Central Kentucky During Eclipse in August 2017

Onyx and I drove down to central Kentucky the weekend of the total eclipse to join up with several rockhounds from the Hickory, North Carolina Club, and two clubs from New York State that Hickory invited for the weekend. My core group was joining me there, after I was able to set up a couple of extra locations for the club members to dig at…little did I know that I would be leading a group of 90 rockhounds that weekend, biggest group for me so far. Luckily we were set to have some good weather, not as hot as it can get in August, but still warm. I had prepared for it buying extra water and getting Onyx shaved down a day or two before we left. For the rest of this story, check out my rockhunting blog site at 

www.jwjrocks.com 

The first morning there, after breakfast, I photographed this gorgeous sunrise just before everyone started lining up to drive down to the first location….

…a sunrise that started out gorgeous and just kept morphing into something different, winding up with some great sunbeams…a prelude to a very nice day ahead. I found a neat vug of brown dogtooth crystals with a blade or two of white barite inside it…

Later that day we drove over to a friends farm who has a creek running down thru his field and we hunted the creek for geodes…I found a beautiful half geode that was filled with sunshine quartz there…

The next day we drove over to Mundy`s Landing to dig at an old fluorite mine, down in the valley next to the Kentucky River…sure was a beautiful cloudy day…

…and many of us stayed most of the day there, finding lots of goodies. On the way back, a few of us stopped to photograph these barns with blue doors and roofs…

…the next morning we had yet another pretty sunrise across the road from the hotel….

…this was the day of the eclipse…we drove down to the goat farm near Mt Vernon, another creek running down thru it, where large geodes can be found filled with pretty sunshine quartz…Onxy found a swimming hole in the creek and took advantage of it…

…and waded up and down the creekline several times as well while the rest of us hunted for some geodes….

…we had a great time that weekend and brought back several nice ones. 

 

Kentucky Rockhunting Trip End of March 2016

Onyx and I drove down to western Kentucky for a machine dig at the Eureka Mine on Thursday March 24th, joined there by a few rockhunting friends from Minneapolis, St Louis County, and then we drove on over to central Kentucky on Saturday afternoon, and hunted in the Danville area as well for a few days. While there we also saw a bit of scenery, everything was in bloom down there also and we had pretty good weather while there too. I`ll include a few of the highlights here but for more of the story, check out my rockhunting blog site at www.jwjrocks.com 

01 Sunset Night Before My Trip03 Sunbeams Over Marion Fire Station13 Second Shelf Down Caldwell Stone19 Knobs of Central Kentucky25 Barn Forkland Road Valley45 Rural Road Color62 Color in Rural Fields61 Onxy Soaking Up Some Sun70A Blue Door Barn71 Fence72 Shaker Village73 Shaker Village74 Stairway Trustees Office Shaker Village

 

Kentucky Fluorite Rock and Gem Show

Docia and I drove down to Marion, Kentucky last weekend for the rock and gem show Saturday and Sunday, which was our first show this year and attempt at selling some of our druse quartz and poker chip calcite crystals. I also wanted another chance to get down in the pit of the Eureka Mine and dig for some more beautiful fluorite.

Docia and Floyd arrived early afternoon Friday and got checked into the Relax Inn at Kuttawa so Floyd could get a good nap in…he had driven home from New Orleans all night Thursday night from his workplace there…I called Docia on the way down and told her I would prob arrive about 3 pm and we could go over to the museum and check in with Tina on what was happening for the weekend, and see where we could set up our booth outside…we wanted plenty of good natural light hiitting our druse specimens. I then called Tina to make sure she would be there when we arrived.

Docia and I got to the museum about 3:30 and met with Tina and decided we would set up our booth near the front door of the County Museum where the vendors were going to be set up for the show. We picked a nice shady spot along the sidewalk and then took a quick tour of the museum, so that Docia could see what world class specimens looked like behind glass.

We took off and headed for the steakhouse at Oasis Bar and Grill and had the prime rib, which was the special Friday night. We both like prime rib and were not disappointed at all. It was great !

Next morning we met at the museum and set up our booth at the front of the building, where the sidewalk corners as you walk between the County Museum and the Clement Museum…I had brought along a canopy to set up for shade, but we got lucky and had two excellent shade trees there all day long, one on each side of the sidewalk….so we were fortunate to be in the shade all weekend long.

County Museum Marion KY

this is Foh`s Hall, which is now the County Museum, but has also served as a hospital and the school, in the early days of Marion, and then a community center as well. The theatre area was the main hall where vendors set up inside in the air conditioning…we chose natural air conditioning and natural lighting.

Our Booth Betw Fohs Hall and Clement Museum

this worked well as we caught most folks walking up from the parking lot to the front of the show building or coming from the museum and walking to the show building, and walking back as well most of the time.

Our Booth and Tables

there was actually supposed to be another vendor outside with us, but they got cold feet and moved theirs inside, thinking it might rain the first day there. As it was, the weather was quite nice both days, cooler with less humidity on Sunday. Crowds were a little light this year, though, for both the digs and the show. Most of the time when I wanted to shoot this next photo, there were several people at our booths but I couldn`t shoot then…

Customer Looking Over Our Rocks

Saturday night, Docia and I took Floyd out to the steakhouse and we had great steaks once again. Afterwards, I drove over to the lakeside, and shot a beautiful sunset from the Kuttawa City Park, which is located right on the water…was even fortunate to get a nice red and white speedboat zipping across the water against the fluffy pink and white clouds…

Speedboat Races Across Sunset Sky

and the sky even without the boat was quite nice to shoot above the water….

Beautiful Sunset Kentucky Lakes 3

and as the speedboat drew closer to my position, it scared up some white birds just ahead of it…

Speedboat and Birds Enhance Sunset

after shooting this one, I drove over to the city park and shot this next one with an even deeper color to the sky and water…

Beautiful Sunset Kentucky Lakes

 

Beautiful Sunset Kentucky Lakes 2

absolutely beautifullllll……

Well the next day we arrived at the museum way early…the rest of the vendors decided to sleep in and weren`t going to arrive til 11 am, so I took advantage of the lull and decided to go do some digging. Docia and Floyd decided to stay at the booth just in case and I took off for the Eureka after signing in. Now, I didn`t take my camera into the pit with me, but I can tell you that I filled two bags full of some nice small clusters and a few medium sized ones…also helped a little girl with her merit badge for 4H, she was working on a mineral project, needed to gather eleven minerals and so a few of us there helped her find some nice stuff to take home with her.

I hit a nice pocket above the vein near where I was digging back in April with members of the Memphis Club and after three hours, I drove over to the Hickory Cane Mine tailings to check it out before heading back to the vendor show…

 

Hickory Cane Tailings

More Tailings Hickory Cane Mine

and even more tailings….

Even More Tailings Hickory Cane Mine