As usual, I was going to have to work Memorial Day Weekend this year in dispatch…not sure who makes up the calendar every year, but it never seems to fall on my weekend off. Docia had emailed to let me know that Mike and Chrissy Streeter, and Opal, were driving over to Oklahoma and planned to stop and visit with us a couple of days over the weekend. I was able to move my work schedule around and take advantage of some comp time to do some collecting with them, and Floyd was home as well. It was slated to be a very hot weekend though, weather wise, so I allotted some extra recoup time as well. High temps and over exertion work against me all the time, specially when I get around good pockets of poker chips.

I comped out of work early Sunday morning and was able to get a few hours rest before Missy and I drove down to the secret spot. For some reason I thought it started getting light about 6:30 am, but as it turned out, it was light around 5:30 am. We got on the road a little earlier and driving down through the Huzzah valley I snapped this sunrise photo….

…we arrived to a beautiful cool morning and the light clouds in the sky indicated a nice day ahead with temps in the mid eighties….a perfect day to collect and dig for crystals….

Docia, Floyd, Mike, Chrissy, and Opal, werent due to arrive til about 8 am, so I had a couple of hours to expand the waterhole pocket and see if I could find another way into the hollow dome of rock before they got there. I started by draining the big waterhole again and then bailed water from the pocket too….

…looking into the bottom of the hole, I could see more crystals around the edge and the top side in the photo above…I hadnt noticed those a few days before, probably because my light was fading fast when I worked it then….

…so I started working the pocket to the top side and to the right side and started pulling crystal after crystal out of the muck…I pulled this beautiful combo plate out soon after….

…I tried to work back toward where I was sitting as well, having found alot of calcite potential, and a few crystals in the loose muck under my feet, but the water from the waterhole started trying to rush in and I couldnt dam it up fast enough, so I mainly concentrated on expanding the original pocket as much as I could.

At 8 o`clock sharp, Docia and Floyd came driving down the hillside, followed by Mike, Chrissy, and Opal, and pretty soon Missy had a companion to visit with as well….

…within a few minutes, they all split up and went in different directions, Chrissy and Docia exploring pockets along the walls, Mike started checking out some of our older pockets in the floor….

…and Floyd went up above to look for druse plates….

…after a couple of hours went by, it started heating up, for those of us out in the sun, and I looked over and saw that Mike and Chrissy came prepared, bringing their beach umbrella with them….

…the heat really took its toll on Opal and Missy though…they got to where they wanted to stand in the waterholes and stay there. Floyd and the gals found some great plates of druse soda straws up on the hill, filling several bags full of them, Docia showed me a few that were rainbow colored even. Mike found some new pockets in the old pockets we had worked earlier in the year there….

and liberated this beautiful poker chip twin in one of the pockets, it even had dogtooth points in each chip….

..in the meantime, I was wearing down after digging out several areas looking for more pockets…I hadnt found any and the effort combined with the heat was wearing me down fast, plus I still had to get a nap in and return to work that evening again….I was just about to wrap it up when I found a pocket in the top of the dome of rock near my truck….

…I looked down and could see crystals inside, so I retrieved my four pound hammer and chisels from the truck and started hammering with what strength I had left, which was very little by now, and liberated a few crystals and plates, including this dusty twin and a few singles…

 

…one of the first things I pulled out was a crystal with a small wasp nest attached to it, and I no sooner set it down in the gravel than a wasp came crawling out of the hole looking for his nest I guess…since I`m highly allergic to their stings, I wasted no time in picking up the hammer and smushing him….figured he might be a bit upset with me robbing him of his home.  Soon afterward, I picked up and wrapped up and then packed up and headed home to get some rest before work that evening.  We made plans to meet up at Eminence Quarry the next morning, on Memorial Day, my day off.

Here are photos of the twin crystal and the nice combo plate all cleaned up.