Around the second weekend of June, I got the word that a blast had occurred on the east wall so on Sunday, the 9th, Onyx and I got up early and drove down there to see what we could find.
It had been some time since the last time I was there and almost felt like the first time there once again…the last good time I had been there was end of July in 2018 when Chuck Reed, Nathaniel Reid, and Abigail from Nashville came to visit. We had a good time that weekend rockhunting there, let me tell ya. It can get really hot and muggy down there that time of the year, stretching into September, plus the horseflies and wasps can be really bad during that time of the year as well, and are getting to be this time of 2019 as I have already found out and experienced.
I got stung at work about ten days ago, my eppi pen shot failed to work so my boss whisked me over to the Kirkwood Mercy Urgent Care, another part of that day I would rather forget as well, and eventually Kirkwood Fire Department picked me up there and transported me to St John`s Mercy Hospital, where I had to be monitored for a couple of hours after receiving my adrenaline shot.
Onyx and I arrived about 6:15 am and for once, it wasn`t foggy there that time of the morning…
…and we found a pretty good sized pile of rocks waiting for us to explore. After gearing up and heading up from the west end of the pile, I didn`t find many pockets to explore along the wall, so then I branched out to check the pile itself and began good signs of poker chips all over the place. One of the first indications that this was gonna be a GREAT day of rock collecting, was when I ran across four ( 4 ) nice beach ball sized clusters of green and black poker chips, they were all found nestled in between some bigger boulders…not hard to spot at all….here they are in order of found…
Number four is not shown as it was very similar in looks to number three…I decided to hand carry each of these down to my truck, while I had the strength to do so…and as I got down to the bottom floor at the edge of the pile, I started noticing some round, geode like shaped rocks like we have found at work, called chert nodules, some were even small boulder sized. We have never found anything like this at this quarry before, to my knowledge…
…this was one of several firsts this summer for this quarry. Got those four beautiful beach ball sized clusters wrapped up and stored in the bed of my truck and headed back up the pile to locate some more beauties and needless to say, it did not take long for that to happen, as I just about stepped on these next three in the path on my way back up to my bucket…
…and I no sooner had those wrapped up and placed in my bucket when I came across these beauties as well…
…spotted in a vug of a huge boulder and easily chipped out for once. 🙂 Normally, they do not come out willingly, nor do they seem to cooperate when you find them at the end of the day there and you are nearly exhausted. Within the next hour, I located several nice calcite druse pieces as well, and a nice poker chip cluster, shown here on the tailgate of my truck….
…and a nice plate of root beer colored calcites as well as dogtooths nestled in…
All in all, I think I filled four buckets and the bed of my truck was covered in clusters of poker chips and calcite druse pieces…not a bad haul for the day. A few weeks later, my buddy Pete Stoeckel, from the Philly area, drove down to visit and rock hunt with me, and Patty, Colby, and Gabriella came to visit from Southern Illinois as well. We had a great time that weekend too !!