The Main Show

The highlight, or maybe we should call it the climax of The Rock and Gem Show is The Main Show which is held at the Convention Centre in the city and here you can see the best of the best, the most exquisite specimens of rock, crystals and minerals in the world.

This year the theme was Australian Minerals so the majority of exhibits were Australian. Glenn and I made a hurried visit to the Convention Centre in between packing up our booth ready to leave early the next morning. I took photos of what we thought were the best.

First of all, this marble carving is not Australian, but American, hence the Stars and Stripes behind. It is quite amazing so I thought I should include it. It is a complete piece of marble except for the piano legs.
There were rumours that Sir Elton John was going to fly in to see this, but alas, it did not happen.

I hope that when you click on the photo to enlarge it you will be able to read labels because I can't tell you what half these are! I'm a layman. Or is it 'laywoman'?

This is our Variscite below.

And finally, the miners of the giant Tiger Eye slabs

stand proudly next to their prize piece.

And now it's time to go home!
Phew!!
Woody, here we come. Not long now.

Eating out

We eat out a lot when we are here in America. After a long day of the show every day of the week, we don't really feel like going home and cooking - neither in this house we've leased nor when we were living in our caravan in Quartzsite. So we learn to eat out in America.


The restaurants in the little town of Quartzsite differ greatly to those in the city of Tucson. Quartzsite, afterall, only has to cope with hundreds of thousands of people for a couple of months of the year. The rest of the time it is a sleepy desert town. Consequently, there are seasonal restaurants employing casual staff who are often the snowbirds passing through town. We were often served by elderly ladies in their seventies glad to be able to earn a little extra cash on their travels; one lady served us who didn't know what a Cabernet Savignon was. Glenn said it very slowly and carefully for her to repeat to the barman and she repeated it back to Glenn perfectly, including his Aussie accent! Very funny. She laughed too.

As we were in Quarzsite for three weeks we did a circuit of the restaurants in town where we found food that was palatable. There are many Mexican restaurants in this part of the US so we had to include one or two. They use corn and beans a lot and often it's a plate of slop, but palatable slop as long as we didn't eat it every night.

We never did find a restaurant in Quartzsite that served fresh vegetables with a meal - not one! It was always canned corn, canned green beans (yuk) or canned lima beans. Except of course, the Chinese restaurant who always include fresh vegetables but we only tolerated that place twice.

It was China's answer to Fawlty Towers. On walking in there is a sign that says, "Please be seated" so we looked around the large dining room and made for a two-seater table. Just as we began to sit a little old Chinese waiter shouted at us from the other side of the room, "Not there!" We looked at eachother. He repeated, "Not there! Over there!" He pointed to a four-seater on the other side. The people around us half smiled and I'm sure some rolled their eyes. During the evening he marched around the restaurant as if he loathed every minute of being there, slamming bill folders on tables as if he couldn't wait for us to leave. Hilarious.

One of the make-shift restaurants in Quartzsite consisted of a shed with tables the length of the building where they served meals in styrene boxes complete with plastic cutlery. It was fish and chip night the time Glenn insisted I 'experience' that particular place. I felt out of place as I wasn't wearing a cowboy hat. Everyone else was!

The photo above is a restaurant run by an English guy and it's a sort of pub/fish and chip place. When we sat down, and it was heaving with people, he was telling the foursome next to us a joke. They laughed but I am sure that with his strong northern English accent they hadn't understood a word he'd said.

He's tried to give the place 'character' by adorning the walls, ceiling and bar with interesting memorabilia. There are car number plates, T-shirts, beer signs, eg. Budweiser, Killians Irish Beer, Boddingtons, Bass, etc; then there are signs such as John Deere, etc etc etc. There was also a 'Have a Go' wheel around which were stop points labelled, "nipples", "sex", "bowl of beans", "mat", "slick"; all foreign to me!! I wouldn't want to play that particular game.



Tucson, of course, is a city of half a million and has hundreds of eating places. We found Mexican, Italian, French, American family restaurants, Sushi, etc etc, you name it, it's all there. Took this photo in the carpark of a restaurant we ate at the other night. Don't think I'd take any chances there!!

'Servers' work hard, checking on their customers often and giving good service because they earn such a small wage and therefore depend on tips. We still didn't find many fresh vegetables served except at one of those 'serve yourself' type where multitudes of people are breathing and coughing over the serve-yourself bars and where I try to take food from underneath or the very back, in hopes it has less germs!

We went to a Bar and Grill place one evening and I went to the "Restrooms" as they call them in the US and as I was zipping up my jeans I looked up. Suspended from the ceiling just outside the cubicles so visible to all that may have been seated was a full size TV. Hey, if I'd only known!! I could have sat there and watched a whole basket ball game!! Forget the dinner!

At an Italian place, named after a famous sculptor, I went to the restrooms and the decor was artistic, tasteful, and generally a lovely room to relax in. Especially as Pavarotti was playing over the speakers! I would have stayed longer but they had those automatic flushers! No hanging about in there!

We are very fortunate at our show location that we have Grace and John right next to us working their kiosk (shown in the photo below). Our show is the only location they do where they supply lunches, hot and cold, and they actually do it for the vendors rather than the public as there is no food outlet in the local area. They are lovely people and really look after us, checking what we like and don't like and trying to keep everyone happy. I give her a box of my favourite tea bags so she can supply me with cups of tea all day.

They travel most of the year, going from town to town; rodeos, fairs, shows, running this kiosk and living in their RV (recreation vehicle).

Just around the corner was their "competition".

Needless to say, their "rivals" made absolutely no dent in their takings whatsoever. I had to take this photo covertly just in case they were armed, as so many people are here. I think the plastic roses are a nice touch, don't you?

Precious things

Yep, another gift!! Aren't I the lucky one.

These pendants coming along like this have been a bit like the 418 bus from Epsom. None for years then three at once!!

I have a Mookaite/jade pendant, a Montana Agate pendant and now this one - it is peanut wood set in silver and I LOVE IT! A gift from my man himself. (As a result of him personally delivering some rocks to a buyer that she left behind and seeing the jewellery she makes from his material.)

The master rock carver, Dalan Hargrave, visited us this morning and showed us these items he had carved from our new Variscite. They are absolutely exquisite. They are to be displayed in the Main Show at the Convention Centre in Tucson - the climax of the show. This is where the finest and most excellent of specimens will be sold and shown. (For three days only at the end of this week.)

The theme this year is Australian Minerals and Glenn's business partner has organised exhibits from our museums and CSIRO etc to be on show for everyone to see. One cabinet will be dedicated to our Variscite. I hope I can get there to see it all and take photos.

Sunday

An Indian gentleman purchased these four contoured rocks yesterday. He took his time choosing exactly what he wanted then indicated which rocks he would like. He said that each was to be carved into some sort of figure for religious purposes. Each would be unique and never to be repeated. (Magnesite, 2 x Noreen Jasper, Blue Lepidolite)

Sometimes I really wish I could see the end product.

When contoured pieces get sold we have space on the table so we delve into the drums for more.
This one came out next (above) . It looked so boring and unattractive at first. Just a relatively thin, flat contoured piece of striped jasper with little colour. Then I thought that maybe it would help if I found a stand to rest it on, like we do some of the picturesque slabs.
As it faced me, lo and behold, a Japanese watercolour!!! As clear as day I could see a landscape; mountains, a tree, pale evening sky with one cloud and maybe beach in the foreground!!

I mentioned this to Glenn and he increased the price immediately!!!

These items are in a booth along by us. What would you call this?? It can't possibly be mosaic. I can't print the word I'd like to use. What does my mosaic-ing friend think of these?
And what about this??? What exactly would you call this? A friend of ours thought that the person who carved this 'item' from rock must have had a feed of those funny mushrooms the night before and this is the result of the nightmare.

Strange thing is, it could be sitting in the corner of a restaurant as part of the 'interior design' and would anybody say anything? Just look at the lips on it!!

Actually, Glenn's suggestion was a large pin in each end and it would look like it had just come off the spit.

Saturday

This morning Glenn decided that today was the day to unveil the Tiger Eye spheres. The sun was shining and did full justice to these magnificent lumps of rock!
When making a sphere of this Brockman Tiger Eye the main aim is to have the band of Tiger Eye in the most prominent position, and as you can see, it flashes beautifully around the widest point of both these spheres.


The full name of this rock is BrockmanTiger Eye and the Brockman Jasper in which the band of Tiger Eye sits is a multitude of greens, browns and reds, incorporating the metallic-looking bands of hematite.

I am sure I have never seen anyone walk past this huge slab of Brockman Tiger Eye (below) without stopping and admiring it. Many people see pictures in it. One man looked at it and said, "Hey, this is a painting - I can see mountains, valleys, rivers, waterfalls and... wait... there's a golf course!!!

Being a weekend we have a lot of tourists and locals visit our booth who come to enjoy the sights of the Rock and Gem Show. I met some really lovely people today who had no idea what they were looking at but enjoying every minute of it. We constantly hear comments like, "You have such beautiful rocks in Australia!" and "I have never seen such an amazing assortment of rocks." Quite often they only buy a one dollar rock but it means so much to them and they are always so pleased when they see we attach a label giving the name and location of the rock they chose.

I saw a man looking very carefully through all the chrysoprase polished slabs and rocks on the tables today and went over to him to say hello. He said he was looking for a particular rock. It had to be really rough, ordinary and ugly on one side and stunningly beautiful on the other.

Chrysoprase is a beautiful green gemstone and can be cloudy through to translucent and it occurs in a brown matrix that is dusty and dirty. The photo above shows the cut and polished side revealing the gemstone inside. The other side is the original rock, as it came out of the ground, dusty and craggy.

It was the perfect type of rock for the lesson he was preparing that he may have entitled "You can't judge a book by its cover".

First he would show the children the back of this rock and ask them what they saw. They would see the dirt, the roughness, the ugliness and nothing that made it interesting or worth a second look. Then he would turn it over and they would see that there was more to this rock than met the eye. He wanted them to consider looking at people this way. They may see an unattractive, ordinary, uninteresting person who appears not to be worth a second look, not worth talking to or getting to know. He wanted them to not judge people from what they saw on the outside.

A good lesson - and a good teacher!

Snapshots

Someone we are always pleased to see is Bob from Bob's Rockshop. He tours the Rock and Gem Show taking photos and doing write-ups for his incredibly good website. He has dedicated one page for us here. Be sure to scroll down to the carvings of a frog and a seahorse. These were carved in Idar-Oberstein from last year's Variscite dig.

The last photo of our Tiger Eye slab and Bob's reflection is a gem in itself! I love it!

Viva La Difference

Tucson is a completely different scene to Quartzsite. We've moved from a desert town to a city and the difference in the location and patronage of our show are extreme.

At Quartzsite we can see for miles around us with the mountains way in the distance. Our booth stands on gravelly grey dust that, when it is windy, is picked up and sprinkled indiscriminately, leaving a layer on our beautiful polished rocks, clogging our eyes, and sticking to our hair. That's the desert for you!
Quartzsite is the type of place where the rockhounds can gather, talk 'rock' and buy those small pieces of rough rock that will make that perfect cabochon or arrowhead.
Smart buyers make the effort to come to Quartzsite before Tucson so they are first in line for large amounts of rough rock.
Above us in the Quartzsite sky we often see micro-lites floating gracefully across the sky above us and occasionally, hot air balloons.
It wasn't a quiet town, however; we could hear the roar of 'Interstate 10' constantly; twenty-four hours a day. It's one of the main US east-west highways.

Here in our Tucson booth we stand on tarmac surrounded by buildings.

There aren't many high rise buildings in Tucson but one of the few is adjacent to our show at 'Market Place'. It mainly houses people on state benefits and many of them come to browse around our show. Many of them, when chatting to us, point to the building and say that's where they live and that they come for a look each year. One man who lived up there made walking sticks for a hobby, from interesting pieces of wood that he found. He was holding one that looked remarkably like a snake - a cobra, in fact, with the wide head. It even had a tongue. If he hadn't spoiled it by sticking fake diamonds down the back of its neck it would have been quite attractive.

Rather than graceful thermal-seekers in the sky, in Tucson we see loud, fast military air craft passing overhead due to there being an air force base nearby. Every day, constantly, they fly over in pairs, maybe fours; jets, Hercules, all on various missions, no doubt.

Quartzsite was full of dogs, patiently walking with their owners, or being wheeled in some sort of cart. Here in Tucson it would seem things are more 'tropical'.

The weather, however, is not tropical! We have just had a real cold snap. The last three days or so have been bitterly cold. (Much colder than normal winters.) Not only was it uncomfortable to work in as we have no shelter but it keeps customers in the undercover and indoor shows. We did, however, make some sales. (At home in Perth it is swelteringly hot!)

Today, the clouds cleared, the sun shone and I even shed my jacket and woolly hat!! With the nicer temperatures and conditions the people were back on the circuit of outdoor shows and it was a busy day. And that's what we're here for!!