Preface: If you can't tell, it's really long, and there's probably too much detail, but, well, that's me. So read it in segments or do it when you've got some time on your hands. Hopefully it's an interesting read even though it is long.
Tuesday, Groundhog Day (02/02/10):
I was eager to go. I'd been packed since Sunday night (though I shifted stuff around and double checked things on Monday night, while also visiting with Clare). All day at work I changed my status hourly to "T minus x hours to departure" and then on the half hour marks as it got even closer. I had a lot of stuff to do at work before leaving, so I skipped lunch. This turned out to bite me in the butt, giving me a nasty headache, and air travel made it worse. Thankfully, that was the only real problem. US Airways, even though I'm not sure I should trust them (since they're the ones that let us down in October, on our way home from MS), had the best times for me to fly and everything was pretty much on time. The baggage took longer than I expected, but it finally arrived and Cherie was in the cell-phone lot waiting for me. We headed straight to her place where we stayed up talking for a bit, then crashed.
Wednesday (02/03/10):
I had mostly defeated the headache by the time I got up in the morning, so I took some Advil to fight off the remainder. Cherie was sick, so she was skipping work and resting up. I took my time getting up and eating breakfast and prepping for the day. Cherie had a doctors appointment, so she dropped me off at a hotel by I-10 where a large group of show vendors were, on her way to see the doc. It was weird at first, to be wandering around solo: no one to comment to, no one to hear comments from, no one to hide behind if weird strangers looked my way. I adjusted quickly to this and just wandered to my hearts content, oddly pleased at not having to worry about anyone but me. It made everything simple, not that I wouldn't have enjoyed it just as much if I had had a companion. There are many I can think of that would have enjoyed being there too.
It was all overwhelming. So many things to see. So many vendors. Every single ground floor room of the hotels had a vendor in it. They had signs sticking out from the door frame stating the name of the business and where they were from, almost like street signs. Usually a few tables were out front of the room and more things were displayed inside, with the beds shoved out of the way. If I'd thought of it, I would have taken a sample picture. Every vendor had something slightly different to offer. Sure, there was overlap, but they usually had something slightly different or unique as well. It was amazing. I wandered along the hallways, checking out the rooms, primarily going into the ones that had mineral specimens or beads. I tended to skip the ones showing off meteorite bits and fossils as it was enough to look at what was on the tables out front as I slowly walked by. The first set of hotels didn't have anything that struck my fancy, so I headed under the freeway towards another hotel.
Just past the freeway, I saw some lovely art. Bright colors, mosaic sort of patterns. I saw over the next few days that there was all sorts of neat art in bright colors on or near the freeway all over Tucson. It was quite lovely.
I headed on to the next spot, which was the Inn Suites Hotels, at Granada and St. Marys. This place was a treasure trove of awesomeness, in my book. They had some of the best stuff (even though I'd only been to the one other place). There were tents all around the hotel, but I decided to check the hotel rooms first. As I walked up to the entrance to the hotel, I was amazed to see a giant tourmalinated quartz specimen by the door. It was very very large (at least 3-4 feet long and 2 feet wide) and must have weighed a ton:
I wandered into the lobby and there were all sorts of wonderful mineral specimens on display in cases and giant specimens on pedestals around the area. I was in awe. Amazingly enough, my jaw dropped even more as I wandered further into the lobby. A vendor was set up there displaying mineral art. He did watercolor paintings of minerals. Firstly, what he painted were first rate mineral specimens and secondly, he rendered them as good or better than any camera could. The colors were vibrant. Part of the reason this impressed me so much was because I had to do some mineral drawings in some of my classes in college and it can be quite difficult to get the correct angles and shapes. The fact that he rendered them so beautifully and captured the colors so powerfully on top of that made me gape in wonder at his work. I bought three 11x17 prints of his work. Here's his website, so you can see his work too:
Nature's Finest Creations
I wandered around the hotel for a few hours. There were all sorts of wonderful things to see. I bought a few things:
Calcite with Goethite (the black stuff) - I'd never seen a specimen like this before. So neat!
Orange and white druzy quartz cabochons (not sure what I'll do with them, but they were gorgeous).
and took pictures of one or two:
Calcite crystallized on Galena
I didn't even finish looking at all the ground floor rooms by the time I hit overload for the day. I had been looking at it all for about 4 or 5 hours by then and I knew I could no longer appreciate what I was looking at, so I called Cherie and she came and picked me up. We headed back to the house, but not too long afterwards we had to head out to go pick up a machine that the doctor prescribed to help her breathing improve while she got over her illness. Since we were out already, we went to Mosaic for dinner. It was delicious, just like I remembered. I must have been quite hungry, being as I ordered a plate with an enchilada, tostada and two tacos and I made it all disappear before Cherie finished her three tacos. For dessert, I nursed a horchata. It was soooo delicious. We went back to the house and watched a Doris Day film that I had brought with me (thanks to Netflix), then headed to bed.
Thursday (02/04/10):
This, again, was a day that I was on my own. Chee was still resting and recovering and I had already made plans to borrow Chee's car and head south to visit Tutu & Frank for lunch at their house in Rio Rico. I had thought/hoped to get up early enough to go check out a show site for about an hour before heading south, but I ended up dawdling around the house and visiting, so I ended up just heading straight to Tutu & Frank's around 10:45. I knew they were a bit off the beaten path, but I was surprised to discover that their road is also unpaved for most of the way and a bit steeper than I expected in some areas. I even had to drive around a steer at one point as it was lounging along the side of the road. Turns out that area is an open range.
I got to the house right around noon and found out they were going to treat me to steak and potatoes for lunch, which sounded just fabulous to me. Frank put the steak on the grill and I checked out the view, called Pete (perfect reception while standing in the back yard looking down at the valley), and toured the house. The view is amazing and the house is gorgeous. Very open and bright and a bit echoey due to high ceilings and all tile floors. We chatted while the food was finished up, then ate, talked about all sorts of things, then I showed off a couple clogging and square dancing videos, then we played around a bit with Tutu's machine. The time flew by and eventually I had tea and dessert (a bit of cheesecake and chocolate and cream puff) and then headed on my way back to Tucson. I spent a good 3 hours visiting with them. It was a great time.
There was a border patrol checkpoint a few miles north of Rio Rico and the tea's diuretic effects had kicked in by the time I hit that, so I crossed my fingers that I'd find an exit with a bathroom soon. I found an exit just north of Amado (I think it was still technically Amado) and pulled in at a little gas station. They didn't have a public restroom, so they sent me across the street. I'm not sure now if it was the Cow Palace or the Longhorn Bar & Grill, but there was a giant metal steer-skull shape at the top of the sign and the bathroom doors said Cowboys and Cowbelles, which amused me (and hence why I shared the story).
I hit the road again, headed for Tucson, and back to the Inn Suites Hotels. It was around 5 when I got there and I spent the next hour and a half wandering around the rest of the ground floor rooms (I never got to the second floor level of rooms and vendors). One of my favorite things I saw that day were some rutilated quartz spheres and the vendor let me take some photos of them, since they were out of my price range (around $300-$400 apiece):
I also bought a beautiful amethyst specimen for a friend that night, as well as a great little stibnite specimen. It's one of my favorite minerals, though I don't know exactly why.
I headed back to Cherie's, where her Wildcats were about to start a game. Theoretically, it was time for dinner, but I was still full from lunch, so I never ended up having dinner that night. I watched the game for a bit, then decided it was the perfect night to give her jacuzzi tub a go, so I went and soaked in there and read a book while she cheered on her Cats. It was a really nice tub, though I was not able to immerse myself as deeply in it as I had hoped. I guess I can only do that in a nice big hot tub. I headed back out in my 'jams and read some more while she finished watching the game, then listened to the coach's interview afterwards. Then it was bedtime.
Friday (02/05/10):
Chee had some appointments to go to in the morning (chiro and glasses), so she dropped me off at a new location for me to check out and then headed on her way. This was the first place to have a good assortment of bead vendors and I found all sorts of neat beads as well as various carvings, like stone birds, turtles, elephants, dolphins and frogs. Those last four were the most common animals I found. I'm not sure if they're popular, or just easier to carve. I saw the quartz singing bowls like I got Pete a few Christmases ago:
A vendor selling Oregon sunstone had a really cute way to buy some lower quality sunstone in bulk:
There were several neat things at this place (Days Inn Tucson - Convention Center) and I wandered through the courtyard area where most of the vendors were located, quite content buying beads and taking pictures of other neat things. Chee called me around noon and we met back up, then headed to lunch. We decided to eat at Mosaic again. It was wonderful all over again. I'd love going to that place all the time.
From there, we headed to a show at the Starr Pass Marriott, but it turned out that it was for wholesale/dealers only, so we left as soon as we found that out (they should have made it clearer). Then we went to a large tent, I think it was on Simpson Street right by I-10. This place had mostly jewelry and beads. It was quite fun to wander around and look at everything. Chee and I found many neat things to buy, including necklaces and findings and stones to put on jewelry:
From there we went back to the Inn Suites (still my favorite place out of all the places I'd been). I showed Chee the giant tourmalinated quartz and the amazing artist that painted mineral specimens. She ooohed and aaahed just like I had done. It was great. We eventually wandered outside and went into a few of the tents. I found some "interesting"wands for sale:
One of the neatest things I saw was something that I'm still unsure of. The coloring indicated hematite, but I'd never seen hematite in the eight-sided crystal shape (like two pyramids stacked against each other, making it have two points) like I saw on this specimen. I asked around and the only thing anyone could come up with was that it was actually hematite, as far as they knew, but it was probably a polymorph: it used to be one mineral, which grows eight-sided, like we saw, but then that mineral was altered chemically to become hematite (by nature, not by man), but the crystal habit (the way it's shaped) was still leftover from the previous mineral. I couldn't afford to buy the specimen, so they let me take a picture of it:
I went and found Cherie, since I had encouraged her to mosey on while I waited for an answer about the hematite specimen, and I caught up with her at a place that had amazing geodes and geode pieces. We ended up finding a gorgeous citrine specimen that I bought. I didn't get a snapshot of it yet as they wrapped it securely in bubble wrap for my travels and I didn't want to unwrap it to take a picture until I had a home for it. We wandered some more and ended up finding some large citrine geodes, so Cherie took a picture of me next to them:
We wandered into the building behind the geodes and found various overpriced minerals. At the end of the building, though, we found another vendor and she had some great things. First of all, there was the face sphere. She puts it out at every show they do and it always gets lots of chuckles. It's even close enough to a face to fool my facial recognition software in iPhoto:
She also had some really neat jewelry, some made by her, and some made by her sister. I bought one of her sister's pieces: a pendant made up of a Herkimer diamond (a special kind of quartz that's always very clear and sparkly like a diamond) and Mexican fire opal (a recent favorite of mine), wire-wrapped together. I couldn't resist it (even though it looks a bit like a chili pepper):
On our way out, we saw a piece of quartz that was just too funny not to take a picture of:
We headed back to Cherie's from there, made plans with Wilma to meet up on Saturday, ate turkey sandwiches, watched some TV, had some popcorn (so tasty!) and then hit the sack. It was probably only 10:00, still pretty early, but we were wiped out from all we'd done that day.
Saturday (02/06/10):
Chee and I took our time getting up and out. Around 11 we arrived where she'd dropped me off Friday morning, only down a hotel or two (the Riverpark Inn). We wandered through a few booths around the hotel, but rapidly stumbled across something that Cherie couldn't pass up: amethyst, with bears carved out of the rock that surrounded the amethyst. They were amazing and cute and irresistible and felt just right when you touched it. The owner pulled out several more of the same kind (not identical, of course), but the first one we saw was the one that fit Cherie best:
She took her prize back to the car and I wandered on down the tents, stumbling across a tent with lovely and inexpensive rutilated quartz specimens, so I found a nice little rutilated quartz point for me and a small egg-shaped piece for Pete. I also found a nice fist-sized clear quartz specimen at a reasonable price, so I went for that as well. Hard to see the details of those in pictures, so I won't post them.
Wilma met up with us shortly after that and we wandered around in the hotel courtyard looking at all sorts of neat jewelry and beads and mineral specimens and carvings. There were lots of rutilated quartz carvings that were amazingly beautiful, but they were all at least $1000, so I felt uncomfortable being around them, afraid I'd be responsible for buying them if I even took a picture of them. Silly, I know.
Chee and I were getting quite hungry, so we took Wilma along with us in Cherie's car and we went to Rigo's. I'd been there once or twice before, trying to eat there, but they'd been closed every time. This time, though, we had great success and I finally got to eat there. Chee and I opted for the lunch buffet, but Wilma just had a margarita since she'd had a large, late, breakfast. Since her birthday had been the day before, we all figured she was entitled to a large breakfast and a margarita lunch. :-D
The food was quite spectacular. Just different enough from Mosaic that I don't think I could really compare them to each other, so they're both great in their own way. I tried all of the meats on the buffet and my favorite was the Chile Verde (I think). The meat was tender, like a good roast, and the verde sauce was delicious the way it blended with the meat. I had a tostada and also tried their flour tortillas. Oh, and the vegetable blend was really delicious too (can't remember the name). It was all delicious and I loved their sopapillas for dessert. We ended up eating too much food, but it was all sooo good!
After our tasty food, it was either time to walk some more or time to nap, so we opted to walk, heading to another place, Tucson Electric Park, where many tents were set up. We wandered around there the rest of the day until we were tuckered out. I found a funny thing that one vendor had done: They'd taken a rock that was made up of mostly fossils, and carved it into a book shape and called it The Fossil Book. It's a pun, get it? :-D Well, it really tickled my funny bone, as you can tell.
Wilma and Chee found neat findings and we found some beads and I found a couple more neat stones and mineral specimens. We were definitely out of energy by the end and wanted to get back to Cherie's so they could watch the Wildcats game.
We made it back with plenty of time to spare, so I pulled out my finds from the last few days to show off to Wilma and take pictures of for my photo library. They pulled out some beading supplies and played around with that. I packed my treasures into my suitcase and stuffed clothes that wouldn't fit in the suitcase anymore into the carry-on, since I was leaving the next day, and then I sat down and played with beads too. Wilma and Chee had a fun time sorting out the stuff Cherie had bought earlier that day and they helped me while I played with beads, then Wilma headed out and Cherie and I stayed up to mess with the computer so I could check in for my flight and various other things. I used a box of Cherie's to create a protective sleeve for the mineral art I had bought, then taped the handle from that box onto the sleeve. It was hilarious and creative. I wish I'd thought to take a picture of it. We laughed every time we looked at it, but it was perfect. It had definitely needed a handle to make it easier to carry.
We headed to bed late, wiped out from the day. I woke up later in the night to the sound of rain pouring down on the roof. It was really fun to listen to. I got up at 7 and it was still raining, so I watched it for a bit, then headed back to bed. Got back up around 9, watched the rain some more, played on the computer some more (iTunes stuff and researching smart phones) and eventually we got ourselves showered and dressed and headed out the door for lunch and another hour or so of looking at gems and minerals and beads. We ate at a place called Zachary's Pizza, which had been recommended by some friends here in the bay area. It was really good pizza (as my friends had said), but we had to wait quite a bit because of all the takeout orders they were filling due to it being Superbowl Sunday. I was quite amused that I didn't even know that it was Superbowl Sunday. We talked and ate and then headed back to Tucson Electric Park since it was on the way to the airport. I found a few more beads, Chee found a few more bits of fun jewelry-type stuff and then we headed on to the airport.
It was sad to go, but it was a great time and I guess I was ready to head home. The airplane was resisting the idea of me going home, apparently, because it was running about 15-20 minutes late, but we made it to Phoenix in time for me to catch my connecting flight. Once we were on board, we sat there for 30+ minutes. The pilot finally came on to let us know that some paperwork was keeping us at the terminal. I'm not sure whether to believe them or if they were using that excuse to cover up something more scary that was going on, but we eventually made it in the air, 45 minutes late. They made up some lost time on the way, so we hit ground about 20-25 minutes late, but it was still probably 30 minutes late by the time we go to the terminal and were able to deplane. Thankfully, the baggage arrived fairly promptly (they were using the baggage claim area from the new terminal - I assume it's going to be called Terminal B) and then I called Pete and I got to go home. I was wiped out, but I showed him my mineral art and we stayed up talking for a while, but then I crashed (on clean, new, flannel sheets - thank you Pete!).
I got up early and emptied out my suitcase, then took some of my smaller finds in to work to show them off (and later took them to clogging). Everyone thought they were really neat.
I had a really good time and I don't care that we didn't do any other sightseeing besides looking and gems and minerals. I had fun stuff to see, good food, good company, good downtime. Couldn't have been any better. Thanks Chee!
