California Jade Again

Posted on October 10, 2014 by jwj

A couple of weeks ago I took my Mom to central California to see her older sister Shirley, who lives in the Stockton area, and several relatives who live in and around that area. My cousin Marilyn, who lives in Oklahoma City with her family, set up the trip and made arrangements for us all to get together and visit in the Monterey area, and the timing was perfect as it was Aunt Shirley`s birthday as well. My Dad didn`t feel like going, so he stayed and kept Missy for me, since they are buddies too. Mom and I got up very early on Thursday morning, Sept 18th, and drove up to Lambert Airport in St Louis. We got through security fine and boarded our Southwest Airlines flight soon after for our five hour flight to Oakland.

My allergies were out of whack again that morning, so the zirtec I took shortly before boarding, enabled me to take a nice four hour nap on the flight…the only things I missed out on were the choice of peanuts or pretzels, and something to drink. I didn`t fall asleep til we were out over Colorado though, and looking out the window, I could see some beautiful fall color aspens way below in the valleys of the mountain ranges we were passing over at six hundred mph…sure was pretty down there…I thought of my buddy Ian as we flew over, too. We landed briefly at LAX in Los Angeles, long enough to let a few folks off and take a few more on…I wish I had my camera in my hands when we took off, cause the pilot took off out over the water and then turned the plane sharply right and presented us a neat view of the coastline and beaches, with bright blue waves below, before heading up the valley to Oakland. We landed there less than an hour later and after picking up our luggage, made our way to Enterprise to get our rental suv…all of the rental car companies are in a different building a few miles away and they provide shuttle busses to take you there from the airport…what they don`t tell you is that when the busses pull into the loading zone, they have to let several folks off that have returned their vehicles to the rental agency and are then on their way to the airport with their luggage to catch their flight…then you can get on the bus, but at least they do provide assistance with your luggage via the bus driver and a luggage handler as well. It`s just too bad that the rental car companies are not closer to the airport complex…once there though, Enterprise did whisk us through the process pretty quickly and our salesman helped us find a nice suv quickly as well. Even though they didn`t have a nice Chevy Colorado truck like mine, they did have a nice roomy Chevy Traverse Suv that was quite nice to drive as well.

We found out soon after leaving the rental complex, that it had good brakes and a loud horn….we found out that there are similar drivers out there, like here, that don`t pay attention to stoplights nor drivers in front of them. I`m a guy that likes to drive the posted speed limits, and I don`t like to sit any longer through a traffic light than I have to, especially after it turns green and the moron in front of me continues to sit there…that`s when we found out that the horn is quite loud and gets some attention. We found out about the brakes when we came up on the congestion on I-680 at the base of the foothills…about a quarter mile in front of us, another suv was prob following a pickup truck too closely and for whatever reason, did not notice the traffic slowdown…obviously not paying attention since all four lanes were slowing down at the same time and there were brake lights coming on all over the place up ahead. The suv driver struck the rear of the pick up in front of us and I hit the brakes hard and it never did lockup, nor slide, but there was a driver behind me and in the very inside lane who did come across three lanes behind me very close to my rear bumper and barely missed us…I had to watch him and keep an eye on the accident vehicles in front of me pretty much at the same time, but luckily we were able to avoid both and go on. The other thing we noticed was the extremely dry conditions…the fields, grasses, trees, were all very brown and droughty looking…one match or cigarette out the windows of a car would have been started a wildfire that would have raced up those foothills like a racecar…unstoppable without water.

Soon after, we arrived in Stockton and arrived at our hotel, Residence Inn, where we also stayed at when there in 2010 for a family reunion, and we no sooner checked in than we found Aunt Shirley and some family waiting there for us…they wanted to go on up and see the cemetery where Aunt Clara, their oldest sister was buried last year, as well as her husband Uncle Bob and Aunt Shirley`s husband, Uncle Neal, who all passed within the last year. I opted to stay at the hotel and take a nap, as we still had Aunt Shirley`s birthday party later that evening at a nearby restaurant. I was sound asleep within thirty seconds of my head touching the pillow, awake just long enough to thank God for a safe trip out there.

Mom returned about two hours later and we headed down to the restaurant a few blocks away for supper with our relatives that live out there, as well as Marilyn and her uncle Brian, her Dad`s brother. After a bit of visiting with everyone, we all sat down and ordered supper and then visited some more while waiting for the food to arrive. One of my cousins likes to go rock hunting and so we talked quite a bit…I hadn`t seen several of them for at least four years, so we had a good time catching up and good food as well. The next morning, Mom and I drove over to my cousin Karen`s house, just down the road from the hotel, where Marilyn and Brian were staying…Karen was cooking hot cakes, eggs, and bacon, smelled and looked really good, but Mom and I had a good breakfast at the hotel before checking out. After a ninety minute visit, Mom and I decided to head toward Monterey, mainly because we planned to drive down to Willow Creek Beach and do some beachcombing for jade there…as we were preparing to leave, Brian came running with his bag, wanting to go down there early with us…he was ready to get out of there. He was good company on the ride down there and we made pretty good time going across both the I-5 valley and San Benito Valley, where many of the vegetables and fruits are grown year round. I had observed alot of deer along the highways four years before, but we never saw one driving across there on this trip…we saw many migrant workers in the SB Valley picking crops…there were many fields of cabbage, lettuce, beans…those are just a few of what we noticed as we drove across there. We hit some congestion when we finally reached Highway 101, two lanes almost became a parking lot a few times across there. We finally reached the Monterey area and hit Highway 1, and started south toward Willow Creek Beach…hitting three lanes of congestion on the Carmel stretch and stopped off at a gas station to fuel up the Traverse before heading south…gas there was 3.85 a gallon…later in Monterey, we would find stations with gas forty cents a gallon cheaper. We started on down the coastline, finding some beautiful views here and there, and some fog that had rolled in from the water as well as pretty bridges and homes perched right above the rugged beaches….

…we finally made it down to Willow Creek Beach…we had considered going to Sand Dollar Beach as well, but there was a pretty big crowd in the parking lot when we passed by it, and the trail down to Jade Cove beach is just way too strenuous to get down to and then back up. I had been talking to a regular jade hunter named Irish, who frequents the beaches in search of jade by surface collections each day, and he had told me that the divers were having a bad year and the beachcombers were doing well this year, especially at Willow Creek and Sand Dollar beaches….the advantage of Willow Creek beach is that you can drive down and park very close to the beach itself. As we drove down the road to the beach, I looked for Irish`s truck, but didn`t see it. While there isn`t much sand at Willow Creek Beach, there are a lot of rocks, many of them green and black, and jade there is found in several different colors, including red, blue, green, black, brown, and pumpkin orange…

…it was a little cool down there for the middle of the afternoon, but nice and sunny as well, and we had about two hours to look around before we had to head back…I was impressed with the beautiful water and scenery there. About every other rock was green or black, and knowing both colors were potentially jade, it made our search a little more difficult, but we were mainly looking for a smooth or translucent green jade color and I was sure we would not find many if any at all. I was using my zoom lens looking to the north along the beach, as a couple of guys had walked past us and up along the beach in that direction and I noticed that some of the larger rocks up there also had green in them as well…

…it turned out they were looking for jade as well… as they walked up there, I spotted a beautiful young lady in a black bikini walking around the beach looking for jade up there as well….

Brian and Mom and I spread out and began earnestly looking for something that resembled jade in the sea of boulders all over the beach…Brian started looking near the creek where it came under the bridge and down by the parking lot, before going underground under the sand and coming out in the boulder field before running into the ocean…. these photos should give you an idea of what we were looking at….this is a close up of some pebbles, one is brown mottled…

…and there was kelp laying all over the rocks, piled up in places….

Irish had said that the best place to look would be down by the waves coming in…we had arrived about 3 pm and that was low tide but you have to watch for the rogue waves coming in, no matter what time you are there….

…and here is Brian with my Mom a few minutes later along the beach…

…and then a few minutes later, Brian found a pretty good sized small boulder of what appeared to be jade or serpentine….

We drove back toward Monterey to find and check into our hotel, the Seabreeze Inn and Suites on Lighthouse Blvd in Pacific Grove…and stopped on the north side of the Bixby Bridge on the way back cause when I looked in the mirror, there was the bridge in a bright spot surrounded by the fog rolling back in and it looked like a postcard….

…we arrived at the Seaside just ahead of our relatives and checked into our suite as well……our suite is on the right, there in front of our silver Traverse….

.After lunch on Saturday at the Wharf, where we met up with my cousins Caroline and John, we all returned to the hotel so they could check in for the night. Soon after, John, Caroline, Curtis, and I headed down to Willow Creek Beach to see if we could find some jade. On the way down there, we passed under this huge short tunnel, that was beautifully designed and built, to prevent rockslides from damaging the highway and possibly injuring or killing anyone in the process….

the stonework was phenomenal and beautiful as well as the architectural design work of it…I wish I had stopped inside to shoot it as well, but it`s a rare thing on that highway that you don`t have someone behind you at all times. Soon after, we arrived at the beach and I photographed Caroline, John and Curtis looking for jade….

…and while they were busy looking for jade in the boulders, I got to meet Annie, who is Irish`s girlfriend, who was hunting on the beach to the north of us the day before…..

…Hank was there again and introduced me to her, she told me that Irish was visiting with his Dad for his birthday and would return the next day, but as I told Annie, I might not make it back then. We talked a bit and then I went up and purchased a couple of wire wrapped pendants from Hank with jade, that he had found and wrapped himself. I purchased one for my cousin Marilyn and the other for myself. I then walked back down to where they were at and let them know if they struck out in their search, that Hank had some beautiful stuff in his van that he had found, for sale, and also some nice wire wrapped pendants. They walked up to check out his jade stones and there were a couple of guys there shopping as well…Caroline couldn`t decide on any pendants so she bought a few small stones from him instead. Sunday was a sightseeing day only, we didn`t return to the beaches for jade and Monday we headed home. I left my small boulders with John and Caroline, who are planning to come out here next month and go rock hunting with me locally, and will bring them to me then.

If anyone needs any travel information regarding this location, email me at jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Holie Cow Pocket at New Secret Spot

Posted on September 8, 2014 by jwj

Wow what a weekend it turned out to be…great weather, much cooler…temps down in the upper 70`s and lows in the fifties, nice break from the high 90`s and humidity last week. I got an email from a mineral dealer friend that was going to be driving up to the Denver Show this weekend and wanted to stop by and see what I had that he might be able to purchase from me. He said he would be by on Saturday afternoon after stopping off in central south Missouri to see a good friend of mine who is also a mineral dealer of Viburnum Trend minerals. Knowing he wouldn`t arrive here til at least mid afternoon, I decided to drive down to the new secret spot and see if I could find some more dogtooth crystals. I always pray for a safe drive and also asked for less horseflies and a few dogtooth crystals as well this time…I believe in the power of prayer and let me just say that my prayers were heard and answered.

Missy and I woke up early and got on the road in the cool predawn darkness, arriving about 7:30 am to a cloudy but cool day. I had on a long sleeve shirt that felt pretty good til I started working along the north facing wall….

and within an hour, I had found a small pocket of poker chips and druse combos…the top three in this photo are the first ones I dug out of the initial pocket in the wall….

…and after pulling those three out, the pocket basically just closed off to me…so I began looking to the right and above and below…and finally to the left side a few feet, I struck paydirt once again…pulling some brown dogtooth poker chips out of some loose sandy matrix….

…so I began digging around in that area and soon located an opening, that continued to grow and expand til I had a pretty large opening in the wall. In the next photo you see the initial pocket above the bag and the new pocket to the left about seven feet, just to the left of my green mattox handle….

I was initially pulling out some brown dogtooth crystals, so I knocked out some of the rock above the opening and took out the sides abit more, and looked inside….

…and the first thought was HOLIE COW…another big pocket….and immediately thought back to the time my good buddy Ian Merkel was here visiting…I had found a pocket that day at the secret spot quarry, similar to this one, except that in that one, there was a huge pocket inside and above my head and everytime you jostled a rock inside, crystals would come falling down like a big slot machine…and after I had cleaned it out as much as I wanted, I turned it over to Ian…later looking back to find him with his head and shoulders in the pocket, digging it out even more…however, this pocket contained alot more than that one had and in even bigger form….little did I know at that point what lay ahead….I started reaching in and pulling out several singles right off the bat…

and then found out that there were some big clusters buried upside down in the mix like this one….a real sweet one….

…so I would carefully pull them out, a few of them with the tips already chipped off, likely from either the blast damage, or resulting from the fall from above to their current position upside down in the mix and broken off from impact. Once I had several pulled out and lined up on the ledges of the wall where I could place them, I would pick up the better ones and carry them to my truck tailgate. This would enable me to take a water bottle break as well…and once I had the tailgate lined with them, about an hour later, I stopped to take some photos of the clusters on the tailgate….I set my mini flashlight down by them to give an idea of size reference….

…and then I proceeded to carefully continue to pull them out of the pocket…eventually having to stop and expand the pocket a bit more in order to be able to reach in and bring them out without bumping the host rock in the process….

and when you look at the expansion photos above, you`ll notice a dark area at the top…that pile of rocks in front of it, consists of several medium sized clusters laying upside down with dogtooths all over the place on them…once I had carefully picked each one up and removed it from the pocket, after cleaning out all of the crystals from in front of the pile of upside down clusters first…then that dark space opened up into the back of the pocket, filled on the bottom floor with even more single crystals and small clusters….even more WOWs and HOLIE COWS coming from me by mouth and thoughts….I had planned to only be there a few hours, intending to get back in time to clean up and get a nap in before the mineral dealer friend arrived, so about an hour later, I had pulled all I could remove from the pocket, and took a water break, and then wrapped up what I had and filled five bags full of wrapped crystals, with all of those you saw on the tailgate, wrapped separately and placed in my floorboards of my truck. Here are the rest of the crystals I removed, after a good rinse at my house later in the day….

and some pretty druse pieces…..

…the next day, I decided to return and clean out the pocket if possible…when I had left Saturday afternoon, the opening pocket was fairly cleaned out but I suspected there was more in the very back, which was a pretty good reach for me…and there was a turn to the right that I could not reach as well. Once there, I decided to knock out some of the rock on the right side that impeded my reach and once I had that out, I was able to reach in pretty good…but I had to hold my flashlight in my left hand and still couldnt reach in with both hands, so I then widened the opening some more so that I could get my upper body inside and then more freely grab crystals and pull them to the area just inside the opening. I laid down a few empty bags to make things easier on me and then proceeded to empty that pocket out as much as I could…

…I worked it the same way I had the day before, pulling out several and setting them on the ledges til I had the ledges full, then carrying the bigger ones to the truck tailgate and wrapping up the smaller ones and bagging them. here is what the tailgate looked like once I had it full again….

…and after three hours, I had it all cleaned out…after removing the rock on the right side, I was able to get inside and pull more clusters out that were buried in the ground floor rubble, while holding the flashlight to see by….and there was a pocket that opened up to the left from the pocket on the right side, so in all, there were actually three pockets within….I`ll leave you with some closeups of the finds yesterday….

…one of the best pockets I have found there….all in all a good weekend too. 🙂

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Horsefly Weekend

Posted on September 4, 2014 by jwj

Nearly two weeks ago I drove back down to MFQ, after getting word that there was a little bit of new activity. Missy and I arrived about 6:30 am and it was just getting good and light on a cloudy morning…by the time I had my boots laced up and grabbed my gloves, mini mattox, and bags, I was able to see pretty good. I found a small pile of new material to climb up and around on and while I found a few shallow pockets along the wall, as I started down the steep, short pile, I discovered a few crystals teetering on the edge of the wall and was able to pop them out without too much trouble. By this time the sun had made an appearance and yet we still had some good shade to work in. It was due to be a scorcher temp wise by noon, so after filling half a bag with the crystals from the shallow pockets, I decided to move on down to the other wall and see if I could locate anything there. I loaded up everything, including Missy`s water bowl and Missy, and drove to the east side of the quarry floor.

Once there, I found that the gravel pile with the graded driveway up to the bench, was actually a short bench with the pile camouflaging it on three sides. The drilling rig had been up on it and holes drilled into the short walls, so I decided to stay on the ground floor and see what I could find. I was walking around the edge of the short walls and finding shallow druse pockets once again, when I dropped a nice druse piece…as I bent down to pick it up, I noticed a nice black crystal sticking out of the dirt at my feet. I reached down and pulled out a beautiful palm sized cluster of dogtooth crystals in a chocolate brown color mixed with black calcite druse. I wasted no time in kneeling down and pulling out several more, enough to wrap up and fill one bag. I returned to the truck for two more bags full of wrapping cloths and a bottle of water. Within two hours, I had filled both of those bags and was quite happy with what I had found. It was really starting to get hot by this time, so I took yet another water bottle break, loading Missy into the truck and turning on the ac for her, and then decided to check out one other place along the wall.

Within a few minutes, I had found yet another pocket, this time in an older section of the wall further east. Out of this pocket, I found two more druse pockets and filled one more bag before giving in to the heat. By this time, I was drenched and my shirt felt more like canvas. We headed home and rested up the remainder of the hot weekend. I cleaned those crystals up this week and filled at least five flats full of some beautiful clusters of poker chips and druse, many with dogtooth crystals.

I received another call last Thursday and advised that more activity occurred at the quarry, this time on the east wall…I was excited to return and see what could be found, but at the same time, had been having thoughts of returning to see if more of those clusters with dogtooths could be found near the other pockets…guess that will have to wait til the newest pile is cleaned up some more. I took off Sunday, the 31st, and comped out of work about 4 am…drove home and picked up Missy, changing into rockhunting jeans and grabbed half a case of water, and then headed out. We arrived about 8 am and found a nice sized pile on the east side of the quarry floor waiting for us. After getting my boots laced up, I grabbed a mini mattox and climbed up on the rock pile to see if anything obvious stood out…it was a cloudy morning to start and really didn`t look like I was going to have any sunlight for quite some time that morning…that was fine with me, cause the cool temps were just perfect. As I walked around on top, I started spotting a few crystals here and there, and then on the way down to the truck to retrieve a bag, I came upon a nice pocket of druse, some of it with poker chips attached and even a few dogtooths. I was able to dig down and liberate a full bag of them, then checked along the wall and found some more nice druse pieces in a chocolate color that shined even in the muted light. I returned that bag to the truck and the sun started to pop out of the clouds about that time…in addition to the heat with the sunlight, several horseflies also showed up and started to annoy me. I don`t mind, and can actually tolerate flies, flying around me and buzzing me and landing on me to check me out, but let me tell you, when they start biting me, they are going to pay the price Karma is, after all, a b…..ear. 🙂

By the time I left, I believe I had killed at least ten of them…now I know how horses feel when they are getting buzzed by them…they can sure bite and leave a welp on ya….not fun at all. I seriously wonder what good they are to mankind.

Well I have to say, I filled five bags full of some beautiful crystals and nice combos of druse and poker chip clusters. Even found a nice beach ball sized chunk covered with poker chips all over one side…made a great yard rock. I was exhausted and drenched once again, and had to fight to stay awake on the drive home…as I age, it gets harder to do this type of thing on just a few hours of sleep. Needless to say, once home, Missy and I took a nice four hour nap in the ac and I slept well that night as well.

The next morning, we had intended to get up and head down to the druse spot, however the weather did not want to cooperate…it had started raining about 11 pm the night before…I didn`t hear it, read that the next day…I didn`t hear a thing after 10 pm, slept like a log…and the rain was forecast to clear off by 8 am, however it was at least 11 am before the skies cleared and then we headed out once again. I decided to drive on down to the new secret spot to start, and see if I could locate some more dogtooth pockets. There are a few waterholes there that seem to stay full of water all the time, spring fed I always thought, but when I got there, I found them all to be dry as a bone, which was great, cause one of them had what I suspected to be a dogtooth pocket inside one wall of it, and now I would have the perfect opportunity to check for sure. I drove over to that area and didn`t even take the time to change into my boots, just grabbed my gloves and mini mattox and walked to the spot and began digging down…within seconds, I had pulled half a dozen single dogtooth crystals out of a shallow pocket and followed the trail of the crystals popping up out of the loose matrix, around a big knobby dolomite dome to the other side and then around a smaller dome and moving the other way…within an hour I was drenched in sweat and had uncovered several crystals in a fifteen foot long swath….dealing once again with horseflies…they must have followed me from the day before…they were all over the place. Before this would have been impossible without scuba gear due to the depth of the water in this one waterhole alone. I took a water break, grabbed a bag of cloths and had it filled in ten minutes. I decided to walk along the walls and see if I could spot anything new…and no sooner walked about thirty feet down the wall when I came across a few nice clusters of poker chips and druse. Due to the heat build up, Missy and I took off and headed to the druse spot shortly after. I didn`t last long there either…it had been a while since I had been there last, most likely back in the springtime before things got to growing, cause the weeds were waist high and it was hard to see where you were walking. I did manage to find some beautiful smokey quartz druse plates within a short time tho, and then we headed home.

Earlier today, I rolled up my shirt sleeves and decided to sort out all my flats of crystals that I had stored away in the corner of my basement, something I had been putting off for some time. I actually started on it Tuesday afternoon, worked on it for six more hours Wed morning, and will prob finish it up by Friday evening, with any luck. I had completely forgotten about some beautiful crystals that I had found earlier this year, uncovering many of them this morning, dogtooth clusters and singles in many colors, and some great calcite druse pieces too. No horseflies to deal with tho. 🙂

Armadillo Day at MFQ

Posted on July 28, 2014 by jwj

As usual, I am behind again on my posts and so am taking the time to catch up today. I worked on editing images all afternoon and then had to rest my eyes for a bit before taking up the task of putting the story together with the photos. In the past six weeks, I have been busy with some family matters , work issues, and yardwork while we had rain. I have also traveled a bit to do some rock collecting, and except for one day a few weeks ago, I didn`t find much of anything worth writing home about, until yesterday…when I had a great day of rock hunting and collecting. Today was rest up, recover, and catch up day, and so I did.

Friday afternoon, Missy and I drove down to Arcadia, Missouri, to check out an older collection of Doe Run minerals, that a resident there wanted to sell. I had been in contact with the guy for a few weeks, trying to work in a time when I could get down there and he would be available to show me his collection. He told me that he had about eighty pieces in his collection, and I had seen a few photos of the collection and liked what I had seen, so I was a bit excited as I arrived there. Once inside however, it was a different story…for one thing, I only saw maybe thirty pieces in the display case and they were covered in dust and very dirty, even cobwebs were strung out all over the minerals on the shelves, making it very hard to see exactly what was even in his collection. He had a few pieces with chalcopyrite, but they had oxidized so badly, I couldn`t see any color at all, even what little pyrite I saw was dull colored. He had inherited his collection from his grandfather who worked in a couple of the Doe Run mines, and I quickly found out the value he placed on it was sentimental value alone, which no one can afford. As it was, after making the drive down there, I did purchase a few of his pieces, but that was all…..I was quite disappointed and almost felt as if I had wasted my time.

Missy and I got up early Saturday morning and drove down to MFQ, after I received a call Tuesday night at work from my buddy Jim, who told me that there was some new activity there earlier that day, near the coved wall. I was looking forward to seeing what could be found, as that wall has produced alot of pretty crystals in the past couple of years. Usually it starts getting light about 5:30 am, but each time I glanced to the east, all I saw were a low line of dark blue clouds as we traveled down the road. Only as I got close, did the sun finally make a beautiful appearance, in the form of a large fireball from the clouds…if you look close, you`ll notice the crescent moon just above the sun as well…..

…then a few minutes later, there were sunbeams as well….

We arrived shortly after, and after gearing up, I started walking around the base of the new pile, which was smaller than I had anticipated, but I had to stop and remember that this happened Tuesday morning and staff had been working the pile since then…

I had actually let a few of my rockhunting buddies know about it as well, and a couple of them had considered making the drive up there as well. After walking around the new pile for about the first hour, I texted them and told them not to waste their time because in that hour, I only located one single crystal and no wall pockets either. I`m not saying there were no crystals there…it`s likely there were, but they were prob buried underneath all the rubble, too. It was starting to look like a bust for me, which would be the first time since I have never had a bad day of collecting down there yet. I took a water bottle break and then drove over to the prior pile…which they had used to create a ramp up……

….to the benched top of it….

I had been up on that bench a few weeks back and found just a few pockets with some nice calcite druse and poker chips mixed in, some of them had some nice dogtooth crystals as well…. on a Saturday, and then the next day I drove down to a location that a good friend of mine had told me about last year…I refer to it as the new secret spot….a location that has proven to be a very good place to find some great clusters of crystals, especially dogtooth crystals…on that particular day a few weeks ago, I def found something worth writing home about, but have chosen not to until recently when I told a few close friends about it. Suffice to say, I had a field day that day and brought home several canvas bags full of wrapped goodies, clusters, singles, twins, triples, all bright orange dogtooth crystals, from micro size to beachball sized, many of each. It`s been a few weeks and I am still cleaning many of them. I`ll post some photos of them when I get them cleaned up…I had a few of them cleaned up and on display when some new rock collecting friends showed up last week for a visit, and they were pretty impressed with them as well.

I decided not to climb up the bench ramp again this time, and walked around the base to see if I could spot any crystals that had rolled down the walls, that might indicate a pocket nearby. Within a few minutes, I spotted a couple of boulders embedded in the sloped wall, and it appeared that someone had found some druse in a pocket under the left boulder. I did some exploring and suddenly discovered some poker chips under the boulder on the right side….

…I dug down and around the bottom of that boulder and tried to dig out the right side, but the upper slope material kept sliding down and getting in the way, so I moved to the left of it and pulled bigger rocks and loose stuff away to find a large opening between the two boulders, which opened up into a large void between the two large boulders…

…it appeared to me that someone may have dug under the boulder on the right, but didn`t follow up…. in my estimation, since I soon began pulling out some beautiful plates…here is the opening between the boulders…

….I went back to the truck and brought back my flashlight and when I shined the light down into that pocket, I saw very shiny calcite druse all over the ceiling and walls and lots of pieces and plates with the same druse all over them, including some with poker chips attached to them….here are a few that I was able to reach as soon as I spotted them with the light….

…I then stuck my camera down into the cavern and snapped a couple of photos to show you what the interior of it looked like…the photos you are about to see do not do it justice….

…that big one at the bottom that you see in the photo, I had to pull it out thru that opening so that I could pull out some more plates that were located behind it…by this time I had removed more of the loose dirt and rock underneath me so that I could more easily, reach into that cavern and grab more plates…soon my arms were all scratched up and I felt more like an armadillo, digging my way in between those boulders…which by the way, were firmly entrenched and embedded into that sloped wall, deeply entrenched and attached to the wall behind it…the void appeared to be about six feet long and four feet wide and every bit of thirty inches high. The big piece you see above, was very pretty on the side facing away from me, covered in calcite druse with a big poker chip attached to one corner of it. Here are some more of the goodies I pulled out once it was clear of the void…

…one of the prettiest plates I pulled out was sitting right in front of the big one that was blocking me, plate sized and a few inches thick with calcite druse in three colors and poker chips embedded in it….

…a few of these plates even had dogtooth crystals on them…the following image shows about half of my haul from this pocket alone…

…after two hours on this pocket, I was ready for another bottle of cold water and I decided to wrap everything up and load it in the truck bed, and then evaluate to see how tired I was….the temps were climbing by now and the little shade I had by the boulders was just about gone and I had cleaned out the pocket quite well. After wrapping them all up, I had three bags completely full and then wrapped up ten large ones as well, basketball sized. I decided that I had a little more energy left and moved further east along the wall, looking for more potential for pockets…and soon found an area that I had once found several pockets, some filled with druse, but beautiful druse and sometimes when I find those druse pockets, I find poker chips attached to the druse as well….yesterday, I found two more pockets of the druse with poker chips attached…I had to do a bit more burrowing in like an armadillo again, but managed to do so safely again and filled two more bags with goodies, before finally wearing out…the temps had to be near 95 now and the humidity was getting bad as well. Jim and his wife stopped by to chat for a minute, they too were tired of the heat and headed to the river to sit and soak in it. Missy had been inside my truck in the ac for the past hour and I soon joined her.

I drove to the top of the parking lot and called a friend of mine, who is a mineral dealer nearby, he specializes in Viburnum Trend minerals, and I asked him if he had any new material. He said he did and I decided to drive up to his place and take a look. Boy, am I glad that I did drive up there because he had some gorgeous green and yellow calcite crystals attached to the blackest rock I have ever seen, many of the crystals were double terminated and some even skeletal looking, some with phantoms inside them, spectacular and breathtaking at the same time…they had come from the Fletcher Mine and since I didn`t have anything in my collection from the Fletcher Mine, I purchased a few from him….

…and this next one features a single calcite crystal attached to a chunk of dolomite covered by a quartz druse and some galena cubes spread out in the quartz….

…and this gorgeous piece of chalcopyrite that has multiple colors and is covered by a fine dusting of quartz as well…

…he had several of each one…most of my chalcopyrite has large chunks of it on the matrix, but this stuff was more like a dusting of smaller particles of color and covered with a dusting of quartz as well, just spectacular pieces, bit and small. I brought home a few boxes of material from him and so yesterday was a great day of hunting and collecting for me. I can`t wait to add these to my new display cases, but for now that gorgeous chalcopyrite piece is sitting here next to my computer for me to visually enjoy for a few days. 🙂

if you have any questions or wanna say hi, give me a shout at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Clement Mineral Museum Annual Show 2014

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

I had stayed in touch with Tina at the BE Clement Mineral Museum once again this year and volunteered to come help them get the show set up this year and host the Eureka Mine again as well.

Throughout the years, I have had alot of artist friends suggest to me that I stop off at various places and do some sighteeing, but I had never done so. This year I decided I would drive down a day early and see the sights that everyone suggested in years past. I picked up a friend of mine on the way down, and Rob rode with me to the museum in Marion, Kentucky, and helped me unload the seven buckets of grab bag material that I always take to them for their show and museum sales as well through the remainder of the year. Tina had some extra muscle this year, in the form of a young man named Brandon, who also helped us unload the truck. This year they are trying to raise money to build a better roof on the building housing the museum. I also had some druse plates and combos of druse and poker chips for their silent auction during the Show, as well as some dogtooths and special pieces for Tina, including some of the black dogtooth crystals I had found earlier this year. I always try to take them a variety of material, but I seem to be known down there as Mr. Poker Chip by a few people. I visited with Tina, BJ, and Sherry, as well as some newer people, before heading on north on Hwy 91 to cross the Ohio River at Cave in Rock. Rob and I met another friend at Garden of the Gods and then Rim Rock Trail, and were able to do some hiking over there while seeing the sights. Great places for one to go if you have some spare time.

I returned to the hotel by 7 pm and headed to the Oasis Southwest Grill Steakhouse shortly after. They have a great atmosphere and really know how to cook good food, whether it be seafood or steaks that you are after…I have been eating there for several years now and always like the grilled porkchops marinated with a light bbq sauce, one inch thick and cooked to perfection each time. I ate there all three nights and had the same meal each night, perfectly cooked each night and always just right.

I was up by 8 am Friday morning, having called Bill Frazer the evening before to see what time I needed to be at the museum to help them out…we agreed on 10 am and after stopping off at Ms. Neda`s Donut Shop in nearby Eddyville, I headed that way. I passed by the red horse barn that I have photographed in the past….

…and noticed this year that the owners are building a beautiful new home just up the hill to the right of the barn….and had constructed a large metal garage and workshop a bit further down from the house…thought it was nice that they had kept the old wood barn, perhaps they realize how well loved and appreciated it is by folks like me who drive by. Speaking of horses, one of my other favorite places along Hwy 641 on the way to the Museum, is a field of horses on the west side of the road just before you get to the right hand curve entering Fredonia….

…never fails, there are always several horses in that field. I drove on over to the museum at Marion…they have the annual gem show in the Fohs Hall, a stately and elegant old building that used to house a school there….

…I walked in and found several familiar faces already hard at work on various jobs that Tina had asked them to do, and Brandon, a local young man that Bill had enlisted the help of recently with several projects, already hard at work there as well. I met Brandon the day before when Rob and I arrived, and Tina asked him to help us unload the several buckets of grab bag material…found out that he was a football player, defensive end and offensive line, he def had the size and muscle for both positions. Tina showed me a vast collection from an estate sale that the museum had recently purchased…many specimens from the southern Illinois and western Kentucky fluorite mines as well as many other items too many to mention. She asked me to sort through the multiple boxes to see what all was there, they were trying to find certain items to get appraised for future sales. While doing so, I found out there were many fossils in the estate collection as well as some local minerals and even some slabs of lapidary interests, seashells of every type imagineable, and a few minerals and crystals from everywhere in the USA.

Ed Clements and Tina`s husband Brad showed up about lunch time, and after a brief lunch with them, Brad and I walked over to the museum where Brad helped Brandon move some tables down from the upper floor to the dealers room and then we walked through the rooms to see what all was set up for the show, while Brandon went outside to help dealers move their tables and crates of minerals inside. Soon after, Bill Frazer showed up and we drove down to the Eureka Mine where he showed me the tailing piles turned over, the area looked ready for collectors the next day….

and we discussed some areas that could be dug out to search for new material. He told me that he had some exploratory digging done earlier this spring and nothing so far, had been found, yet he was definitely wanting to find some additional areas of resources, so folks could continue to come dig and have fun doing so. Bill decided to head back down there and bushhog the field where folks would be parking and the sides of the road down to the mine, after dropping me off at the museum. Brad and I drove down to the mine about thirty minutes later to contact Bill, some folks from the city were looking for him and he wasn`t answering his phone. We found him at the gate, having problems raising the mower deck behind his tractor. We stuck around a while and nosed around the tailing piles to make sure there was some good material to be found there, tried unsuccessfully, to pull the suction hose out of the mud, and then started back toward the museum…..yet when we got back to the gate, we found ourselves locked in by persons unknown. We drove back down to let Bill know, and he drove up to the gate to let us out, and told me that he would unlock the gate for me the next morning and take the lock with him, so that wouldn`t happen again, seems it had been happening alot lately. I had a good chat with Ed back at the museum before heading back to the hotel and supper at the Oasis once again.

Saturday morning I got up early, stopped by the donut shop to grab a few donuts and chocolate milk, then headed to the Eureka Mine, to host there all day. Bill met me at the gate at 8:20 am and then headed to some more gates to unlock them as well, and I drove on down to the mine. He had made some improvements to the road leading down to the mine, with some larger gravel and it was a much smoother ride now….

I drove on down and changed into my boots, made sure the gate to the parking area was open, then walked around the tailing piles to see if I could see any purple so I would know where to direct people to dig at….I had found a few places the day before when Brad and I were down there and made a mental note of them once again. I also found the bad hole that Bill had referred to someone digging out into the top of the creek bank, which could compromise the creek bank, which is the only thing keeping the creek water from spilling into the pit…why someone would have dug down there is beyond me, they certainly didn`t think about how that could affect things.

Bill was concerned about folks digging into the bank there and further adding to any compromise, so I made a mental note to keep that from happening as well as a few danger spots that I have become familiar with over the years. Some folks enter a site and look for the host and ask questions about what they are looking for as well as where to look, while others just get so excited on arrival that they just walk in and start digging…sometimes having no clue about any spots that might have hidden hazards. Take for example, the north side of the pit…

…it`s mainly made up of fill from tailing piles, so probably has some nice material in it, but several people have heard so much about the pit itself over the years, harvesting so much nice plates of cubes, that many want to go right down into the pit…this year the museum staff was unable to pump the pit down so everyone decided to walk right down to the waters edge and look around…not realizing that the mud at the very edge was extremely soft and one could sink to their knees very quickly. I was able to warn some and others found out the hard way. In the area to the right of that fill, there used to be a vertical shaft of an unknown depth, so we have always told folks to avoid that area, and I had to run a few out of there Saturday as well, for safetys sake. We had tried to get that area filled in last spring, yet the trackhoe operator was unable to reach that far to dump the fill dirt in there on top of it…it would have effectively sealed off the waterfall from the creek there as well.

I also bring a box of fluorite pieces with me, to show folks what they are looking for and to give to them, children especially, when they can`t find something nice to take home with them. Tina usually makes it a point to let folks know that when she knows they are coming to the Eureka Mine and I am there. There were several children there Saturday, that were working on their 4H projects, so I made a point of helping them look for some fluorite and giving them some extra pieces too. Their faces always light up when they get to pick out some nicer ones to take home with them. Well worth it right there. There was one visitor that I wasn`t able to help much on Saturday….

…he moved way too fast for me, but he did have some younger fans there for him. 🙂

Mary who is one of the regulars like me, was the first one to show up Saturday morning, she is one of the nicest members of the Magma Club that I know and she drives up there each year to dig and sometimes I see her at some of the public digs that the Museum staff host each month as well, seen here on the left side on the back of the tailing pile, doing a surface search for fluorite…

..and soon after she showed up, others showed up in small groups…

…you see that little guy in the photo above in green shorts and shoes ? talk about a fearless guy…he wasn`t afraid of the mud or water either one, he was here to have fun whether he found anything or not…enjoyed throwing rocks into the creek and splashing Phillip who was trying to find some fluorite in the vein that runs under the creek. Phillip is another Magma member that is very nice…he and his wife Shirley drive up there frequently from the Danville area…Phillip told him that if he kept throwing rocks, he was going to to dunk him a few times in the water and see how much he enjoyed that…that`s his mom washing off some finds in the pit above in the blue shirt…when she found out what he was doing, she threatened him with a spanking and then we found out that he wasn`t so fearless afterall and he behaved a lot better after that…he sure had more energy than anyone I know of. I made sure he had a nice piece of fluorite when they left, too.

…his mom and a friend found some nice material digging down into the north bank of tailings used for fill on the edge of the pit…

..and for the most part, everywhere I looked, people seemed to be happy with their finds and enjoying their time digging there, young and older alike….

Around mid morning there was a young father that walked up with his dad and his three young boys and I gave them some tips on where to dig at, and told them if they struck out, be sure to come see me before they left…they set out to look in my favorite corner of the pit…

…and while they probably didn`t find alot while there, I made sure they left with a couple of pieces of nice fluorite, they were a nice group of diggers there that day. There was a couple of guys from the Bloomington area that showed up late morning, arriving with family but they were the only two that stuck around to dig…they came over to me and asked for a good location to dig at…I could tell they were serious about finding some nice stuff, so I told them about my favorite corner and told them how to get to the good stuff…

….and they wasted no time in getting down into the pit and getting muddy to look for some good cubes….

..and still more diggers showed up to dig for cubes on the other side of the pit….

…I was keeping an eye on the Bloomington diggers, they soon got down to the right level and found some nice cubes…

…one with a touch of purple on one end and yellow and white color on the other end, in the hopper style of cubes, which looks like a stair step cube formation that is pretty neat to look at….Bill Frazer stopped by about that time on one of his many visits down to see us and I suggested that he take a look at their neat find….

…I happened to find a few diggers from the state of Missouri there as well…Columbia area…Heinrich and two young ladies decided to dig into the west wall of the pit and try their luck….

…for awhile there, I thought he was digging down to China, but assured me that he was just trying to get down to a better level for finding stuff. By mid afternoon, we were all beginning to see signs of storms approaching…the forecast was that storms would hold off til about 6 pm, but it was looking more and more like we were going to see some sooner. I called Tina to have her check the radar on her computer at the Museum and she said there was a line of storms moving thru Paducah about that time, so we figured we had about thirty extra minutes of digging time and I made that known to everyone there. The Bloomington boys were still digging down and pulling some stuff out….

…..and pretty soon they decided to change out in the pit…

…the second young man, I believe his name is Ryan, had a bit of a hearing disability, and he had removed his hearing aids before getting down into the pit because he said they were not waterproof…he was still down there when this loud clap of thunder rumbled overhead and then a strong bolt of lightning struck very close, possibly right across the creek from us and there was a very bright flash of white light with it, like a huge roman candle !!! While Ryan didn`t hear the thunder or lightning, he jumped straight up from the mud and told us that he had felt the energy from the lightning travel up both of his arms which were extended down into the hole, and up into his chest !! He then told us ” I`m done !! ” Everyone was pretty much in evacuation mode by then, heading for their cars as the rain was starting to fall as well. For most everyone, it was the end of a long day of digging and most headed back to the museum to get in a bit of the gem show before it closed. I stuck around til everyone left and then closed the gate, calling Bill to let him know I had closed it and everyone was out for the day, run off by the lightning.

I drove up to the museum as well, wanting to visit with Lamon Flynn, the Kentucky Agate King, at the show. I met Mr. Flynn a few years back in his neck of the woods, he took some friends who joined me there, on a hunt one day for the elusive Kentucky Agate. You can find that story and photos by looking in the column on the right side of my page for Kentucky Agate. I had a great chat with him, they had him up on the stage at the show, and I purchased some more agate from him as well…I have a lot of friends that cannot travel to Kentucky to find it themselves, and picked some up to share with them. He had some of his expensive pieces with him as well, the orange and black banded nodules and a few of the red and black banded nodules too. He also had alot of his belt buckles there and Heinrich came over and looked them over as well.

Heinrich was about to head home that evening, and I gave him directions to a good druse quartz spot in south central Missouri that I like to go to. He was undecided if he was going to stick around for the dinner that was being hosted by the Mineral Museum at the local Italian Restaurant on Main Street later that evening, or simply head home….the girls were telling him there was a tornado warning up in the St Louis area at that time, but by the time they reached St Louis it would likely be long over. I told him to email me if he ever wanted to go rockhunting with me as well, since he isn`t too far from me. I decided not to wait around for the Italian dinner as well and headed back to the hotel to clean up and then walked over to the Oasis for yet another grilled porkchop supper. After supper there, I drove down to the lake just south of there and snapped a few photos of the sunset….

..and then back up to the intersection in front of the Oasis Grill for another photo of the beautiful colorful skies….

The next morning, after a good sleep aided by a couple of alleves, I was on the road by 8 am after checking out of the hotel, and called Tina to let her know I could host at the Eureka again til noon, if she needed some help…she said she had a new member there already but suggested that I go and see if he needed any help as he had never hosted there before. I drove over to the mine and met up with Dave there…Bill Frazer showed up soon after and then a few diggers started showing up. Mary showed up again early on and decided she was going to take over Heinrich`s spot in the west wall from the day before and see if she could dig down to the location where David found some calcite dogtooth crystals two years before….

In the meantime, I decided to dig down into the hole left by the Bloomington boys and see if I could find anything else in it…and a guy showed up a few minutes later from the state of West Virginia and decided to dig down into the hole that the Bloomington boys had originally started out with, about four feet to the right of me. In about an hour, using the long handled spade shovel that someone had left there, I got down to the top of the vein and laid down a gunny sack to lay down on, then reached down and started feeling around in the mud to find some crystals…I never can do that with gloves on, can`t feel the cubes except with my bare hands. I didn`t feel any pockets in the vein, so I started feeling around the mud on top of the vein and pretty soon I was pulling out some cubes…I haven`t cleaned mine up yet, but will post some photos of my finds soon. The guy next to me found a small round plate of nice cubes about 90 minutes after he began digging down…he was a bit up hill from me and had to dig down a bit further to get to my level, but seemed content with what he found. He left by noon to go check out another mine in the area. Mary was still digging when I decided to head for home about 45 minutes later. I was going to meet a friend at Garden of the Gods at 2 pm, so by the time I got out of there and cleaned up a bit, I had about an hour to get there, so I headed to the ferry crossing at Cave in Rock. We had a good hike there and then went to Rim Rock Trail, even met up with the Bloomington boys and their family down at the foot of the escarpment as they were walking out…stopped and visited with them a bit and told them both to give me a shout if they wanted to do some rockhunting in Missouri sometime.

I got home later that evening, tired but happy, having had a great four day vacation, nothing better than good friends, good food, and good fun.

The only problem I had with the entire trip should be noted here, as I would not want anyone else to experience this on future trips down there. I usually stay at the Days Inn hotel in Kuttawa when I am down there for my rockhunting trips….when I made my reservations a few weeks before, I was quoted a certain rate and told that the Days Inn gives rockhounds a ten percent discount on their rates…I told one of my Memphis rockhound friends about that and he made a call after me and was told the same thing as he made his reservations there too. It has always been a clean and friendly place to stay at and their rates have always been affordable and as quoted by staff.

The second night there, I discovered fleas in bed with me, biting my legs, and I was constantly getting up and pulling the covers back and killing fleas by snuffing them out. I prob had about four hours rest total that night and when I told the night clerk about it at 7 am the next morning, his answer was to ask if I had a dog with me. I told him not only was my dog not with me this trip, I would never take my dog to a hotel knowing she had fleas and I protect my dog`s health with the flea and tick killer chewy tablets all the time anyway. I asked him to have the housecleaning crew change out the linens on my bed completely and he did so right then and there, and said he would have them spray the room as well.

I returned that evening to the room and could def smell a different odor in there, such as if they had sprayed it and I slept alot better Saturday night with no fleas in bed with me. However, the next morning when I checked my bank records online, I discovered that not only had they charged my account while I was there…. they usually wait a few days after you check out… they had also overcharged me. I talked to the day clerk, who was also the Assistant Manager, she asked how my stay had been and I told her about Friday night, and then told her that I had been charged fifteen dollars a night more than the rate I had been quoted, and let me tell you, she got a defensive attitude about it real quick and did not care one bit, referred me to call the Manager about it on Monday and take it up with him. I saw that he had an email address on the business card she handed me and so I emailed him when I got home. After no response for a week, I emailed the corporate headquarters of the Wyndham Group, who now owns and operates the Days Inn Hotels, and within a day, I had a message from the manager….I returned his call and told him of my ” not so great ” experience at his hotel recently, after having stayed at his hotel several times over the course of seven years. He promised that he would look into it and get back to me…however, I never did hear from him again, so needless to say, I wont be staying there again. Just saying.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Great Pocket On My Way Home From Black Rock

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

I decided to stop by MFQ on my way home from Black Rock, Arkansas on May 31st. I had driven down to Black Rock early that morning for a MAGS sponsored trip to the Vulcan Quarry to look for pink dolomite and calcite crystals and maybe some chalcopyrite., however, if I want good chalcopyrite, I def know where I can go to find some big crystals of it. I took the scenic route getting there from Black Rock.

I spotted some pretty Jersey cows in a field off to the right of the highway and stopped to photograph them on this beautiful cloudy blue sky day….

…then I spotted this lone pine tree against the big fluffy white clouds and blue skies….

I stopped off at Falling Spring Mill, to photograph it…neat little water grist mill with a waterfall right next to it and a big millpond in front of it, accessed by a wooden footbridge….

…it has been several years since I last photographed it, good to see that it is still being well taken care of by the Forest Service.

I then continued on, eventually arriving to find that another short wall had been blasted down, with rocks strewn everywhere from it…

…and I mean everywhere, in all directions, all over the floor of the quarry….

I drove around to the east side and parked…..

….then walked around the edge of the pile, looking for any signs of crystals or druse, finding some nice larger pieces of druse on the west side and set them out on the floor to pick up later before I left. I then decided to climb up along the wall to the top of the pile to check for wall pockets…

…finding one very nice pocket that expanded to the size of a beach ball at the entrance and was chock full of little caverns off on each side and up above it, stuffed full of plates of dolomite and calcite druse, with poker chips attached to them. It was soon very apparent to me that one bag was not going to be enough, because every plate I was pulling out was so delicate and gorgeous, that I needed to wrap each one to protect them. I returned to the truck and grabbed a couple more bags, full of wrapping cloths and grabbed a bottle of water as well…it had been cool and breezy down at Black Rock, but now, after only an hour here, it was getting very hot and the clouds had rolled away to leave blue skies and full sun. In the hour I had been there, my arms had already darkened from the intense sunlight and I could feel the beginnings of a mild sunburn starting on the back of my neck. An hour later, and I had filled both of these bags and I carried them back to the truck…there was only one easy way down to the truck and back up to the pocket…hugging the wall to the east and then sliding down the slope like a slalom course…but I made it without any spills each time. I grabbed two more bags filled with wrapping cloths and another bottle of water and an hour later, I had the pocket cleaned out completely. I`ll get some photos taken of those gems soon…took a few down to Tina at the Clement Mineral Museum this past weekend and everyone down there just oohhed and ahhhed over them, just as I did when I was pulling them out of the pocket. The wall I was working actually had several small vugs in addition to the pocket I found….

I made one more sashay around the other side, carefully checking for more pockets, then drove around and loaded up the larger druse pieces I had found earlier, and then I headed home, tired but happy as well. All in all, though, a very good trip and day.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

MAGS Field Trip to Black Rock, Arkansas

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

WC emailed me earlier this year while putting together the Missouri trip in April for druse quartz and MFQ, to tell me that the club was going to one of the gray limestone quarries in Black Rock, Arkansas, scheduled tentatively for the end of May. I had been fortunate to go to the one there four years ago and found some beautiful pink dolomite crystals, one large piece in a C shape with a gorgeous hexagonal shaped calcite crystal embedded in the center of it….

WC kept everyone updated and the date was set for May 31st. After checking on the forecast for that Saturday, hot and sunny, temps in the high eighties, I decided to leave Missy with my parents…she cannot handle the heat well due to that black rain slicker she wears all the time…and Mom takes her on several walks a day in their subdivision, so I knew she would like that alot better. I opted to get up early that morning, 3 am, and drive down to Black Rock on Hwy 63…the first two hours was a breeze down through south central Missouri, no traffic to speak of til I reached the West Plains area, and even then, it was pretty minimal at that time of the morning. If I had any complaints at all about that drive, it would only be regarding the nice bypass around West Plains…the speed limit on that bypass is set at 45 mph and there are several stoplights through there with very few homes or businesses in that stretch…seems like an oxymoron to have a nice bypass through there and then you can`t drive a decent speed through there as well.

I had only one problem on the entire drive down, a few miles south of West Plains, I crested a hill and found a dead deer stretched completely out across my lane of traffic, and since it was right over the hillcrest, I had no reaction time at all, so I braced myself with the steering wheel, expecting to feel it as I passed over it…my truck only has so much clearance…and to my surprise, didn`t feel a thing…but I did call 911 to report it to the highway patrol as a traffic hazard as I continued southbound.

I arrived at the rest area just north of Black Rock about 7 am, thirty minutes ahead of everyone else, meeting time was 7:30 am. I met Paul Sides, the President of MAGS, when he pulled in behind me a few minutes later and we talked for a bit before everyone else started showing up. We then handed over our signed liability waivers to WC and proceeded up the road to the Vulcan Quarry, where we met with Jeff, one of the foremen there, for a brief safety talk….

We were all wearing hard hats, steel toed shoes/boots, and had our safety glasses with us…and from there, Jeff lead us down into the quarry to the first blasting spot…

….personnel there had prepared for our visit by blasting down a huge wall of rock and there was quite a bit of pink dolomite within that wall on the east side as well as some on the west side….it was quite a beautiful day, cloudy blue skies which started off warm but cooled within an hour of our arrival, appearing as if it might rain, but never did, we just had the cooling breezes instead. Soon after parking at the initial spot, everyone was climbing around and looking for pink dolomite…

We had driven down to the first level of the quarry….

….and it looked a bit different from when we were there four years ago, as it looked in the next two photos….

It was apparent that there were a lot of changes since we had been there four years prior, the landscape among the main changes. When there last, we were able to drive down to the bottom floor of the quarry…..

….but this time found it flooded….four feet deep green water all the way across…Jeff said he was pumping water daily trying to stay ahead of it. Comparing the four years ago photos to the photos of the quarry today, it was easy to see how much blasting had been done and how far back the walls had been worked.

There was a lot of pink dolomite in the first blast section, I don`t think anyone left there unhappy with their finds….

After taking a short break after finding some pretty pink dolomite plates with some calcite and hematite balls attached, I spotted my buddy Steven Gibbs, searching for some bigger boulders of dolomite down on the west side of the blast pile…

…while his wife, April, was taking a break on the tailgate….

…over on the east side of the blast pile, several folks seemed to be concentrating on a certain section of rock where a lot of pink dolomite was being found….

…while Jeff and Bentley can be seen near the top of the pile looking for pretty dolomite….

…I caught Bentley climbing down the pile in his colorful fireman`s steel toed boots a few minutes later….

After about 90 minutes at this first location, we loaded up and drove a short distance down the slope to the next blast location…..

…..which was quite a bit smaller and after a short search, none of us could locating anything good at all, most decided to return to the first blast pile and search even more extensively there. In the short time we were down on the second level, however, Steven and April and I had walked down the road to check the rocks on both sides of the road, and April spotted a beach ball sized boulder with a neat impression of a seashell in it…

….the impression lined with quartz crystals, no less !!

As the rest of the group was loading up to return to the first location, we asked and Jeff gave permission for us to stay and see about cobbing it down and loading it up in Steven`s truck. April def wanted to take it back home. Steven got his sledge hammer out as WC and Cornelia came over to check it out as well, and Steven tried to cobb it down with his hammer…

…but the boulder merely laughed at all of Steven`s efforts to cobb it down and he wound up picking it up and loading the whole thing into his pickup instead. Jeff told us that he had never seen anything like that at the quarry while he has been there. After picking up a few more small plates of pink dolomite, some with some calcite crystals attached, I decided to head for home, via MFQ and Falling Spring Mill. I bid everyone good bye and headed out shortly after, pausing at the top of the hill to take these photos of the remaining group collecting at the first blast location…..

Sure had a good time, was a beautiful morning and nice trip and weather, enjoyed seeing several friends there.

James 🙂

jwjphoto@fidnet.com

Deep Pocket at Secret Spot

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jwj

Missy and I loaded up mid May and headed to the secret spot…it was a gorgeous cloudy sky day and the temps were perfect for rock collecting. We arrived mid morning and as soon as I parked, I noticed something moving in the pools of water nearby…I walked over and found thousands of tiny black tadpoles swimming around in clusters….

…everywhere I looked they were just all over the place, never seen so many in one area like that.

We made our way over to an area in the lower area that I had been finding alot of floor pockets in, and within minutes, had located a promising area and began digging down. Within a few minutes, I had a nice L shaped pocket going….

..and it seemed to have ended on the bottom side but kept going a bit further at the top of the photo, so I naturally followed that end of the pocket…and acquired a pretty hefty stack of goodies in short order as well….

…and soon after was finding more pockets under a layer of druse plates, with crystals sparkling in the matrix, waiting to be plucked out of the gravel mix….

…I kept on digging deeper and further toward that end of the L shaped pocket as it kept expanding and pretty soon my goodie stack was getting higher and longer as well….

funny how you lose all track of time when pursuing a pocket like this one, think nothing of taking a break or getting up to stretch your legs, all focus is on the pocket at hand. Well pretty soon, the pocket expansion came to an abrupt end…sometimes you run into a wall and sometimes you can see what appears to be an opening back behind that wall, which in this case I did…it was going to be too risky to try and pursue it because I would have to hammer my way in and too many nice crystals would be destroyed if I did that, so I backed off and decided to scratch around with the mini mattox and see if I could find another pocket on down a bit or a back way into what appeared to be another pocket behind that wall….

…little did I know what lay in store for me….

…within a couple of feet from the end of that pocket, I hit paydirt…hit a soft spot that started descending into the clay colored gravel….

…it kept going and going until the bottom just literally dropped out on me….

…and then I started pulling first druse plates and combos out of the bottom of this huge pocket….

…after pulling about half a dozen plates out, I looked into the bottom of the pocket and just saw poker chip crystals laying all over the place, several large ones even…talk about Christmas in May….

…including this nice combo plate….

…well by this time, I had the pocket dug down about eighteen inches deep and had filled three bags full of crystals, many doubles and triples and singles about six to eight inches long…and I was exhausted. I decided to come back the next afternoon and clean it out.

So I returned the next day, early afternoon, and proceeded to see if I could clean this puppy out…

…it measured about eighteen inches deep and two feet long, from my viewpoint above and ten inches wide, but when I stuck the camera down inside it and turned the flash on, you can easily see that it goes back to the left pretty far and has crystals inside it as well….

…but in order to get to that point, I had to knock some of the top roof plates out so I grabbed my four pound sledge hammer and started pounding for a few minutes to break them up…let me tell you, that took quite a few minutes because the rock above that pocket going that direction just became thicker and thicker, giving me quite a workout in about twenty minutes…but I pulled a few nice roof plates out as a result of it…

…and some nice crystals as well…

…and pretty soon, the pocket was expanding in all directions…and wound up being an all afternoon pocket….

by four pm, I was done in and had the pocket cleaned out as far as I could reach back in there…I had brought my flashlight with me this time and looking in, could see the pocket went back in there at least four feet, much farther than I could reach and no way to even get a rake or anything in there to pull anything else out. At any rate, I had two more bags full of crystals and plates and I was happy. Missy and I saw some nice sunbeams on the way home…made my day even more…

If anyone wants to contact me and talk about rockhunting or my blog stories, you can reach me at jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Black and Blue Dogtooth Crystal Weekend

Posted on May 7, 2014 by jwj

Earlier in the week, my chances of going rockhunting even one day during the first weekend in May, were looking pretty dismal for me…as I had scheduled a portrait shoot on Saturday the 3rd, in the middle of the day and that meant I was going to have to stick around all morning…and I was going to an event on Sunday early afternoon to commemorate the lives of two firefighter friends that had achieved milestones in their lives, celebrating fifty years of service to the Sullivan Fire Department and District. Both men are good friends of our family and after attending the same event for my Dad the year before, and knowing it required a couple of hours time, I wasn`t sure I was going to have any time afterward to go hunting that day either.

By midweek tho, my schedule cleared up so that I could not only drive down to MFQ on Saturday morning early, but I was able to squeeze in a few hours of hunting on Sunday after the event as well. I made a call to my buddy Jim on Friday evening and he told me that the new blast pile was nearly gone and he was seeing some streaks of black as well, so Missy and I got up early Saturday morning and were on the road by 7 am. under mostly cloudy skies, with a hint of clearing skies by mid morning.

We soon rolled into the quarry and found a much smaller pile of rocks and evidence that the huge hydraulic jack had been used recently on some of the larger boulders with a line of the busted boulders skirting the edge of the reduced pile from one side to the other.

I pulled just past the back of the reduced pile and parked, and after switching to my boots, grabbed a bag, my gloves, and my mini mattox and decided to do a surface hunt first around the edge of reduced boulders on the east side of the pile. I found a few smaller pieces right off the bat and then made a closer inspection of the walls of the pile. I found a few small pockets of dark gray colored poker chips and some calcite druse as well. I walked down the wall to the east and found a few small pockets of druse as well as one nice poker chip cluster, a small one….

…..enough to fill one bag with some interesting looking shaped druse pieces. I returned that bag to the truck bed and then grabbed another one and headed around the skirt of rocks to the west side….

….and immediately started seeing some nice cobbed down chunks of calcite druse all over the place, sparkling and glittering in the strong sunlight. I sat my bag and mattox down and began selecting some of the nicer chunks and carrying them over to the parking area and creating a grouping of them to pick up later before I left. They would make some great yard rocks. I was up in the middle of them making more selections, when my buddy Jim drove up in his pickup with his wife and daughter. They were on their way to town for some festivities…I told him I had been hearing sirens and parade preparation sounds in the past hour and he said the parade would likely start soon downtown. Soon after they took off, I did hear the start of the parade and then later on, live music and what sounded like a drag race or tractor pull as well. They definitely had some beautiful weather for a celebration.

Soon Missy was back from her explorations and parked under the back of my truck in the shade…I put a bowl of cool water out for her and headed back to the pile to see if I could cobb some crystals out of a large boulder. I took my four pound hammer and chisels with me and soon came up on the huge boulder laying on its side on one side of the pile. I liked the looks of the crystals embedded in one end of the boulder, dark grey and black colored. I was able to free a couple of nice crystals from the boulder and was working on some others when a bumble bee starting flying around close by and even buzzing right by me a few times. I decided to give him some room and took a short water bottle break about thirty feet away to see if he was trying to get into a wall hole nearby…however, he didn`t settle down, even followed me over to my break area and buzzed by me some more. I walked back to the truck and retrieved my spray bottle of bee and wasp killer, however by the time I got back over there, he had apparently found a hole and ducked inside. I was glad, cause I was neither interested in killing it nor in being stung trying.

I tried to free a few more crystals and clusters, but was unable to do so, and decided to move to the back side of the pile and see if I could climb up to the top of the pile to see what more could be found. I got around to the back side and determined this was going to be no easy feat in getting up to the top of the reduced pile, as the dirt and rock material was extremely loose under my feet and for every step I took up the pile, I was either sliding back down or losing two steps down. I left the bag at the bottom…a mistake I later almost regretted…and used the mini mattox to carve out steps so I could get to the top, going up switchback fashion even. Eventually I made it to the top, after having to stop and knock down some of the top rocks to make things easier, dragging myself up and over the top edge finally. Once up there, I checked the walls for new pockets, finding a few pockets here and there. I decided to check out the huge boulder that had supplied me with many black dogtooth crystals the last trip down there, and to my surprise, started finding small clusters of crystals all around the bottom of the boulder once again. I even found some laying in the loose dirt at the base of the boulder as well as a few large ones that were nice too, and after digging down thru some of the loose material, I was able to recover some very pretty twin dogtooths…here they are cleaned up….

It appeared someone had chipped off a few of the remaining clusters and crystals I had left behind and I`m glad that whoever was there, left behind a lot of pretty crystals for me to find and take home. One that was in the shallow area of dirt, was a spectacular twin black dogtooth crystal, in the shape of a V, each one about two inches in length. After chipping off several nice clusters from the huge boulder a few weeks ago, I was delighted to find a few more perfectly shaped small ones this trip too….

I dug down around three sides of the boulder and found enough small crystals to fill two bags full…however since I had left my bag below and didn`t want to slide down and grab the bag, and then make the arduous climb back up with the bag in tow, I decided to take my long sleeve shirt off and wrap up the crystals in it and then carry the whole thing back down the pile. I also grabbed two or three nice large chunks with lots of black dogtooths on them, and then slid down the loose talus pile on my butt…this was much easier. After wrapping them all up separately on the tailgate in my wrapping cloths, I decided I had enough goodies for the day and headed home. By this time, I had four bags completely full of wrapped goodies.

However, after getting them all wrapped up and bagged, I decided to drive over to the cove area and check that wall as well. By this time it was pretty hot outside so I turned on the ac and left Missy in the ac while I worked the wall. I started at the east end and worked my way back west and pretty soon was finding crystals, poker chips and dogtooth crystals, laying in the loose matrix at the base of the wall. I followed a trail of poker chips up the small ramped pile and pretty soon, discovered a pocket buried in the loose matrix that had apparently fallen from above and became buried. I pulled enough crystals out of it to fill half a bag and by this time, I was approaching exhaustion fast, and still had a four hour drive home. I`ll get some of these crystals photographed and loaded up here soon.

Soon, Missy and I were headed home, stopping off briefly for a short hike to a refreshing spring fed creek, that we waded around in for a short time….to cool her off mainly….

….we headed back to the truck and ac, and drove home. Missy was as tired as I was, carrying ten pounds of fur in the heat…I thought I was going to have to carry her to the truck…luckily she gets her hair cut on Wednesday.

Sunday morning, I decided Missy and I would drive down to a neat spot where I have always been able to find some neat druse pieces….my Mom had asked me for some holie rocks that she could plant ground cover in for her rock and flower gardens. I had seen some holie rocks there that I thought would be perfect, and as it worked out, we had a few hours of daylight left after the event on Sunday afternoon. It was as hot Sunday as it had been the day before, and I was prepared to leave Missy in the truck if need be with the ac on full blast. We arrived about 4 pm and I was able to locate about half a dozen nice large druse chunks with some holes in them, tho the holes were not nearly as big as I thought they were going to be. I also found some really pretty soda straw plates nearby as well, some of the straws were about two to three inches in length and very sparkly in the sunlight.

After loading the holie rocks and druse plates up, I drove over to the secret spot to check it out and decided to putter around a bit and see if I could locate any new pockets there. The shade had stretched out about thirty feet from the west wall by that time in the day, so I drove over and parked in the edge of it, enough to cover the cab in case Missy would need to get in the truck in the ac again.

As it turned out, there was a great breeze blowing from the northwest and came right across the shaded area very nicely. I scratched around a few times until I found a nice area that had great potential…I was ten feet under the huge pocket I found back in the spring time last year, the pocket that had apparently vibrated open after a blast seventy feet away from it…the pocket that was three feet in diameter…the pocket that was chock full of dogtooth crystals, some of them were a big as beach balls….and about ten feet below it, I found a very nice pocket. Missy by this time, had made a few forays to the edge of the parking area and then wandered back and laid down about fifty feet from me on a ledge in the shaded area.

I walked back to the truck and grabbed my camera to document the pocket after I had decided that it was indeed going to open up into some poker chip crystals…

….the first one I pulled out was about four inches high and had a beautiful blue tint to it with a black dogtooth center…

….and once the pocket really opened up, I started pulling several nice large single crystals out as well as a few clusters, some with some beautiful druse attached to them….

…I could see several on the edge and just inside the loose mix of matrix at the bottom of the pocket…I really get excited when I see those, cause I start wondering what all is inside and how deep is the pocket going to wind up being…the thrill of the hunt I guess….

What was really strange, was that after I had pulled out several blue tinted crsytals with black dogtooth centers, I also found a small pocket off to the side, with a few small orange dogtooth crystals inside it. I have never found the two colors that close together in different pockets, usually they are at least ten feet apart. I`m always thrilled when I find the blue tinted crystals tho, since they seem to be a rare color to find. Here are some of the initial crystals from the blue pocket….

The pocket kept expanding to the left, so naturally I kept digging in that direction and it continued to open up along the way….

The top section of matrix around the roof plates was very thin and loose, so everytime I started digging in that area, things started falling down and had to be cleared out gently….

…and pretty soon I was pulling some beautiful roof plates out too….

…then I set the camera down in front of the pocket and here is what was inside…

..and then the pocket started going deeper, when it went as far to the left as possible…

here are some more of the crystals and roofplates from the pocket….

I filled two bags completely full and then Missy and I took off and headed home. Sure made for a nice weekend.

Here are some of my goodies found at the secret spot Sunday….

James 🙂

jwjphoto7@gmail.com

Dandy Black Dogtooth Crystal Day

Posted on April 15, 2014 by jwj

I received a phone call from my buddy Jim regarding recent activity at MFQ about mid week, and since I had already arranged to take Saturday off to go rockhunting, it made perfect sense to drive down there Saturday morning and see what could be found. After a relatively calm night at work Friday night, I drove home and changed from my uniform into comfortable jeans, picked up Missy, and headed out. Jim was right, it was a short wall that came down…the smallest and shortest wall there yet.

The last time I had seen activity in this area, you could walk from the parking lot up the slope of the pile and come out on top of the upper bench, but one look at this pile, and I knew that wasn`t gonna happen, it didn`t even go halfway up. It was evident they had already removed some material in the past few days and were working on some boulders, reducing them down with the hydraulic hammer. Missy and I drove around to the back side of the new pile and began looking around back there first….

…walking around the front of the pile along the edges and then walked up the pile next to the back wall….

…well I didn`t find much, other than a few shallow pockets, so I drove back around to the other side and decided to check out the pile where they had been taking some material out….and soon discovered a huge boulder with some pockets at the base of it chock full of light green colored poker chips….

I decided to wait til later to see if could liberate them and walked up into the center of the pile and made my way toward the back wall, looking from side to side to see if I could spot any crystals. I found a couple of calcite druse pieces until I got close to the back of the pile…then I started seeing small black poker chips with black center dogtooths laying all over the pile…I finally looked up and around for the source and spotted a HUGE boulder, half the size of my truck, with many pockets of huge black poker chip crystals with the black dogtooth centers, many of the dogtooths exposed even….

..including this pocket that was located at the bottom of this huge boulder, containing several black dogtooth crystals, many that appeared to be four or five inches in diameter and about six inches long….

…and this one next to it, with a bit of damage, most likely from the blast or the fall afterwards….

…and this next one was underneath and to the side of both of the other pockets, a single large dogtooth crystal in this vug….

…well needless to say, I was stunned and happy at the same time…and after picking up a few more loose crystals in the pile below, many of which were unblemished and just plain beautiful, I walked back down to my truck to retrieve another bag of wrapping cloths, a bottle of water, and my hammer and chisels. After drinking half a bottle of water, I walked back up and started filling one bag with all the loose crystals around the base of this boulder that I could locate, some were even down below in a few drop holes, and I pulled them out and wrapped them up and bagged them as well. Within moments, I had one bag filled and was working on the other and still hadn`t even touched the boulder vugs. It was about this time that my buddy Jim drove down to visit a bit. He was enjoying the weather on his day off and waiting for his wife to get home from work.

I soon returned to the boulder and began to see what I could successfully chip out of the vugs. Luckily for me, everything was coming out just fine and pristine, and soon I had two more bags full of goodies…here are a few….

here is the cluster that I chipped out of the bottom of the HUGE boulder at the back side of the pile….

….and the last thing I did after cleaning all those black beauties out, was try to liberate some of the green poker chips in the boulder on the front side of the pile…but like most green poker chips, that tend to shatter much easier than other colors, I was only able to get these two out somewhat intact….

I did manage to find a few pockets on the back wall that were full of calcite druse, some with poker chips attached and liberated some of them as well, however I have no photos of them, maybe I can add some later. It sure was a Dandy Dogtooth Crystal Day.

James 🙂

jwjphoto7@gmail.com

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