I decided to take my short day off the first weekend of July, after a long week of brush fires and a fun filled week at work, and drove down to the secret spot again to see if I could locate another pocket.  Missy and I arrived and I decided to do a little walking around to see what I could find in the rockpile first. I found a huge boulder with some pockets on it right away….

…but I didnt attempt to liberate any.

I moved around to the other side of the rock pile and looked around at some areas where the foliage was growing and decided to start digging into those areas to see if I could find another pocket. We have discovered that the foliage usually takes root in some deep pocket holes,  and they have led us to some nice pockets in the past. I started digging here first…

I started digging down by this small bush…

and within a few minutes, I had found some signs of calcite off to the side of it, so I moved over to the area of the roots….

 

…and within a few minutes of intense digging, I pulled out these two plates, which is a better sign of a pocket very closeby….

I was surprised, not expecting to find roots so thick and long, and began wishing I had brought a saw or an axe with me. These things were long and getting in my way fast. I continued to dig and expand the pocket despite the long and tough roots….

 

…after expanding the pocket around the bush roots, I started finding little ledges down underneath and then some holes started opening up as well, usually an indication of a pocket underneath the ledges….

…so I started digging out the ledges and within a few minutes, I was rewarded for my efforts with this beautiful poker chip….

…after taking a short water break, I began the task of taking on the roots once again….

…and boy were they tough….couldnt even bend them to move them out of my way…

…I soon got tired of fighting these roots and so I moved to my left about five or six feet and discovered yet another pocket area and began working it…no bushes or roots to deal with there…and within about thirty minutes of digging it out, I had a nice pile of crystals….

…this pocket started on the left side, where I hit the calcite base pretty quickly and then it moved to the right where it went deeper….most of the crystals in the pile above came from the deeper end of the pocket…

…and I was pulling a variety of plates and crystals from it….

…and pretty soon I was wore out and ready to wrap up everything and head for home…it was hot and I was soaked in sweat and dirt……think those roots prob wore me out more than anything.  As I headed home, I began to see storm clouds forming to the north near the interstate and I sure hoped we would get some more rain soon after….

…and here is the storm moving east along the north side of the interstate as I am driving home…it did rain about 30 minutes later and we received about half an inch of rainfall. it was a welcome relief, but we definitely need more, as does most of the country. I have never seen a drought like this before. I sure hope we all get some good rainfall soon and a break from this excessive heat spell, too.