Four Hours On a Sledgehammer

Missy and I drove down to the secret spot again yesterday, intending to meet up with Docia and find some more pockets of poker chips. I took the night off from work and we arrived about 1 pm and started out with a little sunshine up on the sand dunes looking for druse plates. The temps were climbing out of the seventies to the eighties so I let Missy loose for a bit while it was still breezy and somewhat cool, figuring it might heat up and she would then have to remain in the truck`s air conditioning later. I started out checking the normal areas first…waiting for Docia to arrive…and with the help of the sunshine, started seeing druse plates eroding out of the clay bank all over the place. I knew the one bag I had grabbed out of the truck wasnt going to be enough so went back to the truck to get two more and my camera. I changed into my boots as well and then snapped a few photos…this one of a nice druse plate sticking out of the sand which quickly caught my eye….

..and as you can see, it looked to be about the size and shape of a large dinner plate…however…as I started brushing it off and trying to pull it out, I quickly discovered to my amazement, that it was much more than a druse plate…here is the hole I dug it out of…

…and I had to twist it to remove it from the tangle of the shrub roots it was embedded in……and here it is as it looked after I removed it….

…you can still see the druse plate on the end that I originally saw, as well as a lot more there…and here is the other side of it…

..big bubbles of druse on the other side…quite a find and promptly loaded into the bed of my truck. 🙂

I looked around and didn`t find any twins of it, but did find some nice smaller plates nearby…

..and all in all, filled two bags and loaded several good sized druse chunks in the bed of the truck…getting ready to go outside now and clean them up and will take a few more photos to add to my story here…

Missy and I then drove down to the lower spot and along the way saw some very pretty flowers…

…and just below that, I was thinking I should have my camera in my hands as we drove slowly through the wooded area and sure enough, we came around the corner and a beautiful doe jumped gracefully across the roadway and I missed it….we got on down to the lower spot where Docia and I had worked on some pockets last week…

…and this time, armed with a bigger and consequently, heavier sledge hammer, I opened up the pocket Docia worked on, a little more….

..to where you could see more of what was actually inside it…

…this mass of crystals as well as the next mass shown deeper inside the pocket….

…are still there…a solid mass connected top and bottom to the pocket walls and other crystals…and a massive amount of rock on top to remove to even attempt removal of them.

I then walked around to the other side of the pile to where I had started working on an opening in the massive rock face last week, and with the heavier sledge, I opened up the small opening to one I could stick my hand inside and feel around…

…just enough to get my hand inside…

..and after removing the rock above and on the left side of this photo above, I was able to reach inside and remove this nice plate of druse with a cute little poker chip attached….

and here it is now after removing that rock…

…I worked on removing the rock to the upper left side and found yet another pocket….

…and then one to the left as I was scraping away excess rock and dirt…and the first thing I pulled out of the upper pocket shown above, was the following dogtooth crystal…

…and here is the pocket more close up, the new upper pocket that is…

..along with two bags worth of goodies extracted from all three of the pockets and two plates I was able to pry up from underneath them…and here is the aftermath of that work….

…just got in from cleaning up the druse covered with clay…here are the results…starting with that plate that turned into a big chunk…what a stunner !!