My Mom decided back in the fall that she wanted to celebrate her ten year remission from cancer, in a warm and sunny location during the winter this year, and when my sister told her that she and Brad and my nephew and nieces were planning a trip to Orlando during spring break, Mom decided that would be the perfect time and place to go as well. When she asked me to go with them, I decided it would be a great opportunity to do some rock and mineral collecting and since I would be driving down a few days ahead of them, some photo shoots as well. With the problems everyone was having getting through the airline security lines and anticipating taking my rockhounding tools with me, knowing what problems it would create, I opted to drive down instead. One night at work, I figured out the mileage roundtrip, and figured out my fuel consumption would average out to the same cost as airline tickets round trip. So I planned my vacation the week before my Kentucky Mine Dig weekends, taking off eight days for the trip. Monday the 14th, we woke up to five inches of snow on the ground and I sure hoped this wasnt going to be a treacherous drive down, but my prayers were answered the next morning when Missy and I left town mid morning to a cool but sunny day. After a long day on the road, we arrived in Atlanta where we stayed an extra day with good friends Tad Boomer and his partner Roger. After a little small talk, we were soon asleep in the basement guest room.
The next morning Missy and I slept in a bit, visited with Tad and checked my emails, and then Missy and I headed over to Watkinsville, to visit with a new rock and mineral dealer friend, Chet Karwoski, who I had been talking to for about a year regarding the Diamond Hill Mine, and skeletal quartz specimens. Up to recent times, Chet had owned and operated the mine, only recently selling the mine to a friend of his, and we had discussed possibly trading some crystals, so I brought some poker chips and druse quartz down for him. We had agreed to meet mid afternoon and about 3 pm Missy and I arrived at his beautiful rural home and visited with him and his wife Gail, who is an author of childrens books. We talked about various mines and minerals and crystals a while before getting into the actual show and tell and trade. Chet has some gorgeous large specimens of skeletal quartz in his front yard, four of them shown below that required a small crane to place into position in his yard….
..this one a very pretty specimen with both the iron oxice stained orange crystals and the black manganese coating on the crystals…
…we traded for some smaller crystals, most of them the pretty skeletal quartz, but I also selected a few of the amethyst and smokey quartz crystals too. Here are a few of my trades…
Diamond Hill Mine is a neat mine with a huge tailing pile area to dig through that produces some very beautiful smokey quartz and amethyst crystals and huge plates and chunks, like those pictured above, of skeletal quartz. Its located about two hours north of Atlanta near Abbeville, South Carolina. Since I didnt have enough time this trip and since it had rained recently with the mud making it nearly impossible to dig there, I decided I would come back in the fall season instead. The next day we continued on down to Florida for a few days of fun and relaxation, photo shoots, and family time…for the rest of that story, check out my other blog site http://jwjphotoblog.com