Tucson Day 1

We arrived in Tucson this afternoon.  Fortunately my mom is still doing well enough (she's in her 80's) to go with me and help me shop for beautiful gems!  We got out luggage and rental car and headed to the JGM Show.  It actually starts tomorrow but Toyo (Feng's Trading) lets me do some shopping while he's setting things up.  Of course he's continually tempting me with beauties that he's pulling out of boxes!  Here are some beautiful, double drilled pearls he has (and a peak at those maroon granulated pearls I'm getting).
       

I like these because they are a beautiful maroon color and look like they are granulated on top.  Very different!
    

And a shot of what I have in my basket so far :)  I'll be going back tomorrow to see what else needs to go home with me.  Aren't those amethyst leaves gorgeous?!!


After doing a bit of shopping with Toyo we headed north and east to find our condo.  We dumped our luggage, freshened up a bit and then went to the Blue Willow for dinner.  They have delicious food and a vegan vegetable stir fry which is quite tasty.  We both finished off the meal with desert - chocolate crepe with strawberries for my mom and a vegan coffee cake for me.  Quite delicious, but, unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures!

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

Tucson Day 2 - beads, beautiful beads!!!

Day 2 started out wet and just got wetter. In fact it was absolutely pouring rain at several points during the day.  Not to worry - the rain didn't stop me from visiting some of my favorite vendors. Our first visit was with Toyo Feng (Feng's Trading). Toyo always has wonderful beads in some different stones and cool shapes. I always come home with gorgeous, unique beads for me designs. Here is a picture of Toyo and I at this booth and pictures of some of the beauties I'm taking home :)
 

Toyo and me!

Green pyrite, burmese jade, angelite weed grass agate, yellow (dyed) agate, yellow calcite

 and yellow opal

Turquoise hearts, gorgeous carved turquoise rounds, turquoise barrels and amazonite (leaves and faceted twisted ovales)

Carved mother of pearl, dyed jade, dyed terra jasper, fossil coral and brown opal

Beautiful turquoise, including some sleeping beauty!

Hematite, eagle eye tiger eye (grey), dumorterite

After lunch at El Minuto Cafe we drove over to the Howard Johnson GIGM show, slogged through the mud and puddles and visited our favorite vendors over there - Nevada Turquoise Co.  Here we both are with them.

Dad, me and Shellbone

Dad, my mom and Shellbone

Royal Beauty Mine turquoise and some Sleeping Beauty cabs

More turquoise :)

And that was the extent of our day.  The plans for tomorrow aren't cast in stone but we'll probably go to Gem Mall and JOGS.  If some of my designer friends send requests I may visit with Shellbone and his dad on the way home tomorrow. And, if you're wondering, it's still raining.  According to the evening news the airport got over 1" of rain (at 6:30PM) which broke a record from the 80's.  Since it hasn't stopped raining I'm sure the airport total is probably closer to 2" now.

Tucson Gem Show Day 5

I had a lot of fun on my 5th day in Tucson!  I started out the day shopping with Toyo of Feng's Trading and a bunch of his special, new stock had just arrived!  I actually did quite a bit of shopping the night before since we arrived at his show after closing time so I could help him close up and then we followed him to Sachiko restaurant for dinner. He was still unpacking boxes that morning so I did a bit more shopping.  Here are the strands I picked up.

Fossil coral

Dumorterite

Fossil coral

Red jasper and mosaic creek jasper

Paua shell (untreated and heat treated)

Nephrite (BC Jade, angelite, rhodonite, Sleeping Beauty turquoise

Sodalite, alligator jasper, ocean jasper, cape (chevron) amethyst

Golden (blue and brown) tiger eye and blue tiger eye

 And a picture of Toyo and I and his loooonnnngggg table of beds.  That's my mom way down at the end!
 

Toyo and I

Toyo's beads ... see my mom way down at the end?

 Once I finished up with Toyo we headed over to the Kino show (formerly TEP).  I found another one of my favorite bead vendors - Royal Quality gems.  Here the 2 owners are with my mom and some of the beads I got there.

Royal Quality gems

 Natural mother of pearl, turquoise

Then we wandered around the Kino show and saw many interesting rocks.  Here are a few...

Azurite

Petrified wood

Lepidolite

Then we had some lunch and headed over to JOGS to close out the day.  I got some sterling silver from SII (the least expensiver per gram that I've seen).  Here's a picture to let you envision the way things look when we're wandering the halls.

Gemstones (precious and semi-precious) by the trayful!

I'm tired so this is it for tonight.  We head home tomorrow but I still have several other days to share with you so you'll get more updates even after I'm home!

Tucson Gem Show Day 4, part 2

Our Monday morning adventures continued as we met up with Bob of Really Old Rocks and his friend Gary Johnson.  I got some turquoise (of unknown origin - old from the estate of a bead shop owner) and apache tears from Gary.  Here's Gary and the pretties I got from him.

Gary Johnson

Apache tears and turquoise

I always have fun checking out Bob's things because he has different rocks every year.  This year he had a lot of Yellowstone Ash Agates.  He had these tested and they are 630,000 year old amygdules most likely from the Lava Creek explosion.  They're pretty cool looking and a bit different.  I got some banded iron (aka genesis stone) and some ash agates and my mom got a piece of dinosaur bone!  Here's Bob and his rocks!

Bob of Really Old Rocks

Dinosaur bone (top left), ash agates (under dino bone) and banded iron (everything else)

Ash agates

Banded iron

After we finished up at the Miner's Co-op show we did a quick stop at JGM so I could put aside some amber chips for a friend of mine and then we headed back to the Pueblo Show to get some half drilled drops at Yau Shing Gems.  On our way in I took pictures of some of the cool and BIG minerals and gemstones you'll see at all the hotels along the freeway.  I have no idea what either of these is - but they look cool!.

It took a while to sort through the various packs of half drilled drops to make sure I can match up pairs and here is the pile I ended up with and a picture of the two people who helped me - brother and sister!

As we were leaving the Pueblo show I saw one of my gemmie friends, Robyn Hawk and not far behind was another friend!  What a coincidence!  Here's a picture of us gals with one of the many crystal skulls you'll see at the freeway shows.

Our next stop was the 22nd Street show.  I was in search of an ammolite pendant for a friend of mine. As I looked and looked for what I thought I saw 2 days ago I found a man, DavidOtteson,  selling ribbon turquoise cabs. I can't believe I missed him 2 days ago since I love ribbon turquoise!  It's hard to find since it has to be just a thin ribbon of turquoise in some hard rock like quartz or jasper.   I did forget to take a picture of David, but here are the gorgeous cabs I got.

Aren't they purty!  Then I did a final check for the ammolite pendant and found it in a booth I didn't even look in before.  I have no idea what I remembered seeing on Saturday.  Well it took a bit of back/forth messaging on facebook, sending pictures of various pendants, waiting for an answer, ... but in the end here is the pendant she'll be getting and the fun folks at Morning Sun Jewelry from Grass Valley, California!  I just keep running into Californians all over the place.

Susan, Peter and Mom

The booth gang at Morning Sun Jewelry

The next stop was dinner with Toyo Feng of Feng's Trading.  I've been buying for him for as long as he's been selling on his own - amazing!  This is the first time our schedules meshed so we could have dinner together.  Here we are at Sachiko's enjoying sushi, sashi, tempura and teriyaki beef.

Mom, me and Toyo!

Now I'm 2 days behind in posting - but Mr. Sandman is telling me it's bedtime - so good night for now!