday in the hotel parking lot after dinner, but this year we only had it Friday evening. Slade, Ryan, Dean, and I were out in the parking lot for a while talking and think it was around 10 pm before we retired for the night to our rooms.

We had a pretty good day at the next quarry on Sunday…

…that is Carl and Valorie`s truck in front of mine above…and they were both checking out the boulder field behind their truck, looking for goodies…later in the day, Onyx and I drove up to the top of the hill and took this panoramic photo below….

…and alot of pretty vugs were found here and harvested by several….this one found on the underside of a boulder….

…and check out these yellow fluorite cubes on calcite that David Bruce found, in photo above and a couple of photos below….

…the next one is one of Don`s finds at the Sunday quarry….he told me it had a bees nest inside it, so I didn`t stick around long after taking a few photos of it. 🙂

…and here is Don sawing off some matrix as Valorie walks by with a crystal find in her right hand….

 

 

Most of us stayed til about 3 pm, think most were fairly happy with their finds, and then headed to Elizabethtown to our hotels. We had to make another dinner reservation to be able to get into the Texas Roadhouse, but the wait was definitely worth it as they always have good food there, too. The next morning, some of us headed back to the quarry and some headed home. Onyx and I drove up to the quarry again, and stayed til about mid morning before heading home.

I snapped a few photos of Slade making some cuts to free up some beauties before we took off for home…

I know I second guessed myself all the way home regarding the ordeal with my friend…Ryan and Dean and other friends with professional medical experience, helped me finally realize I had done the right thing, the only thing actually, that I could safely do that would not jeopardize my group, Onyx, and I, in dealing with that type of situation

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waterhole Pocket End of May

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

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

02A  Trenched Water Below

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

03A   Found Few Small Pockets Below

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

04 Lots of Potential

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

06A   Hole Appears

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

07A  Backed Off and Dammed off Water

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

08A   Deeper Sounding Hole Appears

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

09A   Hole Expanded to Water Pit

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

10 Sun Starts to Set

 

 

 

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A Nice Three Day Weekend, Part 2….

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

01 Back to Bulldozed Area

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

02 Starting Here Today

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

03 Calcite Shows Potential

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

04 Crystals Found Initially

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

05 Pockets Forming Up

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

06 Explored Pocket on Right

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

07 Expanded to Right

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

08 Crystal Pile Growing

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

09 Upper Bench Pockets

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

10 Pocket Starts Toward Pile

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

13 Upper Bench Pocket

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

12 More Crystals Found

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

14 Inside Upper Bench Pocket

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

15 Druse and Chip Combo

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

16 Next Pocket Started With Hole

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

17 Hole Surrounded by Calcite

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

18 Deep Hole As it Turned Out

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

19 Druse Plates From Hole Pocket

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

20 One of the Plates

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

21 Plate Removed Expanded Hole

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

22 Hole Expands and Deepens

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

23 Crystals and Plates From Deep Pocket

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

24 Plate of Chips and Druse on Ceiling

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

26 Sunset Looking Nice

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

27 Sunset From Top of Hill

 

stay tuned for part three….

 

Welcome to JWJ Rock Hunting blog

Welcome to my new site, jwjrocks.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

James W Johnson                                                                                           Rockhound and Guide                                                                                   Retired Firefighter                                                                                          Sullivan, Missouri