A few years ago I joined the rock and gem club called MAGS, the Memphis Archaelogical and Geological Society, based in Memphis, Tennessee, and each year they like to travel up here to look for druse quartz. Last weekend several members drove up and spent the weekend with me, and I took them to the new druse spot in the Viburnum area on Saturday, and then to the Eminence Quarry on Sunday morning. Since this spot is normally very muddy and wet, I left Missy with my parents Saturday morning on my way down.. there is a pond there that she likes to jump into and bound through and usually comes out very covered from her head to her tail in thick mud, something I didnt want to deal with today. I havent figured out yet, why she enjoys that so much but has a problem when it comes to taking a bath and cleaning up. 

As I drove through Steelville, I noticed the temperature was about 15 degrees, so it was def going to be a cold day out there, but at least the weather was going to be clear and sunny too. I had made arrangements to meet the group around 9 am at the high school, and I arrived there just as they were rounding the corner on Hwy C, approaching Hwy 49, which is right next to the school. Betty Marler from the Park Hills Club came with them, and after a few minutes of small talk, we loaded up and drove down to the new druse spot…the skies were blue and sunny, but the wind was just a bit sharp, requiring head cover for sure…I was glad I had my heavy coat on with the fleece lined hood. I pulled into the small parking area and found it had been changed just a bit since I had been there two weeks prior, but we were able to get all the vehicles up into the upper end just fine, and after a few minutes of acquainting everyone with the layout of the area and boundaries, and showing them what they could expect to find, they were soon scattered out all over the area….

I had brought several samples from both locations with me, just in case someone didnt find some great stuff, but as it was, especially at this location, there was no way anyone could strike out here…like one of the gals said, it was like walking into a jewel box, there was druse glittering all over the place. After everyone started finding some good material, I grabbed a bag and my mini mattox and headed out to look and see what I could find and help them find, as well. I started up the hill in the direction that Paul and WC had taken off to, where the heavily eroded clay dirt areas are….

….and within minutes I started seeing some smokey colored druse pieces in the bottom of the erosion ditches, just laying on top of the clay dirt waiting to be found. Since the temps had dipped so low the night before, the normally soft clay dirt was frozen in most areas and walking was now easy. I looked to the north and spotted a few hunters over on the heavily eroded west slope above the pond….

I soon had my bag filled with some pretty smokey colored druse bubbles and a nice medium sized plate that I found sitting upside down, and I returned to my truck, others having returned to their vehicles for a break. Mike and Ann, from the North Little Rock area, joined me at the truck bed and were soon looking at the samples I had brought along……I had told everyone there to just help themselves to anything they wanted in the bed of the truck…in addition to the samples, I had loaded up four big boxes of grab bag material for their April Show as well. Those boxes included some beautiful crystals from my Arkansas quartz trips and Kentucky fluorite trips the past couple of years and several of the members were enjoying sifting through them as well. After a few minutes of break and a can of Arizona Green Tea, Mike and I headed up the west slope above the pond to see what else we could find. A few who had already been up there said they were finding some great druse in different colors and Mike had been up the north side and saw some spots where smokey colors seemed to be heavily concentrated. I grabbed two bags and started around the front of my truck and immediately spotted some large deer tracks in the clay dirt….

…and soon caught up with Mike, and fairly quickly we were finding smokey colored druse plates all over the place….he wasnt sure if he ever did locate that one area that he spotted earlier, but by the time we finished looking all the way up the hill, it didnt matter as we both had filled several bags full of bubbles and plates. We even found a few pretty big ones that he and Ann could take home for yard rocks… others were roaming the west slope as well looking for various colors and sizes….

During one of the breaks, I had found out that Mike worked for Union Pacific Railroad, and at one time was working out of the same building I had worked in, downtown in St Louis, several years ago before they moved many of the St Louis operations to the new building in Omaha. I had worked for five years as an emergency response management telecommunicator with UP, and loved my job there…as I told Mike, had they stayed in St Louis, its likely I would have still been working for UP. 

After a few more hours, we decided to drive over to another area where we have searched in years past and found several larger pieces. After guiding them to that spot, I walked down to the creek at the bottom of the hill and didnt see much of anything worthwhile to pick up and carry back. Even the creek area didnt have much sparkle, and the leaves were very heavy in the woods there, making it difficult to see or find anything in the area.

 I took off a few minutes later to head home, checking with WC on what time and where to meet them Sunday morning to take them to the quarry in Eminence. Betty wasnt going to make this trip with them, as they would all be driving home to Memphis from Eminence, so wanted to make sure they knew how to get there from Park Hills where they were staying. 

Sunday morning bright and early, Missy and I got up and on the road headed south to Eminence, this time taking Missy with me since she likes to run around the floor of the quarry and never gets muddy there. As we left Sullivan, I looked southwest and saw this beautiful sunrise….

 

It was a good thing I stopped to shoot it along the interstate when I did, because within five minutes, it had completely faded away and then twenty minutes later as we drove up the hill into Steelville, the skies looked completely different….

…and then on the south side of town, there is a small replica of a water mill at a spring along Highway 19, at the entrance to Mill Spring Estates and the clouds were nice behind it as well….

…and in the valley of the estates behind the mill….

…then as I drove through Viburnum, continuing south toward Eminence, I saw sunbeams from the cloudy skies….

Missy and I led them to the floor of the quarry and stopped at the first bluff right below the entrance….

 

…where I met some of the members that werent able to come up on Saturday, opting instead to drive up for the quarry trip…Caroline and Matthew Lybanon, and Neville Mayfield, who I have talked to several times by email but never met in person….I explained to everyone where they could dig into the bluff and what they could expect to find…again showing them samples I had brought along from this quarry, so they would know what to look for. I also pointed out the other areas of the quarry floor and showed them the areas of the walls to stay away from, clearly marked with blue spray paint…these are areas of the wall where rocks and gravel frequently fall down from above and so are unstable for a close approach. I pointed out the new collecting area…

…which looked about the same as the last time I was there a few weeks ago in January….

WC and I drove over to the newer area to look around and see what we could find while most everyone else set about surface collecting or digging into the bluff wall to see what pockets of druse and poker chips they could locate. We were soon joined by Ann and Cornelia and soon began finding several small green and chocolate colored poker chip crystals, some wrapped in matrix with dolomite druse…it was obvious someone had worked some pockets there recently and apparently left quite a bit of good material behind after high grading…which was fine with everyone there cause they all liked what we were finding. After a couple of hours, more hunters started drifting over to the newer location after working the small bluff as much as they could. Soon after, I climbed up into the crevice area to see if I could locate anymore pockets….

 

While I didnt locate any pockets along the left side of the wall by the crevice, I spotted a nice pocket up above the center of the nose, and was scraping loose gravel away from what looked like a stepping area to climb up to it, when a hole opened up on the area I was scraping…within moments, I pulled out a plate of crystals and announced a pocket found…soon I had a crowd of hunters looking for crystals gathering fast….Mike came over and helped me with his prybar and soon we were pulling a few plates of crystals out of the shallow pocket. There were also some bigger crystals sitting on top of the rock, so we were able to chisel those out as well. I pointed out the pocket of dark gray poker chips above, that I was climbing up to and once up there, determined I was going to need a chisel and hammer, so Mike stuck around and assisted me with the tools and then climbed up and held on to the chunks of crystals while I hammered them out of their rocky location. They came out in three pieces, in good shape, and he was able to hand the bigger two pieces down to Neville who then handed them off to others. All in all we were able to find and extract some very pretty crystals from a few pockets and everyone was happy with their goodies. We spent the last hour dividing up my grab bag material into a few vehicles that were headed home to Memphis and resting up. I provided everyone with road information and they all took off about 2 pm headed south. Missy and I drove over to check out an older pocket that I had worked on many times before, but since I was a bit tired at this point, I decided to head north and check out the secret spot before heading home. See the next story on that amazing dogtooth stop. 🙂