Tucson - fossils and rough - day 6

I finally remembered to take some pictures today - but only at one venue :)  We were at the Howard Johnson hotel show this morning and went wandering around to see the fossils and gemstone rough.  I always like to see what the beautiful stones and gems that I use look like before the get cut and polished.  Here are a few of the gemstones in the rough.

Citrine

Peridot

Purple opal

Rhodonite

Tiger Eye

Turritela agate

And here are some cool fossils. I don't remember what the names of the critters are and I'm too lazy to look them up :)

And here's Manny from El Paso Rock Shop who answered our questions about the various stones and cracked open a few geodes so we could see the crystals inside.

And here I am in front of a mongo crystal

Tucson - Day 5

We've been busy for the past 4 days and I just haven't had the energy to blog about our days when we roll back to our condo.  We've visited many of my favorite vendors and found some wonderful beads and cabs.  Today's adventures took us to Holidome, Gem Mall and back to my favorite turquoise guys at the Howard Johnson show.  I didn't take a single shot of who we saw though I should have taken a picture of our barista at the Gem Mall food court.  She made a GREAT caffe mocha.  Here are some of the items we found today.   Have I mentioned how addicted I am to turquoise?  LOL!

Coin pearls - varying from not so great quality at the bottom to pretty decent quality at the top

Black onyx and fossil corral

More pearls!

Poppy jasper, red creek jasper and Montana moss agate

Royal beauty turquoise

Nevada blue turquoise and sleeping beauty turquoise