Sat/Sun - Tucson Gem Shows & Farkle

Whew! We've seen so many shows this weekend and we've only hit 1/4 of the shows here in Tucson. I'm looking forward to going to two more shows opening this coming week. They're both public showings and hopefully educational. Then... I'm hitting the local museums and nature.

Saturday was walking miles of the multiple shows at the hotels along I10. They were mixed with retail and wholesale items from all over the world. We enjoyed many, many, many hours of crystals, spheres, carvings, minerals, books, Egyptian, Tibetan, African and Oriental items. Felt like an international bazaar. Lots of
fun.

PHOTOS: crystal spheres from Brazil; carved dragon from China; quartz carvings

Sunday we woke to snow on the mountains. The days was spent touring the large wholesale shows which contained stones, minerals and silver jewelry. We met other Sacramentians here taking advantage of the great sales. I picked up some tokens for loved ones and enjoyed all the views.




And of course, what would a visit with our friends be without our Farkle Nights. Since Clint's "vision quest", he's been rolling unbelievable 'miracle' rolls for the last two nights. Saturday he won every game except one....and he only lost that one because of a 6-dice farkle rule that allowed me to steal his winning score.

We've had a wonderful 3 days visiting and shopping. Wishing our friends a great trip home.

Day 12 - Tucson; Mineral & Rock Shopping

The business owners went shopping today. We only made it through one of the venues, but they accomplished a lot. Many folks from India were happy to make a sale. I'm now sitting in my home surrounded by Amethyst, Quartz, Carnelian, Pyrite, Stromalite, Vesuvanite, Tibetan, wands, pendulums, pendants, star quartz (pictured), fossils, apophylite, astrophyllite, tourmaline, obsidian, blue halite, moldavite and others. Beautiful samples.

I went Easter Egg hunting for stones today. As I walk around the pool area, I'd find all sorts of loose stones laying around. These were tumbled stones that probably fell out of crates being moved to the rooms. (Yes, many, many hotels in Tucson sell out their rooms for individual vendors to set up as stores to sell their wares. Over 90% of the folks are international primarily from India, Russia, and Brazil.)

One of the shops had custom-made wands with matching crowns. They were very unique and beautiful. Our visiting friend posed for us. (Yep, the wand is heading back to Fair Oaks. It really helps that it also serves very well as a beautiful fan.) She LOVES crystals and tends to get high around them. This photo was taken after playing 6 hours with stones.


PERSONAL: Today was fun. I enjoyed looking at all the stones and crystals in depth. And playing with the carvings. It was nice growing through all the stones slowly to fully appreciate them. I may have to go back to purchase myself a moldavite pendant. They have some beautiful pieces and I enjoy the astral connections to the meteorite.

Day 11 - Tucson (Wash Day & Travelers)

Today was laundry day. When you haven't washed clothes in a while, I'm surprised how many loads can be stored in an RV. The RV laundromat was being serviced and had only small washers. Basically an all day affair. Afterwards it was heavy-duty cleaning in prep for our company. Our home is so pretty now. It shines.

Genna and Russ arrived today to go rock shopping the next 3 days. I'm determined to see that large geode this time. I'm keeping my eyes open. I'll keep this short tonight to play farkle. I feel homesick.

BEAUTIFUL!! Christi & Kevin (my daughter and son-in-law) are enjoying this view from their hotel window in Hawaii.

I know this might not be my travels, but I am visiting their through them. Kevin is celebrating his 40th birthday attending the Pro Bowl... and Christi is keeping him company.

Personal: I worked some in the Flying Monkey Workbook. I'm continually surprised on what is still open issues.

Day 10 - Tucson Fossils

Embarrassing. I just saw the largest geode in the world on the news... the one that I walked by at J.O.G.S. (This photo is just a large amethyst cathedral... not the largest geode.) I didn't realize it's outside and I had to walk by it to enter the building. Maybe I saw the back side and thought it was just another big boulder. Many of the shows have a big rock in front of it. Hey, it's better than realizing that I was playing with paper, books, sodas and glasses too much to even notice what beauties are around me.

We cleaned out the back of the Jeep in anticipation of the product our friends may purchase. After cleaning a while, I thought we were headed to get a soda and wash the vehicle, instead Clint headed to a nearby show for lapidary supplies. He never found what he was looking for, but we did see another 5 hours of shows. A couple hadn't opened yet, others were more beads than rocks, some were primarily fine jewelry (of gold, silver, diamonds, gems, etc), and then we stumbled on a couple of fun rock places to tour.

AWESOME SPECIMENS!!! (These in the photo are just nice pieces.) The museum quality pieces...with their multi-thousand dollar price tags... were at the Inn. Nice to finally see people and purchases occurring. We've been shocked and sadden on how few customers we've seen and how many of the vendors are gone.

A few of the interesting sites from today:

• Vivianite was a new mineral for me to see. Beautiful green.
• Better specimens of the Specularite (Specular Hematite).
• Alligator Smoky Quartz or as some refer to as Elestial.
• Dinosaur skeletons.
• Tagua Nut carvings.
• My huge turtle skeleton from Plano was missing. He's been replaced by a little sea turtle cousin.

Day 9 - Tucson Electric Park

We missed our crystals. It was torture to do chores while we knew that thousands of minerals were less than a mile away. We broke... but the Tucson Electric Show was lots of fun. It's one of the largest shows in the city and one of the most versatile. We didn't see a lot of fancy jewelry, but some unique items.

YEA for the "Crystal Man"! Clint and I met him at the artist's site at the Electric Park. His language is quiet, yet you can see him for rows and rows.

We are surprised how slow the show is. We keep waiting for the crowds and they don't show. A few dealers have actually closed down and not near as many came this year compared to last year. Some places have lowered prices, yet others have increased theirs. We picked up some items we really wanted / needed, and then we'll check the end of the show hoping for specials.

I met the artist of hand-painted collector coins. I really enjoyed them. They're excellent quality and full of color. I like the coins from Tibet and, I forget the country, but it's an ocean front with a lighthouse. Even the US state quarters were cool. Even the not real astrological and Chinese zodiac coins were interesting.

The most fascinating part was chatting with the retired chemist from New Mexico. He spent an hour or more educating me on the chemical composition of metals and how they're crystals are formed. Too much info to relay, but some key points I do remember: (If you're not into geology or chemistry, please feel free to skip this section down to the Personal.)

• Calcite melts in cold water and solidifies in hot water.

• Sulphur in the air, not oxygen, tarnishes silver. When coal burns, it releases sulphur which is why the British elite had a maid whose full-time job was always cleaning silver. The sulphur in the house from the coal-burning fires constantly combine with the silver creating the dark color.

• Miners can tell where the water level was in caves and mines because certain minerals grew only in liquid water while others created by oxidation or sulfides grew out of water.

• Colorado mines silver from galena like California mines gold from quartz. Pure silver is almost white, but since it's found often as a compound in galena (lead sulfide), people associated the silvery, shiny metal color of galena for silver. (So, if you buy silver, go for the whitest for the purest.)

• During rock-forming, water would dissolve copper, carrying the atoms downstream which would combine with other elements to create new minerals. Those closest to the source have the most copper and as the water flowed further away, the minerals would have less copper available and combine with other atoms. So, as we saw in Nevada, I'd see copper, close by is turquoise, then walk a little to find azurite, then malachite.

• I learned about two types of morphed minerals - those that keep the crystalline shape of the old mineral but morph chemically into a new one; and those that keep the same chemical combo but morph into a new shape. Such as the shape of a silver sulfide. The minerals Argentite and Acanthite have exactly the same chemical make-up (AgS2) yet depending on the temperature the mineral cooled affects the shape. The miners usually just call it all the same thing - Argentite - cause they just care about obtaining the silver. The geologists have the separate name for the different shape.

• Sulfides are extremely popular. During rock formation, water heated up from nearby magma, expands, flows to crevices, dissolves sulphur (a very soft element) which combines chemically with the water to make sulphuric acid, which dissolves the harder minerals. As the water cools, it contracts forcing the other elements to re-solidify. When they do, many of them combine with the sulphur creating sulfides and a whole new mineral.

Personal: Man, it's getting warm during the days - 80 in early February and windy. I'm enjoying the rocks and look forward to the rest of the shows opening up. I also want to check out a lot of the local touristy items such as the museums and parks. Some of the best observatories are suppose to exist around here. Many are up in the mountains and won't be open yet. I was hoping that might open early due to the warm weather except they're expecting snow this weekend.

Day 8 - Tucson - Work / Rest Day

No stones today... well, except all the purple and gray ones surrounding us. Grass is a rarity here especially during a time when all the rivers and creeks are dry. Air definitely dominates here.

I finally got a touch of personalization in the RV. I now have an almost "dining room". Now it looks like an old folks house instead of a nursing home. But I do have 3 more inches available for seating. The handsome man hiding behind the hand is a model who doesn't want to play fair. He loves to take photos of others yet he didn't want to take his turn of being recorded for history.

This is our second time to visit Tucson and I never knew a section of town existed that was modern suburb. We had to head out to the northeast side of town to obtain a pc adapter. I was amazed that Tucson had retail operations that English was the primary language. And there's a mall! For the past two years I've been enjoying the unique culture of Tucson. Primarily Spanish and Native American where I feel grateful if any of the clerks can understand me. I never knew that shoebox stores existed or I could drive down a street that reminds me of going down Sunrise around the Sunrise Mall. I was excited that I might be able to have more choices for seat cushions than what WalMart has to offer.

Personal: I know it sounds like I didn't do much today. Our 30 minute trip to fill a prescription took 3 hours. Very informative. Walgreens, who we discovered owns our prescription drug plan WellCare, finally found our / their group plan in their system just to inform us that the generic version of Clint's prescription no longer exists. But they can sell us the very expensive brand name. Oh, and to receive an alternative drug, we would need a new prescription from our doctor who permanently closed their office yesterday. Thank you, but no thanks. I had just filled my generic prescription at Costco last week. They informed us that the generic went up $20 in price so that the retailers aren't making as much money on it, but the generic is still available and they'd love to honor Clint's 90-day prescription. I was kinda proud of Clint who demonstrated patience and maturity. With each roadblock, he just rolled with it and came up with alternative solutions.

Day 7 - Tucson Show: G-LW and Stegadon

Today, we toured the G&LW Show (Gem & Lapidary Wholesalers) which takes up a huge convention center. Clint picked up some silver chains to go with the charms from yesterday and also picked up a couple of skulls similar to the bunch pictured here.

After all the jewelry, we headed over to the other side of town to enjoy stones, rocks and fossils. I enjoyed the large crystals, petrified wood, large meteorites, and fossils.


Here are just a couple of photos of the sites at the smaller booths around the hotels.

I call this "Sage Man". To the right is a full size Stegadon man-made fossil that universities and museums usually purchase.


Personal - Last night I watched one of my favorite movies - A Knight's Tale. Just a fun movie. Tonight laughing at the movie RV, I'm feeling grateful that our first year of RV experience was much less memorable. We only got stuck in the sand, watched a tow truck tilt over on two wheels while attempting to pull us out, have a blown tire as our battle scar with a Wal-Mart cart return, experience 3 broken windshields, seeing rain dropping from inside through the broken antenna, and hearing our stairs crunch while on I40. But we've stayed out of lakes, no sewer showers, or mailboxes.