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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

 

…and…..

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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