I rearranged my schedule twice this weekend and drove back down to the secret spot early Saturday morning…they were calling for a high of 106, so Missy and I got up at 4 am and were on the road forty five minutes later. Docia wouldnt be able to make it down, she had a memorial service to go to for an aunt, so it would just be Missy and I this trip down. I hoped for a good five hours to work that pocket over some more after Tuesday evening. We arrived just after 6 am and got started on the north end of the pocket…..

…within a few minutes, I hit a shallow pocket, that contained a few single chips with a black center, and then a twin with black colored centers popped out as well….

..the pocket stayed shallow and didn`t go very far, trapped between two larger pockets as it were….

…and produced these guys…..

…after a few minutes, it didnt appear to me that the pocket was going anywhere on the north end, so I switched to the south end and began digging once again and pretty soon it appeared that I had chosen the right path….

…pretty soon I started seeing crystals and holes again started appearing…this time I decided I wasnt going to get my hopes up…if a hole led to something bigger and better, so be it, but if now, oh well….

…one thing was for sure, I was finding some plates and chunks of a pretty orange colored bubbly druse…..

…and within a few minutes, the pocket was expanding and filled with poker chip crystals nestled in the clay mix of dirt and mud, just like the day before….

…I was pulling them out of the pockets right and left, until all that was left were bigger ones, some attached to the side walls and some loose but in the sticky clay mud…..

…after a few more minutes of digging out the crystals and chipping out a few of the larger ones attached to the sidewalls, I found a large chunk right in the middle of two pockets…it had some chips attached to the base of it, but I wasnt sure if it was going to lead to something else or was an end to the pocket….

…I grabbed ahold of it and found it to be a bit loose, so I dug around the back side of it, which was no easy task let me tell you…that dirt on top attached at the back was like concrete, due to the dry heat we have been experiencing lately. After ripping it back and away though, it was looking like I might be able to move this huge chunk out of there soon…..

…I grabbed it again and this time it came right out…I turned it over and was like….HOLIE COW !!!!!

…a very happy guy….and was beginning to think it was Christmas in June, lol….removing this druse combo opened up another nice pocket of crystals behind it….

…which at first appeared to me as an endwall of the pocket, but the next plate I pulled out, changed my mind again…..

…and closer up….

…and then I took a short break, got some water, and chipped this twin with a base to it out…..

…pretty soon though, it was apparent that I was nearing the end of the pocket, plus I was getting tired, and the heat level was rising. I took another short break and got another bottle of water, and put Missy in the truck and turned the ac on…it wasnt going to be long before I would be joining her so I wanted it nice and cool when I got in there.

I came back and dug a little more and finally hit the end wall and removed what I could…I was fast running out of steam and the humidity just kept climbing….it was sapping my strength quickly…

…I returned to my truck and retrieved another two bags full of cloth wraps and returned and wrapped as many of the nicer ones and then filled two bags full of poker chip single crystals alone….here is what the pocket looked like after I finished digging…from three feet long at the start to now over nine feet long….

…and after wrapping up the goodies, I took one last look around and saw this spot, with a big weedy looking shrub growing up out of it and dug down a little ways…wanted to see how deep the roots went for one thing, not very far I found out but did find some signs of calcite down below…so maybe a good spot to explore further the next time….…sure hope its cooler by then…luckily we did get a spotty shower this evening and about twenty minutes of rainfall, but it didnt rain many other places….hope everyone is staying cool and hydrated out there this summer. As soon as I get some cleaned up from yesterday`s dig, I`ll post some more photos.