I meant to have this story posted by Sunday night, but a bee interrupted my plans and stung me instead….I didnt feel the sting, which is unusual for me as bees and wasps normally get me pretty good, but I hadnt sat down at my computer to work on the story for ten minutes til I def felt the symptoms coming on…at first I figured I was imagining things, since I hadnt felt any sting nor had I been stung in about ten years….so when my hands started tingling and the light itching sensations came on, I started thinking maybe I had ate something that I was allergic to…but no, I hadnt ate anything for hours, so knew it couldnt be that….then when my throat started swelling and my airway tightening up, I knew it had to be an insect sting….and started looking for one, and found one shortly thereafter on my chest. It didnt have the telltale signs of a major sting, so I grabbed one of my allergy pills and within a few minutes, my throat muscles started relaxing and the itching started to ease up as well. I called Dr. Mom as well and she suggested I put some rubbing alchol on the sting wound and then take a zyrtec….this was around 9 pm Sunday evening and by 9:30 pm, the zrytec was making me sooooo drowsy that all I wanted to do was climb into bed and go to sleep…so thats what I did folks and it was 8 am Monday morning before I woke back up. All day Monday, I was groggy from the sting effects so I just basically rested up and didnt do much til it was time to go to work that evening.

Missy and I got up early, 3:30 am and got on the road by 4 am, headed south to Eminence to meet up with Docia and her grandson, David, who I hadnt seen for a couple of years, as he lives in Alabama and only comes up to visit with them occasionally. David enjoys rockhunting though so we were looking forward to seeing him once again. We took our normal route, down Hwy 19 and 49 to Viburnum, and then down Hwy KK and TT, 72, and then B to 106 and back west to Eminence. These roads are all well maintained and lots straighter and less hilly than Hwy 19, and actually twenty miles less traveling than if I took the traditional route through Rolla and Salem.  We were about twenty miles down Hwy B, when I came around a corner and a full size deer jumped out in front of me, luckily I wasnt going real fast and was able to slow down enough to let her get on across in front of me in about three leaps…she sure was pretty, her color a reddish brown, and we continued on down the road. We arrived at the quarry about ten minutes ahead of David and Docia, and I went ahead and changed to my boots and then started digging in the hillside where I had dug the previous pockets out…

 

…some stuff had been pushed down from above to the ground floor on the other side, so we would have another pile to check out for goodies later on…..

…as it was, Docia spotted a pocket of poker chips near that pile and told me about it later on, and so I checked it out when the pockets on the hillside played out. On their arrival, I gave Docia the gift that Steven and April Gibbs, of MAGS in Memphis, had given to me at Marion, Kentucky, a few weeks back and asked me to convey to her. She opened it up and found a beautiful wire wrapped druse quartz necklace that they had made special for her. She was very happy let me tell ya.

She and David started digging near me on the hillside and quickly began finding pockets of dolomite druse as I had been finding just prior to their arrival. We found several of those pockets, but only very shallow pockets of the poker chips, even though we pretty much covered that entire hillside and twenty feet in both directions as well.

Docia took a walk around the walls and came back about an hour later with some bags of goodies, but was having problems with her blood pressure and so they left soon after about mid morning. Prior to leaving she told me about a section of the wall that looked like an apparent pocket of poker chips. I worked the wall for pockets  near the hillside for another thirty minutes and then drove over to check out this possible wall pocket. I parked in the shade of the wall and left Missy inside with the ac on full blast, since by now the temps outside were about 92 degrees and still warming up.

I grabbed a couple of bags and my mini mattox and walked over to the short wall and after scanning it a few minutes, noticed several poker chips attached to a matrix and began working a few loose from the matrix with the mattox tool. I had some white cloths in the bags and pulled them out and laid these poker chips on the cloths. Pretty soon I had a bag full of chips and some nice dolomite druse plates as well, and it looked like a pocket was opening up to the right of the main pocket I was working on, and behind one of the large chunks I was working on, so I took a break, and went back to get another bag and my four pound hammer and chisels, as it looked like I was going to have to pop a few of the bigger chunks out. After taking a big drink of water, I came back and popped a couple of the larger chunks of poker chips in matrix out of the wall…. 

then chiseled one out to the right, and sure enough, it looked like another pocket of chips was located behind the chunk of matrix to the right of the first pocket, as seen below……

…and closer up as seen below…..

..its kinda funny when I think back now to what I had first found in the first pocket, compared to what I was about to find in this second pocket and then the next pocket behind it as well…there was no comparison…the photo below shows some of the first material from the first pocket, and it doesnt even compare to the photo above….

…and below is one of the chunks I popped from the wall, to get to this second pocket, and you can see it is chock full of gray colored and some green colored, poker chips….very nice after washed off….

and a side view of it as well…..

…and while there was some dolomite druse in this pocket with the poker chips. alot of the poker chips I pulled out were in a brown dolomite matrix mainly, but still quite pretty.  I worked this pocket and then a third pocket opened up behind the second one, and I started pullign crystal clusters out right and left…..until utter exhaustion set in and I just couldnt do anymore. I took a short break, got some more water, and then I spent thirty minutes to wrap and bag all the clusters and chunks,  and we were soon on the way home by a little after noon.

All in all, I filled five bags alone from this one pocket and had about fifteen bigger chunks from it as well as some found on the floor below the pocket that had rolled loose from the wall in colors of green, gray, and black, and a few chocolate browns. I`ll get some extra photos of them posted tomorrow. Here is what the pocket looked like after I ran out of steam…..

 

On the way home, on the short stretch of Hwy 72, we spotted a beautiful eagle gliding toward us about a hundred feet up or less. I dont always get to see eagles….we seem to see alot of buzzards and chickenhawks….. he sure was pretty and a sight to behold….. they just look so majestic to me when I see them gliding along like that. I still wish I had stopped and tried to get the camera on him.  I know where he roosted, so maybe the next time I`m down that way I can spot him again, and photograph him.

Here are a few more photos of the nice poker chips I found nestled in matrix or dolomite druse down there….