After preparing the Eureka Mine as best we could last weekend, we prepared for our group dig there over the Easter Holiday. The weather was going to be nice and much cooler, so I decided to take Missy with me on this trip. I had to work the night before, and after a three hour nap, we got up and took off. I had to stop off in south central Illinois on the way down Friday, to photograph some antique fire trucks owned by some good friends of mine, and after that I headed on down to Kuttawa to get checked in to the hotel.

I was meeting up with Pete Stoeckel and Nick Richard there, we had talked ahead of the dig about lodging and meals, they decided to stay at the same hotel I was staying at, the Days Inn, which is next door to the best steakhouse in the entire area, the Oasis Southwest Grill, which is where we all wanted to eat at as well. I texted Pete to let him know that we were leaving my shoot and on the way, and should arrive about 6:30 pm. He and Nick were driving in from the east, they had left eastern Pennsylvania about midnight Thursday night and drove down to Kentucky through Maryland and West Virginia. They took advantage of one of my tips on a good geode location in south central Kentucky, and stopped there after twelve hours on the road. Pete told me they had found several nice geodes there and then got back on the road and would be waiting for me at the hotel.

True to my word, we arrived at the Days Inn about 6:30 and got checked in fast…I was as hungry as they were I`m sure…fire truck shoots just wear me out mentally and physically.  We walked over to the Oasys and ordered steak dinners…well I should say Nick and I ordered steaks and Pete ordered barbecue brisket…a few years ago the staff of the Oasys added on a barbecue menu and boy was it good…but I always order the grilled pork chops with a barbecue glaze…two large center cut chops that completely take up the space on the entire plate, big baked potato, and a big bowl of steamed broccoli….yummmmmyyyyyy. Pete and Nick are both connoseiurs of draft beer as well…and the Oasys didnt let them down…they always maintain a good selection of beers for guys like these two. We talked and caught up on rockhunting adventures since we last saw each other at the Eureka, and then headed off to our rooms for a good night of restful sleep.

Mike and Chrissy decided to come back down for the weekend dig as well, and for some reason I didnt notice, but they were parked right next to my truck when they arrived. I guess I was so tired, I didnt even see it. Nick and Pete and I had decided to get breakfast at the Marion Cafe the next morning before meeting everyone at the museum and registering for the dig. Nick told me that the cooks at the Cafe believe in feeding people very well for little cost. I stopped off at Miss Neda`s Donut Shop in Eddyville and got some donuts for later on….very good donuts at this little donut shop…and then  Missy and I headed for the Marion Cafe. Its catecorner  across from the new Marion Fire Station…beautiful brick building with three glass bay doors  and a big time clock on the street side, has that old tyme firehouse look to it, charming but elegant…

Nick was right…I ordered two eggs,bacon and toast with grape jelly….I have never seen toasted bread that thick…Nick told me it was homemade bread. Pete had ordered French Toast and I couldnt believe how much was on his plate, there must have been half a loaf of toast on there…the equivalent of eight pancakes….and our cost was like $ 4.00 a plate…unreal…definitely alot of food for a little cost.

The lady that owns the Cafe showed us a nice chunk of fluorite that was on display there, it was quite exceptional in beauty and form. While they were talking to her about it, I slipped out the door and drove on over to the museum to verify that someone was there and found VJ there helping several earlybirds check in and register for the dig. I visited with him a few minutes, he is always very pleasant to talk to and work with on such events.  Within the next hour, several more showed up to register and we were able to meet and talk a little bit until it was time to assemble outside to get ready to go. I introduced myself and we walked outside for a safety talk before driving on out to the mine. There were a few folks there, some with young children, who were somewhat new to rockhunting and definitely new to the Eureka Mine, so we talked a bit about safety and what to look for and where to look as well. We then drove on out to the mine and got ready to do some serious digging and prospecting.

We arrived to find Mike and Chrissy working on pumping out the water in the pit….

…and once everyone gathered up next to the pit, I pointed out the area of the vertical shaft that we wanted to avoid. For those new to collecting at the Eureka, I pointed out the two tailing pile areas that are known to be rich in tailing specimens, both areas that were producing nice small clusters of crystals last week, eroding from the dirt banks from past rains over the winter.

While most waited for the pit water level to be pumped down, the young family with the two little boys got busy and quickly started finding some nice crystals…soon we heard this little guy while digging with his mom, say ” look what I found Mom “……

…and his brother, digging nearby with Dad, found a large boulder in the dirt with crystals on it…they decided to try and dig it out together…..

…and pretty soon, rockhounds were digging all over the place while the pump was still lowering the water level in the pit….

…Nic had settled into the dirt bank on the north side of the pit to do some surface collecting while waiting and looks to have found a few nice enough pieces to get his wrapping paper out to wrap them up….

…and other rockhounds were in the same area, and digging in the dirt on the north side and began finding small clusters of crystals as well…

…some nice cubes with some pretty balls of calcite nestled in between the cubes….

…and while Mike and Bill tried to work the pump to fully pump out the water in the pit…..

…..Chrissy decided to dig out the side ledge area…

MAGS members Dave and Lenora decided to try and see what they could find down on the saddle bench while the pit was being pumped out as Li Liu, also with MAGS,  is seen surface collecting in the background….

…much material was left laying around from the weekend before for others to find and take home if they wanted to.

Pete helped run the pump while Mike worked the strainer to get the pit down to the right level to work it…

…and once the pit was pumped down, several diggers got into the water and the mud and waged battle with the rock and pockets to produce some nice fluorite cubes and plates. Mike and Pete worked the saddle pockets and liberated several nice plates of cubes, even some with some beautiful areas of greenockite and sphalerite. Chrissy was joined by Dave Murray over on the side ledge area of the pit, an area that once produced some beautiful large specimens of fluorite with greenockite a few years ago.  Once I had everyone finding some nice specimens, I joined Nick on the north side of the pit and helped him dig the mud layer back to expose the ledge on that side so he could work a few areas that I had worked the weekend before. He soon was finding some nice small clusters along with everyone else. However by 2 pm, several rockhounds had left the mine and the ones remaining were those digging in the pit area.

We were often visited by Bill Frazer and Ed Clements and his daughter Andrea, joined us later in the afternoon. We found out during Ed`s visit, just how tough and serious a rockhound Pete can be…at some point while pounding away on a chunk of rock with his four pound hammer and chisel, he missed the chisel and struck his right hand….breaking at least one bone in his hand….none of us became aware of it until dinner time much later….I still cringe when I think of it and can only imagine the pain he endured the next three hours as he  continued pounding on the baserock,  revealing pocket after pocket of beautiful cubes, and probably some exhilaration as well…I saw some of his finds and there were some absolutely beautiful plates that Pete found in that saddle.

We all ran out of steam around 6 pm and decided to go back and clean up and meet at the Oasys for dinner.  Sunday morning dawned bright and early, with a few less people at the dig from the day before, but with a few new additions as well…Ian Merkel, a geologist friend from Colorado and Marty Meskill, a good rockhound friend from upper state New York,  arrived at the hotel at 3 am, flying in to St Louis and then drove down to join us. They both planned to go over to south central Kentucky on Monday and continue their three day trip, but for Kentucky Agate this time….I was able to help arrange that part of their trip for them and put them in touch with Lamon Flynn, a well respected authority on Kentucky agate, in the Irvine area. I had the pleasure of meeting and hunting with Mr. Flynn back in September last year, joined by a small circle of rockhound friends from all over the country, and we enjoyed it immensely.

Soon after checking my email Sunday morning at the hotel lobby, Ian came around the corner of the building looking for my room and ran into Pete and Nick who were up and talking with me out in front. They all headed to breakfast and we met up later at the museum to sign in for the day. After everyone showed up and registered for the dig at the museum with Bill Frazer signing us in, we drove out to the mine…apparently losing one car and two rockhounds along the drive out…prompting a call to Bill who escorted them out to the mine a few minutes later. On our arrival, we found Chrissy and Mike busy pumping the pit down and giving everyone a chance to look around and see what needed to be done today….

Nick was walking around down at the edge of the north side of the pit looking right and left to figure out where he was going to start digging today….when I snapped this photo I was reminded of that old saying…decisions, decisions….lol….

…pretty soon everyone had chosen their spot and dug in…..

..Pete and Mike continued to work the saddle on the south side while Dave and Chrissy, who cannot be seen, continued their work on the left side of the north wall…Chrissy was burrowed into that wall….Marty dug into the center of the north bench, Nick sits on a bucket, and then Ian in the green shirt is seen working my pocket, and Mary continues to dig the east bank. Lenora is seen sitting on the high bank watching Dave dig.

In the next photo Ian can be seen playing in the mud above the vein and pulling small clusters of deep purple cubes out….

…and here is Chrissy, slowly working her way into the west wall and pulling small clusters out along the way….

…while Nick and Ian work the pockets that Nick and I followed the day before….

…and Dave continued to work that bench on the left as Marty started working a pocket dead center of the bench….

I wonder if anyone knows what a tough guy looks like…I can safely tell you that I saw a tough guy in action Sunday for the better part of the day…only captured him on film a few times but here he is in action…Pete Stoeckel…swinging away with a sledge hammer to bust out a boulder and uncover some pockets of deep purple fluorite cubes…all the while doing so with a broken right hand….

Nick and Ian continued to pull out some nice clusters of cubes in the pockets……I had filled a bag there on Saturday myself, so I knew there had to be more stuff there…and there was….

…and Mary continued to dig from the east bank of dirt, pulling out some nice clusters as well…its obvious that Bill was right, there was some virgin material underneath the mud there…

…here are a couple of boulders of fluorite that came from the dig last weekend….

About mid afternoon, Marty found a beautiful small cluster of stair step down cubes…one right after another in a domino fashion that was just spectacular to look at….definitely a rewarding pocket find…

…and here up close….

…by mid afternoon, Mike and Chrissy loaded up for their seven hour drive home and I left about an hour later….there were four left in the pit by this time and the pump was kicked on for a little more lowering of the water level to explore for more pockets…within a few minutes the big pit was drained dry and the smaller pit lowered to explore a pocket or two…I reached down into one of the smaller pit pockets and a large frog came jumping across my arm and hand and out of the pit….and naturally as startled as I was, I let out with a loud word or two and everyone looked up to see the frog flying through the air.

Here are some of the finds left behind for others to find, Tina and Bill had informed us that a college group would be there Wednesday and so we left behind some goodies for them to find, like these….

..and I`ll post some of my finds when I get a chance to clean them up…havent had a chance to do so yet and now we have five days of rain starting today, so no sunshine to photograph them in either.

I`ll leave you with one last photo of Colorado boy Ian, playing in the mud….

After months of planning and coordinating with Tina and Bill Frazer with the BE Clement Mineral Museum, I drove down to Marion, Kentucky on Friday morning, March 30th, to meet up with Mike Streeter and Bruce Skubon, to prepare for another dig at the Eureka Fluorite Mine.  I decided to leave Missy with my parents for this trip, due to the forecast for possible rain and hot temps on Sunday, April 1st. I also decided to take a chance and drive down through Illinois hoping that ILDOT had all the road construction finished from the past two years, but as I discovered, they move slower than MODOT apparently when it comes to road reconstruction…what a mess, especially the five mile stretch right around Mount Vernon…and its bad enough you cant drive faster than a posted speed limit of 65 mph, but then when you hit those construction zones, they slow you down even more to 45 mph, for several miles a stretch with absolutely no activity on those long stretches, no less….aggravating to say the least.

Luckily I made good time though and had great weather, I didnt even have to turn the ac on til I reached I-24. I was taking a load of rocks down to the museum, a couple of buckets of grab bag material for them, and some druse quartz, bladed barite, and poker chip combos as well as some Arkansas quartz. I also had some extras for Tina, for her rock gardens at home. I had researched for the lower gas prices on gasbuddy.com and found Paducah to have the least expensive gas in the immediate area, so I stopped on the north side of town and filled up at the Pilot Truck Center before driving on down to Marion. All the way down through Illinois it was right at four dollars a gallon, but twenty cents a gallon cheaper in Kentucky and thirty cents a gallon cheaper where I live, so luckily I didnt have to stop in Illinois to gas up, and as it turned out, I was getting about 23 miles to the gallon as well, so I was quite happy with that.

As I drove north of Eddyville, I came upon the red barn on the left side, and noticed a beautiful white horse feeding between the pond and barn, and stopped to photograph the scene….

..its always a pretty scene on the west side of the road on Hwy 641 just north of Hwy 62, and this year with the dogwoods in full bloom, it was even prettier and I couldnt resist….

I arrived at the museum about thirty minutes ahead of Mike, who stopped at the hotel to check on his room. I visited with Tina and unloaded the buckets and goodies I had brought to her, she was quite delighted with everything and I let her decide what to take home and what to keep for herself. Mike arrived soon after and visited with Tina and brought her some goodies too. He received a call from Bruce Skubon shortly after, who indicated he was close by and would soon arrive and register for the weekend dig, then drive out to the mine and join us for the rest of the afternoon.

Mike and I drove on out to the mine with a key to the gate left at the museum with Tina, as we wanted to see what it looked like after the mild winter had taken its toll, and arrived to find it actually looking pretty good….

Bill had placed the pump and gas tank on the bank above the pit prior to our arrival. The trackhoe was on the north side of the main tailing pile, that we had created last year at our spring dig, and it looked like only minimal drainage had occurred from that pile down toward the pit. In October of 2011, Bill had Wayne come in with the trackhoe and dig out mud and rock on the north side of the pit, pulling it out about fifteen feet from where we had dug it out, anticipating a visit from some European rockhounds at the November dig, and then wound up with only a few diggers who didnt even touch that area.

While waiting for Bruce to arrive, Mike and I started the pump after checking the oil and gas levels, and began the task of draining the pond of accumulated water in the pit. There seemed to be a lot more algae in the water this year than we had noticed in years past….…while waiting for the water level to lower, I walked around the pit and checked for fluorite that naturally erodes out of the banks and tailing piles throughout the winter, and found some nice small clusters…..

…and plates…..

…and another small cluster sitting on top of the dirt….

…pretty soon the pit was pumped down about halfway and we were able to see some exposed areas to dig out the next day…we also discovered a huge chunk of rock that had apparently been dug out last fall for the November dig, and left up on top at the base of the tailing pile. We looked it over and found some areas of galena lead cubes on the backside of it, so Mike decided to see if he could cob it down and reveal some pockets on it….

After the pit drained down, we decided on our course of action for the next morning and headed out. On the way back to the motel, I stopped at a few places to photograph the sunbeams and setting sun. This was the first location, a church near Eddyville that had a pretty field full of yellow flowers….

…but it just seemed to lack something…so I drove back north on Hwy 641 a short distance to where I had noticed an abandoned farm just off the road…there was a neat old two story house built with yellow native stone and just past the house was a big beautiful barn and silo….

…I decided to stick around and shoot the sunbeams for a bit, since the sun was still up high in the sky…I pulled out a sunset filter to see what effect it would have on the clouds….

…it turned everything, including the road, to an orange color…which I didnt like too much…..in the next few minutes, the color of the clouds turned to a blue color and I liked that color alot better….

…the blue color enhanced the sunbeams and showed them better….

…but as the sun moved across those blue clouds, a little yellow color would creep in around the edges….

…and then the silver roof on the barn went blue…..

…and the last one I took before my stomach started talking to me…

We arrived the next morning and found the pit full of water once again, so just ahead of Wayne arriving to fire up his trackhoe, we started pumping water while he dug out a ramp to enable him to track down to the edge of the pit and remove volumes of mud……while waiting for the water level to recede, I did some more surface searching and found yet another nice small plate….

Bruce decided to lend a hand to Wayne and removed some of that icky soupy thick mud by hand shoveling some out in places Wayne would be able to reach with the bucket….

…and soon enough, Wayne was in position and started removing a big soupy mix of mud from the center of the pit so we could use it as a base sump for the pump…...he was placing the mud up on top of the pile and it was running down like Mount St Helens and looked like a lava flow….…Mike was washing off the bench with a garden hose while Wayne dug out the mud…

…and boy was he removing some mud….…he was also removing lots of water with each scoop and eventually the water level started dropping too…exposing some nice fluorite pockets to us….

and he also removed a few original mine timbers, which indicated we were near an old horizontal shaft, they were encased and perfectly preserved in the mud layers….Mike and Bruce took a few up to the road for anyone that wanted some later…

…Wayne was soon surrounded by the soupy mud, mainly due to the places he was placing it and it running back down toward the pit like lava….…a fact which would later lead to trouble for him, but for now he was doing a good job of removing the mud and revealing what turned out to be an old horizontal shaft from operations back in the 1920`s when the mine first operated….…eventually he started pulling out some huge boulders laced with fluorite cubes as well….

…which Mike cobbed down into smaller, more manageable chunks that could be carried out by one or two guys….

…soon thereafter tho, Wayne became stuck in the mud and we started draining the pit with the pump while he tried in vain to dig himself out……we were soon all at work in the pit finding what could be found….

…and we repeated the process on Sunday as well….

…and here is one of the finds from Saturday, that made the weekend worthwhile….

One of the nice things about working down at the Eureka Mine, is that Bill Frazer comes to check on you on a regular basis and takes really good care of you….here he is on one of his regular checkup trips to the mine….

Thanks Bill for being such a great Host !!!

This past weekend I drove to Marion, Kentucky for the annual Ben Clement Mineral Museum Celebration held June 4th and 5th, including digs at six mines and a rock
show in the county museum next door to the mineral museum. I had heard from some friends that were planning to also attend so I knew I would be digging in good company on Saturday and Sunday, but I also had a few things I had to take care of on Friday before the main event even began. I decided to leave Missy with my parents due to the excessive heat forecast for the weekend in Kentucky. She is a great companion to have along but due to her color and excessive thick coat, she cannot handle the heat very well, and this weekend her master almost couldnt
handle it very well either. 🙂   I would have been worried about her the whole time had she been with me and knew she was in good hands with my parents, who love and appreciate her company as much as I do.

Earlier in the week, I had received an email from a good friend in Illinois who asked me if I could bring some pretty Missouri rocks to his wife for her water garden in their yard, said she only has plain looking brown southern Illinois rocks in it now. I picked out some nice druse quartz for her and loaded them up Friday morning. I took the southern route through Potosi and Farmington, stopping briefly at Farmington for some Long John Silvers and good  A & W Root Beer, before continuing south and east
to Illinois…crossing the wide Mississippi River at Chester and then dropping south on Hwy 3 toward Murphysboro and Ron`s house. I arrived pretty close to my estimated time of 1 pm there and after a few minutes of chitchat, we went out and I unloaded the pretty druse quartz from the truck for her lilly pad pond in the backyard of their residence. Dorothy had showed it to me through the back
glass of the kitchen windows and it was quite nice with a beautiful waterfall, which at the time was on the fritz and they were waiting for their son Brian to return with parts to fix it.

Soon after, I headed east to Marion through stoplight city…remind me to never go that way again on my way to Kentucky…I have never seen so many stoplights every mile or two…no sooner does one get up speed at 55 mph and then all of a sudden you see a stoplight ahead and then you have to reduce to 45 mph…so a 23 mile stretch of roadway becomes a 45 minute stretch of driving time instead of a 23 minute drive…couldnt pay me enough to go that way again is all I`m saying.

As I crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, I noticed that the water was well within its banks this time, as opposed to past times this spring when I crossed it and discovered it way outside its banks, water sometimes consuming thousands of acres of farm land inland….and after letting my mom know I had made it to Kentucky okay, I contacted Dillon, a new model that I planned to photograph that
evening at Lake Barkley, to add to his portfolio and mine as well, to let him know I was running about thirty minutes late, thanks to that nice stretch of roadway in Illinois. We arranged to meet at the museum in Marion and go to the
lake from there for the shoot and hoped it wouldnt be so hot as to melt him or me. 🙂

I arrived in Marion about an hour later and found Tina taking a quiet moment with Ed Clement and BJ insidethe museum, and met Bill Frazier`s wife as well, chit chatting a bit before unloading the crystals I had brought them for
the silent auction during the rock show the next two days, with the help of Tom, Bill`s son in law, who is also a paramedic locally and a rock and mineral collector as well. Tina was doing her usual multi tasking very well. I assisted
her and Bill`s wife in identifying and pricing the crystals I brought them, while waiting for Dillon to show up.

Once Dillon showed up, we headed down to the hotel so I could check in and cool off from the heat a bit and talk a bit as well. After a short interview, I photographed Dillon in a variety of outfits he brought along and then we headed
out to shoot a few photos outside and drove over to see the Castle of the Cumberland….

which is a maximum security prison that resembles a beautiful architectural castle that sits on a bluff and overlooks Lake Barkley, complete with turrets and medieval features, built in the late 1800`s with manpower
provided by over three hundred prisoners and twenty stone masons who cut and used stone from local quarries, even building a narrow gauge railroad track and train to haul the stone from the quarry to the building site. This is the only
maximum security prison in the entire state of Kentucky and also where the death penalty executions are carried out, these days by lethal injection rather than the electric chair originally used. I have photographed this complex in years past from the northern shores of Lake Barkley at the old Kuttawa Park at sunset and sunrise, and had no idea then that what I was seeing across the wide expanse of water through my camera lens was a prison facility.  Very neat place to see and photograph from the roadway only, well fortified and guarded too, lots of concertina wire heavily spooled along the outer perimeter fences surrounding the complex. I believe the history of the facility advises there has never been a successful escape there.

We headed back to the old Kuttawa Park area to shoot some swimwear photos and found some nice rocks along the water of Lake Barkley to shoot some great photos…since it was apparent we werent going to get a nice sunset, I pulled out my sunset filter and shot a few with it instead. The setting sun did assist by providing me some nice sunbeams on the waves and water as it set.

As we were preparing to shoot, one of Dillon`s female friends spotted him and came over to shoot a few with him, her name is Mandy and she was wearing a candy striper bikini…she was in the company of her bf and a few other guys from the local area and they were headed over to another set of rocks and a short bluff area on the back side of the park, where the locals use for a swimmin hole.
After shooting there for an hour, we headed back to the hotel and then walked over to the Oasis Southwest Grill for a good steak dinner. This is one neat place to eat at, great steaks and seafood, and I have had some delicious center
cut pork chops there as well. I enjoy eating there when in the area.

I walked down to the office and checked my emails after Dillon left and ran into Steven and April Gibbs from the MAGS Club in Memphis, one of the clubs Docia and
I belong to as well, and two of my good rockhound friends that had contacted me about meeting me there to rock hunt with me. I then retired to bed early and prayed
for good weather, great fellowship with the other rockhounds and some great finds. After watching a little bit of tv, I was out like a light.

Apparently the hotel staff at the Days Inn never check the accuracy of the clocks in the rooms they clean cause mine was set way wrong…sitting an hour ahead when it was really an hour back. I failed to notice the difference while
in the office area checking my email and woke up Steven and April about 30 min early, only noticing the difference after I started down the road toward Eddyville to get some breakfast. Once I stopped at Miss Neta`s Donut Shop in
Eddyville, I called Steve to apologize and told them I would make it up to them. I grabbed a few donuts and donut holes for later and drove over to Marion to check out the Amish Village since I was running way early. I spotted these pretty horses on the drive over…

Not seeing anything impressive at the Amish village, I  drove back to the museum and met up with the earlybirds  and a few staff members who had arrived early. I was the first one to pay my fees and sign the waiver, and get in line so to speak. By 8:30 am, people were showing up in large numbers and after paying fees and signing waivers of liability forms, we all headed out to the mines we chose to dig at.

In the parking lot, I was requested by a couple of ladies from Florida for a ride to the Eureka Mine as they didnt think their car would make it down the mine road. I moved my fire gear to the bed of the truck to make some leg room
for them in the back seat and off we went, taking a shortcut to Hwy 60 that Bill Frazier showed me once, and then drove on out to the mine from there.  We arrived at the mine in short order, parked in the field downstream, grabbed our tools, buckets, and bags, and walked
up to the pit to see how things looked now. We saw that the pit water was being pumped down to a workable level and proceeded to get down into the pit and start looking at some potential areas for pockets. As we walked around to the path to the pit, followed by Steve, April and the Florida rockhounds, and noticed a few others tagging along as well…Tina had put the word out on me I found out later. As soon as I stepped down on to the path, I started seeing cubes sticking out of the clay dirt bank all the way down and pulled a few nice smaller clusters out and handed them back up the line to the Florida gals.

Steve went to my left and started digging down into the bank below the pump near the loose gray rocks, while April and I started digging to his right about three feet…within about 20 minutes, Steve started pulling out grapefruit sized clusters with purple and yellow cubes on
them, and we knew we were in a good spot to dig. Steve showed us the level he was digging at and the depth he had dug into and we duplicated our hole and all of a sudden, April and I started pulling similar size clusters out
as well.

In the bank between us and the big dirt pile, along the creek, Marc Mueller, MAGS Field Trip Director, was walking around surface collecting all over while his wife was digging into the bank when all of a sudden she let out a whoop and called him over to take a closer look at the beginnings of a large boulder of fluorite in the bank…he stayed and helped her dig out a beach ball boulder
that prob weighed well over two hundred pounds easily. Marc decided to rig up a pulley rope between a few trees and winch it out, however the boulder ultimately
decided it didnt want to leave the pit no matter how many people tried to help Marc remove it.

Others were digging in both of the tailing piles and occasional cries of “Jackpot” could be heard from time to time throughout the day, as people came and went. April, Steve, and I, along with the Florida gals, continued to dig
and expand our pockets, and boy did the heat begin to build as we did so. At about this time, one of the Florida gals spotted an arrowhead while digging around some tree roots up above us on the banks, one which was fairly perfectly formed and just had a small notch in one of the points corners. This turned out to be one of two arrowheads found this weekend at the Eureka Mine.

I remember taking a short break around noon to get another bottle of water and stretch my legs while April continued to dig…and when I returned, she and
Steve took a break and went to rest and relax a bit. On my return with my bottle of water, I also grabbed an old t shirt and hung it over my hat and used it as a shield against the glaring sun which was beating down up on us hot and heavy. I also slathered a generous amount of pf 50 sunscreen on my arms and neck, and then returned to the hole and dug some more.

It was about this time that Steve
decided not to return to digging, instead opting to do some surface collecting and watching us from the shade where he also kept a watchful eye on us as well as the Florida gals, who were by now entrenched in a hole in the bank to our
right and as deeply entrenched as we were. They were also pulling goodies out of the mud and dirt as much as we were and once their buckets were filled, they opted to depart earlier than planned due to the heat mainly. Steve opted to take a break and  to give them a ride back to their car in the museum parking lot while April and I continued digging in the hole.

I`m so glad that I grabbed that old t shirt to shield myself from the heat, as it climbed to about 105 that day and we dug for about six hours in that heat. By the time 3 pm rolled around, we stood up and looked around and determined we were the last ones there, besides Phillip and Shirley, the mine hosts for the weekend. We decided we had dug enough for the day, loaded up our bags and went
to get our trucks to load up there at the mine. All three of us had filled three buckets each with goodies and boy were we beat. I was looking forward to a short nap and a good steak dinner that night though. We headed back to the
hotel to get cleaned up and get a short rest in before supper that night at the Oasis.

After a great steak dinner with Steve and April at the Oasis Southwest Grill, I retired early and had a great nights rest. They are a great young couple from Memphis and truly great friends as well. After both of them lost their jobs
earlier this year due to the recession, they both found new jobs, Steve became the Marketing Manager for Graceland in Memphis and April found a great job with Service Master in Memphis. I met them the first time either at the
Blackrock Arkansas pink dolomite digs or up in Missouri when Docia and I took several MAGS members to the National Forest area to look for some beautiful drusy
quartz. They are a lot of fun to work with and Steve is a workhorse with tools too. 🙂

Sunday morning rolled around and after a good nine hours of rest and after checking my emails and checking out of the hotel I headed to the Food Giant in Eddyville to get some more of the delicious donuts from Miss Neta`s Donut Shop, which is closed on Sundays. I then
headed on over to the museum and on the way spotted these cattle enjoying a nice early morning swim…

..and this pond nearby that has a lot of farm implements on he northeast side of it…

..once at the museum,  Steve, April, and I decided to go out to the Lafayette Mine this morning and check it out…we had been hearing reports all day Saturday from folks who had gone out there, of large yard rocks being found all over the place near the lake and upper piles and pretty stuff being found as well. After signing our forms, and
after talking to Fred, one of the board members of the museum, we headed out to Mexico to the Lafayette property. We quickly checked a few piles near the
entrance….

…where Phillip had suggested checking while there, and the only thing I found there, besides a few ticks, was a solid piece of yellow down in the edgeof the trees by the pile. I brought it home just in case I didnt find anything else there, which I didnt. We drove back past the lake as far as we could and walked around other piles near the roadway but never located much of anything there except a few ticks and chiggers. We opted to return to the Eureka Mine and see what else we could find before heading home.

When we drove into the parking area, we found only four cars there and as we walked up on the pit, we observed Phillip and Shirley digging in the big dirt pile and three people digging in the pit, two in the holes we created on
Saturday. I could see there was plenty of room to their right so we walked down and set up shop to the right of Mary, from Ohio, and a gentleman we didnt know, who was enlarging the hole that Steve had dug in on Saturday. Mary was working the hole April and I had been in much of Saturday.

Mary we saw, had dug six inches deeper back into the hole, and also had dug down at least two feet, finding the top of the vein that runs under the mud in the pit all the way across it. she had pulled out at least one grapefruit sized
cluster and had several smaller ones as well. When we stopped digging Saturday, we had come up against a rough layer of pitted material and Mary found that layer pretty quickly and went beyond and found some nicer stuff in behind it. Steve went back to his truck and retrieved a shovel and immediately began digging holes two feet deep for us to check out on the right side of Mary`s pocket. As soon as we heard the spade hit the bottom, we knew we were in a good spot as we were spotting crystal faces and cubes looking up at us in the light that was hitting the bottom of the hole. After Steve widened the hole for us, we
reached down and began pulling clusters out of the mud right and left. We reached down and cleaned the mud from the corners and crevices of the vein rock and soon we were pulling plates from the bottom of the vein area too. Within an hour I had filled three bags with clusters and goodies, had two plates sitting on the ledge above me and we were seeing evidence of large cubes sticking out of the back walls of the pockets.

I stood up to take a break and noted the time as 1 pm, we had been digging for two hours and so I decided to go grab two more bags and a bottle of water. When I returned, April took a break and Steve got into the original hole he worked on Saturday, the other guy having left the mine already. As soon as Steve started digging, he started finding more stuff, some of it busted up pretty badly and some of it in good condition. While April was out, I pulled three large pieces out of the hole and was working on four more when she returned. Tina`s husband had come down to relieve Phillip and Shirley for a bit and check on us, he discovered the pit water creeping up on us and pumped it back down and washed off a few of our bigger chunks for us as well.

Steve was working on a very large piece that he intended to give to his mom on their return, for her flower garden. Mary was in the process of packing her trailer and heading back and by 3 pm, we had pulled several large pieces out
with cubes on them as well as a few plates and clusters of all sizes. I was quite happy with what we had found and we divided up the big ones and packed our trucks to head back to the museum and then home. It was 3 pm and we were the last ones to leave the Eureka Mine once again. We headed back to the museum where I gave Tina a few more druse pieces for her own collection as well as the museum to sell and then we went inside to check out the rock show…I only found a few things in there that I liked and then I headed home soon after. Arrived home about 10 pm after stopping off for some more LJS and root beer. Missy was waiting on me when I arrived and after a nice dip in the hot tub, I was soon sound asleep once again in my own bed.

here are a few photos of my finds…

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