I always wanted to say that….and now,  the rest of the story….always enjoyed listening to Paul Harvey on the radio when he was broadcasting, just great stories to listen to as you were driving down the roads…well this is the rest of the story from the past weekend at the locations…my Sunday morning shoot was postponed so Missy and I loaded up and headed for Eminence to meet up with Docia at Crider Quarry and see if we could find any new goodies there. It had been awhile since we were both there and we had heard they were still doing some blasting,  and there was a chance the Memphis Club would want to visit it as well, so we decided to scout it.

Pulled in about 11 am and found Docia had arrived just a few minutes ahead of me. I unleashed Missy to roam freely but kept her nearby as there were a few employees working a pile of rocks about a hundred feet from us.

We began surface collecting the immediate piles near where we parked until they finished their work and left. We then re-positioned our trucks and worked the piles closer to the quarry walls.

I was walking around the backside of one of the piles near the highway side walls and looked up on a whim, and spotted this beautiful translucent green round poker chip crystal sitting near the top of the pile, just calling out to me. I quickly climbed up the rocks and snatched it up and held it up to the light to confirm the translucent green aura coming from inside it, have never seen one that color before. Shown here dirty on the tailgate after I found it.

…and here it is all cleaned up…..

Docia found some nice poker chips as well, some green and brown ones, on a few of the piles closer to the walls of the quarry, and when I checked out the same piles, I found some really pretty brown calcite druse pieces, small but pretty….

We stayed for about 90 minutes and then drove to our private location to look for more druse and poker chips there. Since I had been there the day before, I decided to check out the higher areas of the new piles there, while Docia decided to look for more druse in the red clay areas. I was climbing around the new pile behind the machine when I spotted a few loose poker chips, they resemble pine cones when laying around loose like that, and so I climbed up the pile to retrieve the two spotted on top of the rocks and dirt. I spotted some calcite crystals and decided to dig a little deeper into the pile slope and lo and behold, within a few minutes of careful digging, more poker chips started appearing before my eyes. I had to be very careful digging here, cause there were a few basketball sized rocks above me that were threatening to roll down up on me at any time. Docia took a photo of me working on the pocket in relation to the pile….

and here I am up closer working the pocket…

Right below my right hand is the pocket I am digging into, wish I would have had my camera right there with me, but there were rocks coming down the whole time and didnt want to take a chance on one hitting the camera.  My escape route was to the left where the bags were sitting and the big rocks are sitting as well. Luckily I didn`t need it.

and here is is close up, you can see how many pine cones there were in there, the yellow ones on the far left side up side down were part of a piece that I had to pry out of the pocket…

and as you can see, a couple of pine cones chipped off in the process, but there was no other way to get it out. I can hear my Tulsa rockhound friend Virgil now….I swear Virgil, I did my best here…once I got this one out, I saw two more hanging up side down, poker chips attached to gray colored druse, so I had to chip the matrix holding them in place and free them one at a time…

Right after I pulled these three out, a very large pine cone came loose and rolled down, shown in the next photo with a very small pure while poker chip that was attached to a tiny piece of druse found in the pocket as well.

About this time Docia came down the hill with two bags completely full of druse and excitedly talking about a very large pink druse chunk she had to go back for…I kept pulling small pine cones out of the pocket til I had two bags full and my two vest pockets crammed full. I very carefully climbed down that slope with three big pieces of druse and poker chip combos and two bags full of pine cones, in two trips, not one. I was one tired puppy when I finally got back to the truck. Here are a few more of my finds….

And now you know the REST OF THE STORY…..

One week out from the MAGS Club Druse trip up here that Docia and were going to lead and host and I had a free day come up…so Missy and I loaded up and headed to the secret spot to see what was new…the week before when we stopped by on our scouting trip, we found more material moved around and today, even more stuff moved out and new material laying around.

We got out to stretch our legs and Missy immediately took off in search of new mudholes and I grabbed a few bags and my rockhammer and started up the slope to see what could be located.

Well within just a few moments, I started finding some nice stuff laying all over the place, including one nice combo right in front of the machine….

here is a group photo of several I found up there on the slope….

..and the other half of my floor covered by them….

…lets just say I filled about eight canvas bags full of them…as I was making my way back up there on one trip, I found this nice one which appears to have a vug mouth on it….

…another side of it…

..and the mouth vug on it….

..and a nice little palm sized combo that I found laying up there in front of the machine…

..and I even found a few bubbly druse plates laying around…seemed like everytime I turned around, something was calling out to me. 🙂

…stay tuned for the rest of the story….

I drove down to the National Forest areas of southwestern Washington County and southeastern Crawford County near the town of Viburnum, to do some scouting for the upcoming MAGS Club trip, to make sure good friends of mine from the Memphis area club would be able to find some nice specimens of druse quartz. Docia and I had been bragging about this area to them and I sure didnt want us to fall on our faces after they took the time and made the long drive up here. This is a great time, other than the cold weather, to go out and look for druse in the forest because you dont have to put up with poison ivy or brush and briars, or critters, or pests like chiggers and ticks, or other scarey things that shall go unmentioned. 🙂

Needless to say, due to this good area, I found a TON of nice stuff all over the area that I searched, and there is a big area there…I probably only scratched the surface of the area there and found a few nice enough ones to bring home with me…

Well that gives you an idea of some of the nicer stuff I found in the forest area I was scouting today. A good friend of mine is coming down that weekend to go hunting with Docia and I…Ralph is from Ohio and I have hunted with him for beautiful purple fluorite in Marion, Kentucky, too…Ralph loves druse quartz as well. I`m looking forward to his visit.

While down there, I decided to drive a little further and check out the secret spot for poker chips and druse, and found some really nice combo pieces in some piles that had been spread out all over the place….

and…

and also found this nice druse plate there…