After a few friends visited over the weekend with Docia, I returned to the secret spot to see how they did with the pocket I left them. Docia had told me that a few of them were as calcite crazy as I was and worked it pretty good, for about five hours in fact, and pulled some nice crystals out of the pockets there and filled several bags with poker chips.  Missy and I walked over to check out what was left of it….Docia figured there might still be a few inside it as well as some plates of poker chips attached to druse plates under heavy rock that they were unable to hammer out….

…and after cleaning it out, I discovered they had left behind a few nice crystals, including a nice twin or two….

…I cleaned out the pocket on the west end and pulled a few nice crystals out that had been overlooked and tried to hammer a few plates out, but let me tell you, that rock above was thick and heavy, and hard as a rock, so to speak. 🙂

You can see in the next photo, inside the pocket and how thick that layer of rock is on top of the crystals…

Despite not being able to pound any plates down due to the extremely heavy rock layer above the crystals, I did manage to liberate this nice poker chip on top of soda straw druse….

…this and a small pile of crystals was all I could find in the west end pocket, so I decided to move over to an area that I had dug into the time before, when I was finding shallow pockets all over the place, but no entry into any of them short of hammering and chiseling one out…

..within a few moments of digging in one of these spots again, a hole opened up at what appeared to be a dead end….

…and I pulled a few small plates of druse out….

..and the hole opened up even more….

…and I was hoping the pocket wouldnt require me moving this pile of rock above it….soon a crystal could be seen down in the pocket….

I decided to see if I could expand the opening more and see just how big a pocket I was looking at here….

…and soon I could see even more crystals inside the pocket….

…and soon I was pulling this nice druse plate out as well as some loose crystals…

…and pretty soon the pocket was expanding even more at the base of the lip of rock surrounding it inside this trench….

…and off to the right and above my mini mattox you can see a shallow hole opening up where yet another pocket was found….

…I dug around the base of the rock walls inside the trench and then dug down and found that other pocket off to the right, and found a large ledge of bubbly druse with poker chips attached at the base of it, a curved wall at the base I should say, instead of a vertical wall…

…located on the right side of the new pocket wall…and from this curved druse wall, I was able to dig out a beautiful small druse plate with two poker chips attached to it, one on each side of the druse plate….

…after that, I was able to connect the two pockets by digging out the middle section……and then I took a closer look at the nice plate of druse with the two poker chips attached to it….

…very pretty….I took a short break and then grabbed my hammer and chisel, and chiseled out an interior cluster from the pocket….

Mercifully for me, the pocket ended at this point and I didnt have to start chucking big rocks out of the way to go any further with the expansion…I was glad as I was just approaching worn out stage…

….here are some of the crystals and plates I found, all cleaned up….

and…

Docia and I drove over to the secret spot after spending the morning and early afternoon looking for more bladed barite in Washington County near Potosi. We hadn`t been there for about four weeks and wanted to see if anything had changed and see if we could find some more druse plates as well as check for more pockets.  As soon as we arrived, Docia decided to walk up on top since it hadnt rained in a while to see if she could find any druse plates…..

….while I decided to see if I could find a new pocket….

…and within moments I had a shallow trench in front of me and a few druse plates popping up, which is always a good sign of a pocket nearby….…but the trench played out, so I worked around the immediate area and did some more raking and pretty soon, I had openings all over the place….

…and the one in the upper end, above, soon played out as seen in the photo below….

So I kept raking around, found a few more promising spots, and one pocket of bubbly druse, but no chips at all….

…and Docia walked back down with two bags full of plates of druse from above, and grabbed a couple more bags, said there were plates all over up there. I moved over to a spot about ten feet away and started raking again and soon found a shallow spot that opened up into a ledge with an opening, looking very promising….

…I reached down and pulled out a plate and a nice twin….very promising signs of a pocket found….

…within moments everything had turned around and things were looking up quite nicely for me…the pocket opened up and soon I was pulling out crystal after crystal, and a few plates too…

…and soon the pile began to grow even more….

…including some nice combo plates….

…and since the pocket was opening up nicely, I took a photo of it upside down….

…showing some nice crystals inside. I cleaned it out as well as I could and then decided to work the outside wall to the right, and that`s when the pocket took a turn….

…yes, I had to move the pile back about a foot, after doing so and digging some more,  another ledge revealed itself and opened up underneath….

…and with a little bit of pressure on the top of that ledge plate, it rolled over and this was what was hanging there waiting for me to find….…with just a little bit of damage, but soooo pretty to me…..

…..and the pocket kept going back, so again, I moved the pile of crystals back some more….

…allowing me more room to expand the pocket some more….

…I removed a few more plates and crystals and this pocket just kept on moving back some more…...which didn`t bother me in the least when I reached in and pulled out another big crystal….

…shortly after this, knowing I had three bags to fill up with crystals and several plates, I decided to leave the remainder of the pocket….

…for some friends who would be there in a few days, to clean out. Docia had left about an hour earlier with four bags full of druse plates and still more left up there…but by this time, light was beginning to fade so there was no way I could go up and even look for any. Figured I would get some another day, possibly after another good rain when more would be exposed.  I headed home with the truck bed full of bladed barite and poker chips.

As Docia drove home from searching for bladed barite and druse, I drove to the secret spot where Missy and I took advantage of the four hours of remaining light and found yet another pocket to look through for goodies. I say another pocket, yet it was one of those ever expanding pockets, expanding from one to five pockets in the same immediate digging area…we arrived around 3 pm with beautiful cloudy skies….

…and I decided to do a short walk around and just see if I could spot anything laying around that would indicate a pocket nearby…I walked over to the pile and spotted a pleasant surprise…a brown dogtooth calcite crystal with some poker chip formation deteriorated away from it, exposing the top of the crystal….

…and just laying in the loose gravel and dirt near where I had found a pocket several weeks prior….I walked over to the area where we had dug out the trench pocket the week before, seems it has been covered up big time now by a line of big rocks connecting the pile to the boulder line over by the west wall….

…oh well, still a lot of area to search for pockets remaining there…so I sat about to find one, walking over to the area where they removed the rock for this new wall and finding evidence of a pocket real fast…and sat about digging it out….

…figuring if they could dig there, so could I…and finding a few plates of druse and poker chips right away…which is usually a very good sign of a good pocket nearby….this one started trenching almost immediately on me…another good sign of things to come….

…then I started finding plates of druse upside down in the dirt and then after pulling several out, this little bluff pocket opened up….

…so I began clearing off around it and under it to find out how large it would expand to….…and it soon became apparent that another pocket was going to open up on the right side of the expansion….…I kept digging and expanding back toward where I was sitting, and the next thing I knew, a hole opened up right at my feet. I had been sitting on top of one all along and didnt even realize it….

I got up to stretch my legs at this point, having been sitting, kinda, for the past hour…my feet were cramping up…guess I didnt have enough banannas in my concrete the night before…and when I got up to stretch, I noticed what a beautiful day it was in the skies once again….

…and Missy stretched out next to my pockets….

….and now I`m about to hammer out the roof of the pocket here…

…and decided to clear off the pocket roof so I wasn`t hammering dirt and rock as well as the top layer of that pocket roof….when I started brushing it back, another hole appeared and I figured I had found a back entrance to the pocket…...but no, it turned out to be yet another pocket…

..and within seconds, pulled out a couple of nice druse plates from this new pocket that opened up, while cleaning out the front of it….

….and then I hammered out the roof of that middle pocket as well and pulled a few chips from it, too. I then started back to the hole near where I was sitting before my break and started cleaning out around it and a few seconds later, yet another hole opened up….…for a brief minute of working this new hole, I got a bit excited…as I was moving rocks and dirt around, some of the rocks fell into the hole and went into water, and it was a loud ” kerplunk ” indicating a deep hole of water…so I cleaned the hole opening some more…only to discover a drill hole and water about thirty inches down…so I filled the water hole up with more loose rocks and filled it completely up….and started working on the pocket a few inches away on the other side of that area where the first hole had opened up….

…and this pocket was truly something to get excited about…as you look at it up close you`ll see why I say and think that….

…and took a minute to step back and look at the progress made so far…

…and then started working that south pocket, pulling crystals and plates out….

…man, this thing was chock full of crystals…just the way I like to see and find them….

…and once I had it halfway cleaned out, I looked back inside and you could see this big poker chip attached to a druse plate hanging upside down from the roof of the pocket….…I got my chisel and four pound hammer from the truck, and drove that chisel into the roof of the pocket about eight inches back from the opening and the poker chip plate and another plate, split off from each other and dropped down into a couple of bags I had stuffed into the opening of the pocket…just in case that happened…….shortly after that…I gave out…I had four bags full of chips and two bags full of combos and I figured I had enough….I filled in the holes and wrapped up my goodies, and Missy and I took off….we stopped for this pretty scene tho….

…sure was a pretty scene…this is one of the prettiest spring seasons we have ever had….sure was a pretty day

I had planned to get down to the secret spot around 11 am on Saturday, but my fire department pager sounded off shortly after 9 am and my plans were suddenly thrown into chaos. We were paged out for a house fire and soon reports of heavy fire and smoke were coming in on the radio as I made my way to the scene with my camera.  I intended to only stay a short time, take a few photos and then leave to go rockhunting, but once on the scene, I found myself helping fire crews by pulling hose and only after shooting about two hundred photos, did I leave and head south….this is how it looked on arrival…

…it turned out to be a mobile home trailer, a large steel shed behind the trailer, and a twenty feet long by six feet high pile of tires behind the shed, all on fire and well involved on our arrival…

…needless to say, our firefighters had their hands full on arrival, and more help was summoned to the scene once it was determined we had a large working fire. I decided not to leave until additional help was on scene.

I ran back home, and grabbed my tools and changed shirts, didn`t want to smell like a house fire all day, and then Missy and I headed south. On the way, I said a little prayer and asked for help in finding some nice crystals…we arrived a little after noon and I began looking around for pockets soon after.

I started digging where you see my blue bag below…in an area where we have found several pockets before, but this time I didn`t find any….

..I started around this bluff looking area…Docia and I had looked this very spot over a few times before and thought it looked promising…I did find a few crystals so I widened out the area….

…and then thought maybe there was a pocket under the rock faces….since I was pulling a few crystals and small druse plates out in front of the rock face….however there was no pocket behind the opening, just more rock…so I moved back toward the pile where there were a few depression looking areas and checked them out….

…where I found some calcite seams of massive and chunky calcite, but no crystals were found anytime soon….so I picked up and moved to yet another location, closer to the last pockets I found when Julie and Dave were here……I was at first encouraged when I found some plates of druse on top, yet after digging down and around for twenty minutes, I still had nothing to show for it and no sign of crystals…its possible I was on top of a pocket but just couldn`t locate an opening for it.

After taking a longer break, I decided to walk around and check out the walls a little bit more and then come back and check for another pocket, so I grabbed another blue bag with more cloths to wrap any wall pocket crystals up with, and headed in the direction of the wall…ten feet from the front of my truck I noticed a ridge of red dirt that seemed to connect to the rock face that I had originally started digging at on arrival…I decided to stop and dig a little ways down and just see if I could find something here…

I was really tired and approaching exhaustion quickly…thinking it was going to be a dry run today for calcite crystals but enough time in the day left to go up above to find some druse plates.

Within seconds of digging down, the bottom dropped out and a large hole appeared below…

looking like a large pocket opening…but having seen a few earlier, I was a little hesitant this time to believe this was going to be a pocket….I cleared off the area around it and then I knew I had something to work with….

…and I was totally amazed that this pocket was only a few feet in front of my truck and in a direct line with the first pocket attempt.

I reached in and first pulled out several handfuls of gravel and clay dirt and ugly dolomite chunks, the opening was a little tight….I stopped and drank a big bottle of water and then started expanding the hole so I could reach in easier to pull more stuff out…

….boy was I tired after digging the past few hours and finding nothing at all….I had about two hours left and wanted to make the most of it.I reached back in and cleared out more junk and then here is what I saw…my first confirmation of a working pocket…

…boy was I excited…I began clearing away more rock around, after looking down in the hole and seeing that it expanded to my right…luckily for me this surrounding rock was easy to move away…it was just heavy is all…

 …and another opening appeared…so even more crystals and plates were pulled from the second opening as well…and the pile of crystals began to grow…..

 ..and since I had confirmation that the pocket was expanding to the right, I cleared off more area of heavy rock to the right again…and I cleared out this second opening more and found even more crystals underneath the clutter….

 …including this nice big twin that I pulled out shortly after clearing the clutter away….

 …and even better looking close up….

…and a few nice plates with poker chips attached to them were next to come out of the pocket….

…and here is a view of the crystals and plates inside the second pocket opening….

The next nice combo I pulled out was this beautiful crystal on pretty gray druse with some coloring to it…

The pocket took two more expansions before I finally ran out of steam and decided to stop….

I was going to have to clear more rock away first and I was just exhausted by then…I started wrapping up my nicer plates and crystals and bagged the rest….I did capture a nice sunset on the way home though…..

and….

…cant wait til the next time I can get down there and explore some more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and…..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and the pocket started forming as a trench…

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

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

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

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

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

…and closer up….

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

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

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

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

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

…and plates packed in and around the crystals….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…where I found this nice little palm sized guy…

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

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

…perfect ending to a great day of collecting…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

..and found a few more nice crystals….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and here is the view inside the pocket….

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

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

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

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

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

…and here it is up closer…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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