Armadillo Day at MFQ

Posted on July 28, 2014 by jwj

As usual, I am behind again on my posts and so am taking the time to catch up today. I worked on editing images all afternoon and then had to rest my eyes for a bit before taking up the task of putting the story together with the photos. In the past six weeks, I have been busy with some family matters , work issues, and yardwork while we had rain. I have also traveled a bit to do some rock collecting, and except for one day a few weeks ago, I didn`t find much of anything worth writing home about, until yesterday…when I had a great day of rock hunting and collecting. Today was rest up, recover, and catch up day, and so I did.

Friday afternoon, Missy and I drove down to Arcadia, Missouri, to check out an older collection of Doe Run minerals, that a resident there wanted to sell. I had been in contact with the guy for a few weeks, trying to work in a time when I could get down there and he would be available to show me his collection. He told me that he had about eighty pieces in his collection, and I had seen a few photos of the collection and liked what I had seen, so I was a bit excited as I arrived there. Once inside however, it was a different story…for one thing, I only saw maybe thirty pieces in the display case and they were covered in dust and very dirty, even cobwebs were strung out all over the minerals on the shelves, making it very hard to see exactly what was even in his collection. He had a few pieces with chalcopyrite, but they had oxidized so badly, I couldn`t see any color at all, even what little pyrite I saw was dull colored. He had inherited his collection from his grandfather who worked in a couple of the Doe Run mines, and I quickly found out the value he placed on it was sentimental value alone, which no one can afford. As it was, after making the drive down there, I did purchase a few of his pieces, but that was all…..I was quite disappointed and almost felt as if I had wasted my time.

Missy and I got up early Saturday morning and drove down to MFQ, after I received a call Tuesday night at work from my buddy Jim, who told me that there was some new activity there earlier that day, near the coved wall. I was looking forward to seeing what could be found, as that wall has produced alot of pretty crystals in the past couple of years. Usually it starts getting light about 5:30 am, but each time I glanced to the east, all I saw were a low line of dark blue clouds as we traveled down the road. Only as I got close, did the sun finally make a beautiful appearance, in the form of a large fireball from the clouds…if you look close, you`ll notice the crescent moon just above the sun as well…..

…then a few minutes later, there were sunbeams as well….

We arrived shortly after, and after gearing up, I started walking around the base of the new pile, which was smaller than I had anticipated, but I had to stop and remember that this happened Tuesday morning and staff had been working the pile since then…

I had actually let a few of my rockhunting buddies know about it as well, and a couple of them had considered making the drive up there as well. After walking around the new pile for about the first hour, I texted them and told them not to waste their time because in that hour, I only located one single crystal and no wall pockets either. I`m not saying there were no crystals there…it`s likely there were, but they were prob buried underneath all the rubble, too. It was starting to look like a bust for me, which would be the first time since I have never had a bad day of collecting down there yet. I took a water bottle break and then drove over to the prior pile…which they had used to create a ramp up……

….to the benched top of it….

I had been up on that bench a few weeks back and found just a few pockets with some nice calcite druse and poker chips mixed in, some of them had some nice dogtooth crystals as well…. on a Saturday, and then the next day I drove down to a location that a good friend of mine had told me about last year…I refer to it as the new secret spot….a location that has proven to be a very good place to find some great clusters of crystals, especially dogtooth crystals…on that particular day a few weeks ago, I def found something worth writing home about, but have chosen not to until recently when I told a few close friends about it. Suffice to say, I had a field day that day and brought home several canvas bags full of wrapped goodies, clusters, singles, twins, triples, all bright orange dogtooth crystals, from micro size to beachball sized, many of each. It`s been a few weeks and I am still cleaning many of them. I`ll post some photos of them when I get them cleaned up…I had a few of them cleaned up and on display when some new rock collecting friends showed up last week for a visit, and they were pretty impressed with them as well.

I decided not to climb up the bench ramp again this time, and walked around the base to see if I could spot any crystals that had rolled down the walls, that might indicate a pocket nearby. Within a few minutes, I spotted a couple of boulders embedded in the sloped wall, and it appeared that someone had found some druse in a pocket under the left boulder. I did some exploring and suddenly discovered some poker chips under the boulder on the right side….

…I dug down and around the bottom of that boulder and tried to dig out the right side, but the upper slope material kept sliding down and getting in the way, so I moved to the left of it and pulled bigger rocks and loose stuff away to find a large opening between the two boulders, which opened up into a large void between the two large boulders…

…it appeared to me that someone may have dug under the boulder on the right, but didn`t follow up…. in my estimation, since I soon began pulling out some beautiful plates…here is the opening between the boulders…

….I went back to the truck and brought back my flashlight and when I shined the light down into that pocket, I saw very shiny calcite druse all over the ceiling and walls and lots of pieces and plates with the same druse all over them, including some with poker chips attached to them….here are a few that I was able to reach as soon as I spotted them with the light….

…I then stuck my camera down into the cavern and snapped a couple of photos to show you what the interior of it looked like…the photos you are about to see do not do it justice….

…that big one at the bottom that you see in the photo, I had to pull it out thru that opening so that I could pull out some more plates that were located behind it…by this time I had removed more of the loose dirt and rock underneath me so that I could more easily, reach into that cavern and grab more plates…soon my arms were all scratched up and I felt more like an armadillo, digging my way in between those boulders…which by the way, were firmly entrenched and embedded into that sloped wall, deeply entrenched and attached to the wall behind it…the void appeared to be about six feet long and four feet wide and every bit of thirty inches high. The big piece you see above, was very pretty on the side facing away from me, covered in calcite druse with a big poker chip attached to one corner of it. Here are some more of the goodies I pulled out once it was clear of the void…

…one of the prettiest plates I pulled out was sitting right in front of the big one that was blocking me, plate sized and a few inches thick with calcite druse in three colors and poker chips embedded in it….

…a few of these plates even had dogtooth crystals on them…the following image shows about half of my haul from this pocket alone…

…after two hours on this pocket, I was ready for another bottle of cold water and I decided to wrap everything up and load it in the truck bed, and then evaluate to see how tired I was….the temps were climbing by now and the little shade I had by the boulders was just about gone and I had cleaned out the pocket quite well. After wrapping them all up, I had three bags completely full and then wrapped up ten large ones as well, basketball sized. I decided that I had a little more energy left and moved further east along the wall, looking for more potential for pockets…and soon found an area that I had once found several pockets, some filled with druse, but beautiful druse and sometimes when I find those druse pockets, I find poker chips attached to the druse as well….yesterday, I found two more pockets of the druse with poker chips attached…I had to do a bit more burrowing in like an armadillo again, but managed to do so safely again and filled two more bags with goodies, before finally wearing out…the temps had to be near 95 now and the humidity was getting bad as well. Jim and his wife stopped by to chat for a minute, they too were tired of the heat and headed to the river to sit and soak in it. Missy had been inside my truck in the ac for the past hour and I soon joined her.

I drove to the top of the parking lot and called a friend of mine, who is a mineral dealer nearby, he specializes in Viburnum Trend minerals, and I asked him if he had any new material. He said he did and I decided to drive up to his place and take a look. Boy, am I glad that I did drive up there because he had some gorgeous green and yellow calcite crystals attached to the blackest rock I have ever seen, many of the crystals were double terminated and some even skeletal looking, some with phantoms inside them, spectacular and breathtaking at the same time…they had come from the Fletcher Mine and since I didn`t have anything in my collection from the Fletcher Mine, I purchased a few from him….

…and this next one features a single calcite crystal attached to a chunk of dolomite covered by a quartz druse and some galena cubes spread out in the quartz….

…and this gorgeous piece of chalcopyrite that has multiple colors and is covered by a fine dusting of quartz as well…

…he had several of each one…most of my chalcopyrite has large chunks of it on the matrix, but this stuff was more like a dusting of smaller particles of color and covered with a dusting of quartz as well, just spectacular pieces, bit and small. I brought home a few boxes of material from him and so yesterday was a great day of hunting and collecting for me. I can`t wait to add these to my new display cases, but for now that gorgeous chalcopyrite piece is sitting here next to my computer for me to visually enjoy for a few days. 🙂

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Clement Mineral Museum Annual Show 2014

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

I had stayed in touch with Tina at the BE Clement Mineral Museum once again this year and volunteered to come help them get the show set up this year and host the Eureka Mine again as well.

Throughout the years, I have had alot of artist friends suggest to me that I stop off at various places and do some sighteeing, but I had never done so. This year I decided I would drive down a day early and see the sights that everyone suggested in years past. I picked up a friend of mine on the way down, and Rob rode with me to the museum in Marion, Kentucky, and helped me unload the seven buckets of grab bag material that I always take to them for their show and museum sales as well through the remainder of the year. Tina had some extra muscle this year, in the form of a young man named Brandon, who also helped us unload the truck. This year they are trying to raise money to build a better roof on the building housing the museum. I also had some druse plates and combos of druse and poker chips for their silent auction during the Show, as well as some dogtooths and special pieces for Tina, including some of the black dogtooth crystals I had found earlier this year. I always try to take them a variety of material, but I seem to be known down there as Mr. Poker Chip by a few people. I visited with Tina, BJ, and Sherry, as well as some newer people, before heading on north on Hwy 91 to cross the Ohio River at Cave in Rock. Rob and I met another friend at Garden of the Gods and then Rim Rock Trail, and were able to do some hiking over there while seeing the sights. Great places for one to go if you have some spare time.

I returned to the hotel by 7 pm and headed to the Oasis Southwest Grill Steakhouse shortly after. They have a great atmosphere and really know how to cook good food, whether it be seafood or steaks that you are after…I have been eating there for several years now and always like the grilled porkchops marinated with a light bbq sauce, one inch thick and cooked to perfection each time. I ate there all three nights and had the same meal each night, perfectly cooked each night and always just right.

I was up by 8 am Friday morning, having called Bill Frazer the evening before to see what time I needed to be at the museum to help them out…we agreed on 10 am and after stopping off at Ms. Neda`s Donut Shop in nearby Eddyville, I headed that way. I passed by the red horse barn that I have photographed in the past….

…and noticed this year that the owners are building a beautiful new home just up the hill to the right of the barn….and had constructed a large metal garage and workshop a bit further down from the house…thought it was nice that they had kept the old wood barn, perhaps they realize how well loved and appreciated it is by folks like me who drive by. Speaking of horses, one of my other favorite places along Hwy 641 on the way to the Museum, is a field of horses on the west side of the road just before you get to the right hand curve entering Fredonia….

…never fails, there are always several horses in that field. I drove on over to the museum at Marion…they have the annual gem show in the Fohs Hall, a stately and elegant old building that used to house a school there….

…I walked in and found several familiar faces already hard at work on various jobs that Tina had asked them to do, and Brandon, a local young man that Bill had enlisted the help of recently with several projects, already hard at work there as well. I met Brandon the day before when Rob and I arrived, and Tina asked him to help us unload the several buckets of grab bag material…found out that he was a football player, defensive end and offensive line, he def had the size and muscle for both positions. Tina showed me a vast collection from an estate sale that the museum had recently purchased…many specimens from the southern Illinois and western Kentucky fluorite mines as well as many other items too many to mention. She asked me to sort through the multiple boxes to see what all was there, they were trying to find certain items to get appraised for future sales. While doing so, I found out there were many fossils in the estate collection as well as some local minerals and even some slabs of lapidary interests, seashells of every type imagineable, and a few minerals and crystals from everywhere in the USA.

Ed Clements and Tina`s husband Brad showed up about lunch time, and after a brief lunch with them, Brad and I walked over to the museum where Brad helped Brandon move some tables down from the upper floor to the dealers room and then we walked through the rooms to see what all was set up for the show, while Brandon went outside to help dealers move their tables and crates of minerals inside. Soon after, Bill Frazer showed up and we drove down to the Eureka Mine where he showed me the tailing piles turned over, the area looked ready for collectors the next day….

and we discussed some areas that could be dug out to search for new material. He told me that he had some exploratory digging done earlier this spring and nothing so far, had been found, yet he was definitely wanting to find some additional areas of resources, so folks could continue to come dig and have fun doing so. Bill decided to head back down there and bushhog the field where folks would be parking and the sides of the road down to the mine, after dropping me off at the museum. Brad and I drove down to the mine about thirty minutes later to contact Bill, some folks from the city were looking for him and he wasn`t answering his phone. We found him at the gate, having problems raising the mower deck behind his tractor. We stuck around a while and nosed around the tailing piles to make sure there was some good material to be found there, tried unsuccessfully, to pull the suction hose out of the mud, and then started back toward the museum…..yet when we got back to the gate, we found ourselves locked in by persons unknown. We drove back down to let Bill know, and he drove up to the gate to let us out, and told me that he would unlock the gate for me the next morning and take the lock with him, so that wouldn`t happen again, seems it had been happening alot lately. I had a good chat with Ed back at the museum before heading back to the hotel and supper at the Oasis once again.

Saturday morning I got up early, stopped by the donut shop to grab a few donuts and chocolate milk, then headed to the Eureka Mine, to host there all day. Bill met me at the gate at 8:20 am and then headed to some more gates to unlock them as well, and I drove on down to the mine. He had made some improvements to the road leading down to the mine, with some larger gravel and it was a much smoother ride now….

I drove on down and changed into my boots, made sure the gate to the parking area was open, then walked around the tailing piles to see if I could see any purple so I would know where to direct people to dig at….I had found a few places the day before when Brad and I were down there and made a mental note of them once again. I also found the bad hole that Bill had referred to someone digging out into the top of the creek bank, which could compromise the creek bank, which is the only thing keeping the creek water from spilling into the pit…why someone would have dug down there is beyond me, they certainly didn`t think about how that could affect things.

Bill was concerned about folks digging into the bank there and further adding to any compromise, so I made a mental note to keep that from happening as well as a few danger spots that I have become familiar with over the years. Some folks enter a site and look for the host and ask questions about what they are looking for as well as where to look, while others just get so excited on arrival that they just walk in and start digging…sometimes having no clue about any spots that might have hidden hazards. Take for example, the north side of the pit…

…it`s mainly made up of fill from tailing piles, so probably has some nice material in it, but several people have heard so much about the pit itself over the years, harvesting so much nice plates of cubes, that many want to go right down into the pit…this year the museum staff was unable to pump the pit down so everyone decided to walk right down to the waters edge and look around…not realizing that the mud at the very edge was extremely soft and one could sink to their knees very quickly. I was able to warn some and others found out the hard way. In the area to the right of that fill, there used to be a vertical shaft of an unknown depth, so we have always told folks to avoid that area, and I had to run a few out of there Saturday as well, for safetys sake. We had tried to get that area filled in last spring, yet the trackhoe operator was unable to reach that far to dump the fill dirt in there on top of it…it would have effectively sealed off the waterfall from the creek there as well.

I also bring a box of fluorite pieces with me, to show folks what they are looking for and to give to them, children especially, when they can`t find something nice to take home with them. Tina usually makes it a point to let folks know that when she knows they are coming to the Eureka Mine and I am there. There were several children there Saturday, that were working on their 4H projects, so I made a point of helping them look for some fluorite and giving them some extra pieces too. Their faces always light up when they get to pick out some nicer ones to take home with them. Well worth it right there. There was one visitor that I wasn`t able to help much on Saturday….

…he moved way too fast for me, but he did have some younger fans there for him. 🙂

Mary who is one of the regulars like me, was the first one to show up Saturday morning, she is one of the nicest members of the Magma Club that I know and she drives up there each year to dig and sometimes I see her at some of the public digs that the Museum staff host each month as well, seen here on the left side on the back of the tailing pile, doing a surface search for fluorite…

..and soon after she showed up, others showed up in small groups…

…you see that little guy in the photo above in green shorts and shoes ? talk about a fearless guy…he wasn`t afraid of the mud or water either one, he was here to have fun whether he found anything or not…enjoyed throwing rocks into the creek and splashing Phillip who was trying to find some fluorite in the vein that runs under the creek. Phillip is another Magma member that is very nice…he and his wife Shirley drive up there frequently from the Danville area…Phillip told him that if he kept throwing rocks, he was going to to dunk him a few times in the water and see how much he enjoyed that…that`s his mom washing off some finds in the pit above in the blue shirt…when she found out what he was doing, she threatened him with a spanking and then we found out that he wasn`t so fearless afterall and he behaved a lot better after that…he sure had more energy than anyone I know of. I made sure he had a nice piece of fluorite when they left, too.

…his mom and a friend found some nice material digging down into the north bank of tailings used for fill on the edge of the pit…

..and for the most part, everywhere I looked, people seemed to be happy with their finds and enjoying their time digging there, young and older alike….

Around mid morning there was a young father that walked up with his dad and his three young boys and I gave them some tips on where to dig at, and told them if they struck out, be sure to come see me before they left…they set out to look in my favorite corner of the pit…

…and while they probably didn`t find alot while there, I made sure they left with a couple of pieces of nice fluorite, they were a nice group of diggers there that day. There was a couple of guys from the Bloomington area that showed up late morning, arriving with family but they were the only two that stuck around to dig…they came over to me and asked for a good location to dig at…I could tell they were serious about finding some nice stuff, so I told them about my favorite corner and told them how to get to the good stuff…

….and they wasted no time in getting down into the pit and getting muddy to look for some good cubes….

..and still more diggers showed up to dig for cubes on the other side of the pit….

…I was keeping an eye on the Bloomington diggers, they soon got down to the right level and found some nice cubes…

…one with a touch of purple on one end and yellow and white color on the other end, in the hopper style of cubes, which looks like a stair step cube formation that is pretty neat to look at….Bill Frazer stopped by about that time on one of his many visits down to see us and I suggested that he take a look at their neat find….

…I happened to find a few diggers from the state of Missouri there as well…Columbia area…Heinrich and two young ladies decided to dig into the west wall of the pit and try their luck….

…for awhile there, I thought he was digging down to China, but assured me that he was just trying to get down to a better level for finding stuff. By mid afternoon, we were all beginning to see signs of storms approaching…the forecast was that storms would hold off til about 6 pm, but it was looking more and more like we were going to see some sooner. I called Tina to have her check the radar on her computer at the Museum and she said there was a line of storms moving thru Paducah about that time, so we figured we had about thirty extra minutes of digging time and I made that known to everyone there. The Bloomington boys were still digging down and pulling some stuff out….

…..and pretty soon they decided to change out in the pit…

…the second young man, I believe his name is Ryan, had a bit of a hearing disability, and he had removed his hearing aids before getting down into the pit because he said they were not waterproof…he was still down there when this loud clap of thunder rumbled overhead and then a strong bolt of lightning struck very close, possibly right across the creek from us and there was a very bright flash of white light with it, like a huge roman candle !!! While Ryan didn`t hear the thunder or lightning, he jumped straight up from the mud and told us that he had felt the energy from the lightning travel up both of his arms which were extended down into the hole, and up into his chest !! He then told us ” I`m done !! ” Everyone was pretty much in evacuation mode by then, heading for their cars as the rain was starting to fall as well. For most everyone, it was the end of a long day of digging and most headed back to the museum to get in a bit of the gem show before it closed. I stuck around til everyone left and then closed the gate, calling Bill to let him know I had closed it and everyone was out for the day, run off by the lightning.

I drove up to the museum as well, wanting to visit with Lamon Flynn, the Kentucky Agate King, at the show. I met Mr. Flynn a few years back in his neck of the woods, he took some friends who joined me there, on a hunt one day for the elusive Kentucky Agate. You can find that story and photos by looking in the column on the right side of my page for Kentucky Agate. I had a great chat with him, they had him up on the stage at the show, and I purchased some more agate from him as well…I have a lot of friends that cannot travel to Kentucky to find it themselves, and picked some up to share with them. He had some of his expensive pieces with him as well, the orange and black banded nodules and a few of the red and black banded nodules too. He also had alot of his belt buckles there and Heinrich came over and looked them over as well.

Heinrich was about to head home that evening, and I gave him directions to a good druse quartz spot in south central Missouri that I like to go to. He was undecided if he was going to stick around for the dinner that was being hosted by the Mineral Museum at the local Italian Restaurant on Main Street later that evening, or simply head home….the girls were telling him there was a tornado warning up in the St Louis area at that time, but by the time they reached St Louis it would likely be long over. I told him to email me if he ever wanted to go rockhunting with me as well, since he isn`t too far from me. I decided not to wait around for the Italian dinner as well and headed back to the hotel to clean up and then walked over to the Oasis for yet another grilled porkchop supper. After supper there, I drove down to the lake just south of there and snapped a few photos of the sunset….

..and then back up to the intersection in front of the Oasis Grill for another photo of the beautiful colorful skies….

The next morning, after a good sleep aided by a couple of alleves, I was on the road by 8 am after checking out of the hotel, and called Tina to let her know I could host at the Eureka again til noon, if she needed some help…she said she had a new member there already but suggested that I go and see if he needed any help as he had never hosted there before. I drove over to the mine and met up with Dave there…Bill Frazer showed up soon after and then a few diggers started showing up. Mary showed up again early on and decided she was going to take over Heinrich`s spot in the west wall from the day before and see if she could dig down to the location where David found some calcite dogtooth crystals two years before….

In the meantime, I decided to dig down into the hole left by the Bloomington boys and see if I could find anything else in it…and a guy showed up a few minutes later from the state of West Virginia and decided to dig down into the hole that the Bloomington boys had originally started out with, about four feet to the right of me. In about an hour, using the long handled spade shovel that someone had left there, I got down to the top of the vein and laid down a gunny sack to lay down on, then reached down and started feeling around in the mud to find some crystals…I never can do that with gloves on, can`t feel the cubes except with my bare hands. I didn`t feel any pockets in the vein, so I started feeling around the mud on top of the vein and pretty soon I was pulling out some cubes…I haven`t cleaned mine up yet, but will post some photos of my finds soon. The guy next to me found a small round plate of nice cubes about 90 minutes after he began digging down…he was a bit up hill from me and had to dig down a bit further to get to my level, but seemed content with what he found. He left by noon to go check out another mine in the area. Mary was still digging when I decided to head for home about 45 minutes later. I was going to meet a friend at Garden of the Gods at 2 pm, so by the time I got out of there and cleaned up a bit, I had about an hour to get there, so I headed to the ferry crossing at Cave in Rock. We had a good hike there and then went to Rim Rock Trail, even met up with the Bloomington boys and their family down at the foot of the escarpment as they were walking out…stopped and visited with them a bit and told them both to give me a shout if they wanted to do some rockhunting in Missouri sometime.

I got home later that evening, tired but happy, having had a great four day vacation, nothing better than good friends, good food, and good fun.

The only problem I had with the entire trip should be noted here, as I would not want anyone else to experience this on future trips down there. I usually stay at the Days Inn hotel in Kuttawa when I am down there for my rockhunting trips….when I made my reservations a few weeks before, I was quoted a certain rate and told that the Days Inn gives rockhounds a ten percent discount on their rates…I told one of my Memphis rockhound friends about that and he made a call after me and was told the same thing as he made his reservations there too. It has always been a clean and friendly place to stay at and their rates have always been affordable and as quoted by staff.

The second night there, I discovered fleas in bed with me, biting my legs, and I was constantly getting up and pulling the covers back and killing fleas by snuffing them out. I prob had about four hours rest total that night and when I told the night clerk about it at 7 am the next morning, his answer was to ask if I had a dog with me. I told him not only was my dog not with me this trip, I would never take my dog to a hotel knowing she had fleas and I protect my dog`s health with the flea and tick killer chewy tablets all the time anyway. I asked him to have the housecleaning crew change out the linens on my bed completely and he did so right then and there, and said he would have them spray the room as well.

I returned that evening to the room and could def smell a different odor in there, such as if they had sprayed it and I slept alot better Saturday night with no fleas in bed with me. However, the next morning when I checked my bank records online, I discovered that not only had they charged my account while I was there…. they usually wait a few days after you check out… they had also overcharged me. I talked to the day clerk, who was also the Assistant Manager, she asked how my stay had been and I told her about Friday night, and then told her that I had been charged fifteen dollars a night more than the rate I had been quoted, and let me tell you, she got a defensive attitude about it real quick and did not care one bit, referred me to call the Manager about it on Monday and take it up with him. I saw that he had an email address on the business card she handed me and so I emailed him when I got home. After no response for a week, I emailed the corporate headquarters of the Wyndham Group, who now owns and operates the Days Inn Hotels, and within a day, I had a message from the manager….I returned his call and told him of my ” not so great ” experience at his hotel recently, after having stayed at his hotel several times over the course of seven years. He promised that he would look into it and get back to me…however, I never did hear from him again, so needless to say, I wont be staying there again. Just saying.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Great Pocket On My Way Home From Black Rock

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

I decided to stop by MFQ on my way home from Black Rock, Arkansas on May 31st. I had driven down to Black Rock early that morning for a MAGS sponsored trip to the Vulcan Quarry to look for pink dolomite and calcite crystals and maybe some chalcopyrite., however, if I want good chalcopyrite, I def know where I can go to find some big crystals of it. I took the scenic route getting there from Black Rock.

I spotted some pretty Jersey cows in a field off to the right of the highway and stopped to photograph them on this beautiful cloudy blue sky day….

…then I spotted this lone pine tree against the big fluffy white clouds and blue skies….

I stopped off at Falling Spring Mill, to photograph it…neat little water grist mill with a waterfall right next to it and a big millpond in front of it, accessed by a wooden footbridge….

…it has been several years since I last photographed it, good to see that it is still being well taken care of by the Forest Service.

I then continued on, eventually arriving to find that another short wall had been blasted down, with rocks strewn everywhere from it…

…and I mean everywhere, in all directions, all over the floor of the quarry….

I drove around to the east side and parked…..

….then walked around the edge of the pile, looking for any signs of crystals or druse, finding some nice larger pieces of druse on the west side and set them out on the floor to pick up later before I left. I then decided to climb up along the wall to the top of the pile to check for wall pockets…

…finding one very nice pocket that expanded to the size of a beach ball at the entrance and was chock full of little caverns off on each side and up above it, stuffed full of plates of dolomite and calcite druse, with poker chips attached to them. It was soon very apparent to me that one bag was not going to be enough, because every plate I was pulling out was so delicate and gorgeous, that I needed to wrap each one to protect them. I returned to the truck and grabbed a couple more bags, full of wrapping cloths and grabbed a bottle of water as well…it had been cool and breezy down at Black Rock, but now, after only an hour here, it was getting very hot and the clouds had rolled away to leave blue skies and full sun. In the hour I had been there, my arms had already darkened from the intense sunlight and I could feel the beginnings of a mild sunburn starting on the back of my neck. An hour later, and I had filled both of these bags and I carried them back to the truck…there was only one easy way down to the truck and back up to the pocket…hugging the wall to the east and then sliding down the slope like a slalom course…but I made it without any spills each time. I grabbed two more bags filled with wrapping cloths and another bottle of water and an hour later, I had the pocket cleaned out completely. I`ll get some photos taken of those gems soon…took a few down to Tina at the Clement Mineral Museum this past weekend and everyone down there just oohhed and ahhhed over them, just as I did when I was pulling them out of the pocket. The wall I was working actually had several small vugs in addition to the pocket I found….

I made one more sashay around the other side, carefully checking for more pockets, then drove around and loaded up the larger druse pieces I had found earlier, and then I headed home, tired but happy as well. All in all, though, a very good trip and day.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

MAGS Field Trip to Black Rock, Arkansas

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

WC emailed me earlier this year while putting together the Missouri trip in April for druse quartz and MFQ, to tell me that the club was going to one of the gray limestone quarries in Black Rock, Arkansas, scheduled tentatively for the end of May. I had been fortunate to go to the one there four years ago and found some beautiful pink dolomite crystals, one large piece in a C shape with a gorgeous hexagonal shaped calcite crystal embedded in the center of it….

WC kept everyone updated and the date was set for May 31st. After checking on the forecast for that Saturday, hot and sunny, temps in the high eighties, I decided to leave Missy with my parents…she cannot handle the heat well due to that black rain slicker she wears all the time…and Mom takes her on several walks a day in their subdivision, so I knew she would like that alot better. I opted to get up early that morning, 3 am, and drive down to Black Rock on Hwy 63…the first two hours was a breeze down through south central Missouri, no traffic to speak of til I reached the West Plains area, and even then, it was pretty minimal at that time of the morning. If I had any complaints at all about that drive, it would only be regarding the nice bypass around West Plains…the speed limit on that bypass is set at 45 mph and there are several stoplights through there with very few homes or businesses in that stretch…seems like an oxymoron to have a nice bypass through there and then you can`t drive a decent speed through there as well.

I had only one problem on the entire drive down, a few miles south of West Plains, I crested a hill and found a dead deer stretched completely out across my lane of traffic, and since it was right over the hillcrest, I had no reaction time at all, so I braced myself with the steering wheel, expecting to feel it as I passed over it…my truck only has so much clearance…and to my surprise, didn`t feel a thing…but I did call 911 to report it to the highway patrol as a traffic hazard as I continued southbound.

I arrived at the rest area just north of Black Rock about 7 am, thirty minutes ahead of everyone else, meeting time was 7:30 am. I met Paul Sides, the President of MAGS, when he pulled in behind me a few minutes later and we talked for a bit before everyone else started showing up. We then handed over our signed liability waivers to WC and proceeded up the road to the Vulcan Quarry, where we met with Jeff, one of the foremen there, for a brief safety talk….

We were all wearing hard hats, steel toed shoes/boots, and had our safety glasses with us…and from there, Jeff lead us down into the quarry to the first blasting spot…

….personnel there had prepared for our visit by blasting down a huge wall of rock and there was quite a bit of pink dolomite within that wall on the east side as well as some on the west side….it was quite a beautiful day, cloudy blue skies which started off warm but cooled within an hour of our arrival, appearing as if it might rain, but never did, we just had the cooling breezes instead. Soon after parking at the initial spot, everyone was climbing around and looking for pink dolomite…

We had driven down to the first level of the quarry….

….and it looked a bit different from when we were there four years ago, as it looked in the next two photos….

It was apparent that there were a lot of changes since we had been there four years prior, the landscape among the main changes. When there last, we were able to drive down to the bottom floor of the quarry…..

….but this time found it flooded….four feet deep green water all the way across…Jeff said he was pumping water daily trying to stay ahead of it. Comparing the four years ago photos to the photos of the quarry today, it was easy to see how much blasting had been done and how far back the walls had been worked.

There was a lot of pink dolomite in the first blast section, I don`t think anyone left there unhappy with their finds….

After taking a short break after finding some pretty pink dolomite plates with some calcite and hematite balls attached, I spotted my buddy Steven Gibbs, searching for some bigger boulders of dolomite down on the west side of the blast pile…

…while his wife, April, was taking a break on the tailgate….

…over on the east side of the blast pile, several folks seemed to be concentrating on a certain section of rock where a lot of pink dolomite was being found….

…while Jeff and Bentley can be seen near the top of the pile looking for pretty dolomite….

…I caught Bentley climbing down the pile in his colorful fireman`s steel toed boots a few minutes later….

After about 90 minutes at this first location, we loaded up and drove a short distance down the slope to the next blast location…..

…..which was quite a bit smaller and after a short search, none of us could locating anything good at all, most decided to return to the first blast pile and search even more extensively there. In the short time we were down on the second level, however, Steven and April and I had walked down the road to check the rocks on both sides of the road, and April spotted a beach ball sized boulder with a neat impression of a seashell in it…

….the impression lined with quartz crystals, no less !!

As the rest of the group was loading up to return to the first location, we asked and Jeff gave permission for us to stay and see about cobbing it down and loading it up in Steven`s truck. April def wanted to take it back home. Steven got his sledge hammer out as WC and Cornelia came over to check it out as well, and Steven tried to cobb it down with his hammer…

…but the boulder merely laughed at all of Steven`s efforts to cobb it down and he wound up picking it up and loading the whole thing into his pickup instead. Jeff told us that he had never seen anything like that at the quarry while he has been there. After picking up a few more small plates of pink dolomite, some with some calcite crystals attached, I decided to head for home, via MFQ and Falling Spring Mill. I bid everyone good bye and headed out shortly after, pausing at the top of the hill to take these photos of the remaining group collecting at the first blast location…..

Sure had a good time, was a beautiful morning and nice trip and weather, enjoyed seeing several friends there.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Deep Pocket at Secret Spot

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

Missy and I loaded up mid May and headed to the secret spot…it was a gorgeous cloudy sky day and the temps were perfect for rock collecting. We arrived mid morning and as soon as I parked, I noticed something moving in the pools of water nearby…I walked over and found thousands of tiny black tadpoles swimming around in clusters….

…everywhere I looked they were just all over the place, never seen so many in one area like that.

We made our way over to an area in the lower area that I had been finding alot of floor pockets in, and within minutes, had located a promising area and began digging down. Within a few minutes, I had a nice L shaped pocket going….

..and it seemed to have ended on the bottom side but kept going a bit further at the top of the photo, so I naturally followed that end of the pocket…and acquired a pretty hefty stack of goodies in short order as well….

…and soon after was finding more pockets under a layer of druse plates, with crystals sparkling in the matrix, waiting to be plucked out of the gravel mix….

…I kept on digging deeper and further toward that end of the L shaped pocket as it kept expanding and pretty soon my goodie stack was getting higher and longer as well….

funny how you lose all track of time when pursuing a pocket like this one, think nothing of taking a break or getting up to stretch your legs, all focus is on the pocket at hand. Well pretty soon, the pocket expansion came to an abrupt end…sometimes you run into a wall and sometimes you can see what appears to be an opening back behind that wall, which in this case I did…it was going to be too risky to try and pursue it because I would have to hammer my way in and too many nice crystals would be destroyed if I did that, so I backed off and decided to scratch around with the mini mattox and see if I could find another pocket on down a bit or a back way into what appeared to be another pocket behind that wall….

…little did I know what lay in store for me….

…within a couple of feet from the end of that pocket, I hit paydirt…hit a soft spot that started descending into the clay colored gravel….

…it kept going and going until the bottom just literally dropped out on me….

…and then I started pulling first druse plates and combos out of the bottom of this huge pocket….

…after pulling about half a dozen plates out, I looked into the bottom of the pocket and just saw poker chip crystals laying all over the place, several large ones even…talk about Christmas in May….

…including this nice combo plate….

…well by this time, I had the pocket dug down about eighteen inches deep and had filled three bags full of crystals, many doubles and triples and singles about six to eight inches long…and I was exhausted. I decided to come back the next afternoon and clean it out.

So I returned the next day, early afternoon, and proceeded to see if I could clean this puppy out…

…it measured about eighteen inches deep and two feet long, from my viewpoint above and ten inches wide, but when I stuck the camera down inside it and turned the flash on, you can easily see that it goes back to the left pretty far and has crystals inside it as well….

…but in order to get to that point, I had to knock some of the top roof plates out so I grabbed my four pound sledge hammer and started pounding for a few minutes to break them up…let me tell you, that took quite a few minutes because the rock above that pocket going that direction just became thicker and thicker, giving me quite a workout in about twenty minutes…but I pulled a few nice roof plates out as a result of it…

…and some nice crystals as well…

…and pretty soon, the pocket was expanding in all directions…and wound up being an all afternoon pocket….

by four pm, I was done in and had the pocket cleaned out as far as I could reach back in there…I had brought my flashlight with me this time and looking in, could see the pocket went back in there at least four feet, much farther than I could reach and no way to even get a rake or anything in there to pull anything else out. At any rate, I had two more bags full of crystals and plates and I was happy. Missy and I saw some nice sunbeams on the way home…made my day even more…

If anyone wants to contact me and talk about rockhunting or my blog stories, you can reach me at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Black and Blue Dogtooth Crystal Weekend

Posted on May 7, 2014 by jwj

Earlier in the week, my chances of going rockhunting even one day during the first weekend in May, were looking pretty dismal for me…as I had scheduled a portrait shoot on Saturday the 3rd, in the middle of the day and that meant I was going to have to stick around all morning…and I was going to an event on Sunday early afternoon to commemorate the lives of two firefighter friends that had achieved milestones in their lives, celebrating fifty years of service to the Sullivan Fire Department and District. Both men are good friends of our family and after attending the same event for my Dad the year before, and knowing it required a couple of hours time, I wasn`t sure I was going to have any time afterward to go hunting that day either.

By midweek tho, my schedule cleared up so that I could not only drive down to MFQ on Saturday morning early, but I was able to squeeze in a few hours of hunting on Sunday after the event as well. I made a call to my buddy Jim on Friday evening and he told me that the new blast pile was nearly gone and he was seeing some streaks of black as well, so Missy and I got up early Saturday morning and were on the road by 7 am. under mostly cloudy skies, with a hint of clearing skies by mid morning.

We soon rolled into the quarry and found a much smaller pile of rocks and evidence that the huge hydraulic jack had been used recently on some of the larger boulders with a line of the busted boulders skirting the edge of the reduced pile from one side to the other.

I pulled just past the back of the reduced pile and parked, and after switching to my boots, grabbed a bag, my gloves, and my mini mattox and decided to do a surface hunt first around the edge of reduced boulders on the east side of the pile. I found a few smaller pieces right off the bat and then made a closer inspection of the walls of the pile. I found a few small pockets of dark gray colored poker chips and some calcite druse as well. I walked down the wall to the east and found a few small pockets of druse as well as one nice poker chip cluster, a small one….

…..enough to fill one bag with some interesting looking shaped druse pieces. I returned that bag to the truck bed and then grabbed another one and headed around the skirt of rocks to the west side….

….and immediately started seeing some nice cobbed down chunks of calcite druse all over the place, sparkling and glittering in the strong sunlight. I sat my bag and mattox down and began selecting some of the nicer chunks and carrying them over to the parking area and creating a grouping of them to pick up later before I left. They would make some great yard rocks. I was up in the middle of them making more selections, when my buddy Jim drove up in his pickup with his wife and daughter. They were on their way to town for some festivities…I told him I had been hearing sirens and parade preparation sounds in the past hour and he said the parade would likely start soon downtown. Soon after they took off, I did hear the start of the parade and then later on, live music and what sounded like a drag race or tractor pull as well. They definitely had some beautiful weather for a celebration.

Soon Missy was back from her explorations and parked under the back of my truck in the shade…I put a bowl of cool water out for her and headed back to the pile to see if I could cobb some crystals out of a large boulder. I took my four pound hammer and chisels with me and soon came up on the huge boulder laying on its side on one side of the pile. I liked the looks of the crystals embedded in one end of the boulder, dark grey and black colored. I was able to free a couple of nice crystals from the boulder and was working on some others when a bumble bee starting flying around close by and even buzzing right by me a few times. I decided to give him some room and took a short water bottle break about thirty feet away to see if he was trying to get into a wall hole nearby…however, he didn`t settle down, even followed me over to my break area and buzzed by me some more. I walked back to the truck and retrieved my spray bottle of bee and wasp killer, however by the time I got back over there, he had apparently found a hole and ducked inside. I was glad, cause I was neither interested in killing it nor in being stung trying.

I tried to free a few more crystals and clusters, but was unable to do so, and decided to move to the back side of the pile and see if I could climb up to the top of the pile to see what more could be found. I got around to the back side and determined this was going to be no easy feat in getting up to the top of the reduced pile, as the dirt and rock material was extremely loose under my feet and for every step I took up the pile, I was either sliding back down or losing two steps down. I left the bag at the bottom…a mistake I later almost regretted…and used the mini mattox to carve out steps so I could get to the top, going up switchback fashion even. Eventually I made it to the top, after having to stop and knock down some of the top rocks to make things easier, dragging myself up and over the top edge finally. Once up there, I checked the walls for new pockets, finding a few pockets here and there. I decided to check out the huge boulder that had supplied me with many black dogtooth crystals the last trip down there, and to my surprise, started finding small clusters of crystals all around the bottom of the boulder once again. I even found some laying in the loose dirt at the base of the boulder as well as a few large ones that were nice too, and after digging down thru some of the loose material, I was able to recover some very pretty twin dogtooths…here they are cleaned up….

It appeared someone had chipped off a few of the remaining clusters and crystals I had left behind and I`m glad that whoever was there, left behind a lot of pretty crystals for me to find and take home. One that was in the shallow area of dirt, was a spectacular twin black dogtooth crystal, in the shape of a V, each one about two inches in length. After chipping off several nice clusters from the huge boulder a few weeks ago, I was delighted to find a few more perfectly shaped small ones this trip too….

I dug down around three sides of the boulder and found enough small crystals to fill two bags full…however since I had left my bag below and didn`t want to slide down and grab the bag, and then make the arduous climb back up with the bag in tow, I decided to take my long sleeve shirt off and wrap up the crystals in it and then carry the whole thing back down the pile. I also grabbed two or three nice large chunks with lots of black dogtooths on them, and then slid down the loose talus pile on my butt…this was much easier. After wrapping them all up separately on the tailgate in my wrapping cloths, I decided I had enough goodies for the day and headed home. By this time, I had four bags completely full of wrapped goodies.

However, after getting them all wrapped up and bagged, I decided to drive over to the cove area and check that wall as well. By this time it was pretty hot outside so I turned on the ac and left Missy in the ac while I worked the wall. I started at the east end and worked my way back west and pretty soon was finding crystals, poker chips and dogtooth crystals, laying in the loose matrix at the base of the wall. I followed a trail of poker chips up the small ramped pile and pretty soon, discovered a pocket buried in the loose matrix that had apparently fallen from above and became buried. I pulled enough crystals out of it to fill half a bag and by this time, I was approaching exhaustion fast, and still had a four hour drive home. I`ll get some of these crystals photographed and loaded up here soon.

Soon, Missy and I were headed home, stopping off briefly for a short hike to a refreshing spring fed creek, that we waded around in for a short time….to cool her off mainly….

….we headed back to the truck and ac, and drove home. Missy was as tired as I was, carrying ten pounds of fur in the heat…I thought I was going to have to carry her to the truck…luckily she gets her hair cut on Wednesday.

Sunday morning, I decided Missy and I would drive down to a neat spot where I have always been able to find some neat druse pieces….my Mom had asked me for some holie rocks that she could plant ground cover in for her rock and flower gardens. I had seen some holie rocks there that I thought would be perfect, and as it worked out, we had a few hours of daylight left after the event on Sunday afternoon. It was as hot Sunday as it had been the day before, and I was prepared to leave Missy in the truck if need be with the ac on full blast. We arrived about 4 pm and I was able to locate about half a dozen nice large druse chunks with some holes in them, tho the holes were not nearly as big as I thought they were going to be. I also found some really pretty soda straw plates nearby as well, some of the straws were about two to three inches in length and very sparkly in the sunlight.

After loading the holie rocks and druse plates up, I drove over to the secret spot to check it out and decided to putter around a bit and see if I could locate any new pockets there. The shade had stretched out about thirty feet from the west wall by that time in the day, so I drove over and parked in the edge of it, enough to cover the cab in case Missy would need to get in the truck in the ac again.

As it turned out, there was a great breeze blowing from the northwest and came right across the shaded area very nicely. I scratched around a few times until I found a nice area that had great potential…I was ten feet under the huge pocket I found back in the spring time last year, the pocket that had apparently vibrated open after a blast seventy feet away from it…the pocket that was three feet in diameter…the pocket that was chock full of dogtooth crystals, some of them were a big as beach balls….and about ten feet below it, I found a very nice pocket. Missy by this time, had made a few forays to the edge of the parking area and then wandered back and laid down about fifty feet from me on a ledge in the shaded area.

I walked back to the truck and grabbed my camera to document the pocket after I had decided that it was indeed going to open up into some poker chip crystals…

….the first one I pulled out was about four inches high and had a beautiful blue tint to it with a black dogtooth center…

….and once the pocket really opened up, I started pulling several nice large single crystals out as well as a few clusters, some with some beautiful druse attached to them….

…I could see several on the edge and just inside the loose mix of matrix at the bottom of the pocket…I really get excited when I see those, cause I start wondering what all is inside and how deep is the pocket going to wind up being…the thrill of the hunt I guess….

What was really strange, was that after I had pulled out several blue tinted crsytals with black dogtooth centers, I also found a small pocket off to the side, with a few small orange dogtooth crystals inside it. I have never found the two colors that close together in different pockets, usually they are at least ten feet apart. I`m always thrilled when I find the blue tinted crystals tho, since they seem to be a rare color to find. Here are some of the initial crystals from the blue pocket….

The pocket kept expanding to the left, so naturally I kept digging in that direction and it continued to open up along the way….

The top section of matrix around the roof plates was very thin and loose, so everytime I started digging in that area, things started falling down and had to be cleared out gently….

…and pretty soon I was pulling some beautiful roof plates out too….

…then I set the camera down in front of the pocket and here is what was inside…

..and then the pocket started going deeper, when it went as far to the left as possible…

here are some more of the crystals and roofplates from the pocket….

I filled two bags completely full and then Missy and I took off and headed home. Sure made for a nice weekend.

Here are some of my goodies found at the secret spot Sunday….

James 🙂

jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Dandy Black Dogtooth Crystal Day

Posted on April 15, 2014 by jwj

I received a phone call from my buddy Jim regarding recent activity at MFQ about mid week, and since I had already arranged to take Saturday off to go rockhunting, it made perfect sense to drive down there Saturday morning and see what could be found. After a relatively calm night at work Friday night, I drove home and changed from my uniform into comfortable jeans, picked up Missy, and headed out. Jim was right, it was a short wall that came down…the smallest and shortest wall there yet.

The last time I had seen activity in this area, you could walk from the parking lot up the slope of the pile and come out on top of the upper bench, but one look at this pile, and I knew that wasn`t gonna happen, it didn`t even go halfway up. It was evident they had already removed some material in the past few days and were working on some boulders, reducing them down with the hydraulic hammer. Missy and I drove around to the back side of the new pile and began looking around back there first….

…walking around the front of the pile along the edges and then walked up the pile next to the back wall….

…well I didn`t find much, other than a few shallow pockets, so I drove back around to the other side and decided to check out the pile where they had been taking some material out….and soon discovered a huge boulder with some pockets at the base of it chock full of light green colored poker chips….

I decided to wait til later to see if could liberate them and walked up into the center of the pile and made my way toward the back wall, looking from side to side to see if I could spot any crystals. I found a couple of calcite druse pieces until I got close to the back of the pile…then I started seeing small black poker chips with black center dogtooths laying all over the pile…I finally looked up and around for the source and spotted a HUGE boulder, half the size of my truck, with many pockets of huge black poker chip crystals with the black dogtooth centers, many of the dogtooths exposed even….

..including this pocket that was located at the bottom of this huge boulder, containing several black dogtooth crystals, many that appeared to be four or five inches in diameter and about six inches long….

…and this one next to it, with a bit of damage, most likely from the blast or the fall afterwards….

…and this next one was underneath and to the side of both of the other pockets, a single large dogtooth crystal in this vug….

…well needless to say, I was stunned and happy at the same time…and after picking up a few more loose crystals in the pile below, many of which were unblemished and just plain beautiful, I walked back down to my truck to retrieve another bag of wrapping cloths, a bottle of water, and my hammer and chisels. After drinking half a bottle of water, I walked back up and started filling one bag with all the loose crystals around the base of this boulder that I could locate, some were even down below in a few drop holes, and I pulled them out and wrapped them up and bagged them as well. Within moments, I had one bag filled and was working on the other and still hadn`t even touched the boulder vugs. It was about this time that my buddy Jim drove down to visit a bit. He was enjoying the weather on his day off and waiting for his wife to get home from work.

I soon returned to the boulder and began to see what I could successfully chip out of the vugs. Luckily for me, everything was coming out just fine and pristine, and soon I had two more bags full of goodies…here are a few….

here is the cluster that I chipped out of the bottom of the HUGE boulder at the back side of the pile….

….and the last thing I did after cleaning all those black beauties out, was try to liberate some of the green poker chips in the boulder on the front side of the pile…but like most green poker chips, that tend to shatter much easier than other colors, I was only able to get these two out somewhat intact….

I did manage to find a few pockets on the back wall that were full of calcite druse, some with poker chips attached and liberated some of them as well, however I have no photos of them, maybe I can add some later. It sure was a Dandy Dogtooth Crystal Day.

James 🙂

jwjphoto7@gmail.com

MAGS Missouri Field Trips 2014

Posted on April 15, 2014 by jwj

I was really looking forward to the visit by members of MAGS the weekend of April 5th and 6th, their members are some of the best people you would ever want to meet and rock hunt with, one of the best clubs I have ever had the pleasure of joining. My scouting trip the last week of March turned up a couple of new locations, one which needed further exploration and one that sounded too good to be true. I was able to contact the property owner of the quarry and it turned out he was into metal detecting, so we shared a common interest and he gave me permission to check out the quarry on his property. I then contacted my good friend Virgil Richards, who lives in the Tulsa area, to let him know what I had found out and he indicated that he would be back up on Friday night to go with me to the new druse spot and check out the other location for the first time as well. He also wanted to rejoin the MAGS Club in order to get in on some other field trips throughout the rest of the year, too. I also updated my friend Ray from St Louis County and he indicated he would be out early Saturday morning as well. I had all my grab bag material separated and ready to hand over to MAGS Club for grab bag material at their end of April Show and I coordinated with WC on when and where to meet up with them Saturday late morning.

After a late supper with Virgil at Cracker Barrel, soon after he arrived in my town, I retired early to bed on Friday night, but then woke up around 4 am for some reason, so when the fire department was paged for a house fire about six blocks from my house at 5:30 am, I quickly dressed and headed that way to photograph it for the local paper. I was on the scene until nearly 7 am, when I headed home so I would be ready when Virgil and Ray showed up at my place at 7:30. Virgil arrived soon after and I gave him the grand tour, heading out soon after Ray showed up. We stopped at Steelville to gas up, where Virgil grabbed some ice and goodies for later, and then headed on south to check out the abandoned quarry.

We arrived there around 9 am and after changing to my boots and grabbing a bag and my mini mattox, we started climbing up to the rock walls to check for pockets….

…it was obvious, once we got close enough to inspect the walls, that we were in a quarry that had been abandoned for years, the walls were heavily discolored and weathered….

….and it was a steep climb to get up to those walls as well, slippery slope as it were. We found some beautiful druse quartz on the way up there as well, some intense sparkles and colors….

…and I was working a small pocket near the entrance, while Virgil and Ray were taking a short break down below me…I was pulling some wild looking clusters out of the pocket that had some druse that was def wired differently and poker chips attached to them, looked like a knarly mess to me, but they were def different than anything I had seen, so I pulled about a dozen out and then decided to turn the pocket over to Virgil, since he had made a five hour drive up there and hadn`t found anything good yet. I had already filled another bag on a pocket I had found up above, where I pulled this pretty druse plate out that had this poker chip attached to it….

We began to get a bit worried that we hadn`t seen the MAGS members drive up on our location when 11 am rolled around, so we decided to load up and head toward their Washington County location that they were slated to go to early that morning. We drove down to where I had been told they would be located and found no one there except some workers preparing a cemetery plot for a service, and after they told us that no one else had been down there in that area, we turned around and headed to Viburnum, to see if they had gone on to the site without us. We kept trying to call but as it is in most of those valleys in south central Missouri, there are few times you can pick up a signal. Not until we were deep within the heart of Viburnum did we finally get a signal and make contact with WC, and then as it turned out, they were about half a mile behind us and followed us to the druse spot from there. It seems they had gone to a different location than where they originally thought they were going to, and we had prob driven by the turn off to that location and missed them by mere minutes. I was just glad that we were able to meet up and that everyone was okay, and that they had good luck finding some big pieces of druse at the other location.

After directing them into the parking area and helping them get situated, I noticed one of the trucks had Blue Springs Marina on the side of it as well as a KC phone number, and pleasantly discovered there were now a few more members from Missouri in the club now. I knew most of the member from the year before and it was great seeing Bebe again, as I met her the first time down at Marion, Kentucky at a fluorite dig. I talk to WC and Matthew online all the time, WC is the Field Trip Director and Matthew is the Newsletter Editor, both very accomplished in their respective duties and great to talk to. After getting to visit with everyone and explaining to them that I had left Missy at home so she wouldn`t get so muddy, I pointed out the boundaries of the druse spot and what they could expect to find, and soon after everyone spread out in search of beautiful druse. Some had been there the year before and were looking forward to this spot once again, its a great place to bring kids, too.

After I saw that everyone was finding some nice stuff, I started looking specifically for some more smokey colored druse bubbles for my own collection.

Virgil had run up to the Caseys Store at a nearby town, to get some more goodies and when he returned, he started checking out the ditches and gullies on the north side while most of the rest of us were on the south side.

We had been there about 90 minutes when a guy pulled up in the road and stopped to check us out…he wasn`t sure what we were collecting and his curiousity got the best of him, so he stopped and started asking questions…turned out he was Cindy`s husband Bob, and he invited us on up to his property to look for druse there. We continued on down the road to their farm about an hour later…they have fifty acres there of mostly cleared forest land, but as it turned out, the only druse we found there were contained in very small vugs, not the type of stuff we were looking for and used to finding. From here, everyone was pretty tired and decided to head back to Park Hills to get some supper and rest up for the dig tomorrow, so I pointed out a shortcut to make the return trip. I told WC that Missy and I would meet them at the quarry entrance the next morning at My Favorite Quarry. Ray, Virgil, and I headed to the Caseys to get a few slices of pizza and decided the day had been long enough for us as well. Virgil decided to head on home from there, since we hadn`t gotten the word about any new blasting at MFQ, so we all split up and headed home.

The next morning, Missy and I headed south by 7 am, arriving a little early and on pulling into the entrance to the quarry, discovered we were the first ones there. I had enough time to get out and make some needed adjustments to one side of my tonneau cover to make it more secure when closed…I honestly think the wind has slapped it around enough this year to make it hard to open and shut. Soon after changing to my boots, we saw the convoy of vehicles headed down the hill toward us, with WC leading the way….

…and as soon as everyone was in the lot off the highway, we drove on down to the newer cove area and parked. Missy jumped out and everyone wanted to say hi to her…she was a bit easier to pet this year, easier to catch up to I should say…she is getting older and doesn`t run around as much these days, comes back to where I am hunting at and lays down to watch and rest, so it`s easier to catch up to her and pet her these days. She has been a very good and constant travel companion in my life these past fourteen years and a great buddy girl to have around….she absolutely loves to go rock collecting with me.

On driving in, I had noticed a couple of new areas of activity, and pointed them out to everyone, and soon after, most headed to those new areas to check them out. Even though I grabbed my tools and bags, I mainly helped everyone get started finding stuff, specially the two kids there, Bentley and ” D ” who were part of the Kansas City group.

I checked out a pile to the east for a bit and then returned to the west side of the coved wall, after Matthew`s wife Carolyn called me over to check out some finds. I began picking up dark colored poker chips all over and we all began digging in and finding even more laying around all over the place. Soon after, my buddy Jim Bay drove down to visit with us and I introduced him to everyone there too. We continued to look around and even though we didn`t find any major pockets, I`m pretty sure everyone went home happy with what they found there. We had hoped they would blast before they arrived, cause then there would be even more material laying around to go thru, but alas for some reason that didn`t happen. By 2 pm, it was just Missy and me, and we looked around in another area before heading home an hour later. I look forward to seeing everyone at some of the other field trips later this year.

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Last Week of March Vacation

Posted on April 15, 2014 by jwj

I took the last week of March off for some vacation time to get ready for the MAGS visit here the first weekend in April, they had asked me to take them druse quartz hunting on Saturday April 5th and then to My Favorite Quarry on Sunday, April 6th. I wanted to do some additional scouting the weekend before they arrived to make sure the sites we were planning to visit were still producing great material and still accessible. Therefore I made another trip to both of the major locations and did some collecting as well as the scouting….hey if I`m making the drive down , I might as well have fun and collect too. I also took the time to separate my finds from the prior year into several buckets to give them some good grab bag material for the upcoming show at Memphis, April 26th and 27th, The Earth Wide Open…if anyone is going to be in that area during that weekend, make plans to visit the show, it`s one of the best and largest gem and mineral shows across the United States.

I also wanted to check on an abandoned quarry that I had been given information on, that was closeby as well. On Sunday afternoon on the 30th, after breakfast with my parents and some friends, Missy and I drove down to Iron and Washington Counties and after locating the abandoned quarry with the information given to me, I then set about trying to find the property owner. I spotted a guy working outside at a nearby farm, and stopped to ask him if he might know the owner, and had some great luck, It turned out he was an assistant to the Assessor for that part of the county and was able to point out the house where the property owner lived, even though he didn`t know the guy`s name. He also told me that he had been collecting rocks and minerals since he was a kid, too, and told me of a few other locations nearby that were on National Forest Land and accessible for druse quartz. I thanked him for his information and drove down to the residence near the quarry to see if I could locate the owner there. While I didn`t find him there, I was able to copy some information that would enable me to locate him later in the week and obtain a phone number and name for him. From there we drove over to one of the roads that the Assistant Assessor had pointed out and slowly drove down the road looking for druse…I spotted a large chunk of pink druse halfway down the ridge road and stopped to check it out. I liked it so well that I placed it in the bed of my truck and as I started to get back into my truck, I noticed many aluminum cans laying all over the place on both sides of the road right there, many within fifty feet of my truck. I grabbed a small bucket in my truck and within five minutes, had it filled with cans. As I drove on back to the highway, I thought of how any of my friends that collect cans, would literally have a field day collecting down that road and could likely fill a few large plastic trash bags on cans alone there.

I then drove up to the druse spot…as I was driving down the road on approach to the spot, Missy and I came upon a nice lady that was collecting cans…she was walking along with a walking stick and accompanied by a big beautiful and fluffy Golden Retriever…I stopped alongside her and struck up a conversation and asked her if she needed some more cans. She said she would gladly take donations and I opened the tonneau cover and gave her about a dozen cans. I found out her name was Cindy and she is a nurse with her own business in town, and Cindy introduced us to Ed, her dog as well. She and Ed walk about three to four miles a day picking up cans, she said. I told her I was out scouting druse quartz locations for a gem club trip the following weekend and she offered her property which is a few miles on down the road. I thanked her for her hospitality and continued to the druse spot….

Missy and I hunted the druse spot for about an hour and I filled one bag completely with beautiful smokey colored druse, which is my favorite color from there, and then we loaded up and headed to the secret spot. We stopped briefly to visit with Cindy again, who was then on her way back to her house and nearly in the same spot as we saw her an hour before. I told her it was very possible that we would be visiting with her and her husband and Ed the next weekend. We arrived at the secret spot about an hour later and found a pocket fairly quickly this time….