45-50 Sunny (The natives wearing Winter Parkas, me OK in a sweatshirt.

Shiva Lingams’ outside front entrance

Waiting by one of the orange trees for one to drop off (or ready to leap for one)

The day was spent roaming and exploring The Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show at the Hotel Tucson City Center.

Another little Bastard wiring by the pool. I suspect it is easier to eat people without so many clothes on, or not wearing Parkas.

The rooms are filled with vendors, as is the upper lobby and Ballroom. I love this show for its wide selection and variety of things. I got there early so I could get parking. You can park elsewhere and ride a shuttle if you can’t arrive until later in the day.

Before you enter the hotel, you can view Shiva Lingam from India, which are considered to increase fertility. The big ones are in the five foot range. Most of these are worked into perfect melon shapes using lapidary methods.

Upper lobby area dealer rooms

Many rooms feature meteorites, mineral specimens, jewels, slabs, cabs, and mine finds from around the world. The ballroom always features fine fossils and beautiful ammonites abound. The hotel rooms both upper and lower levels are filled with more rocks, minerals, fossils brought and sold by foreign dealers. United States miners, and collectors are also in abundance. I saw the Dorris family from the Weather Channel’s Prospectors show, selling Colorado treasures in two rooms, and the Meteorite Men were selling their finds in another room.

Horrendous carnage in the courtyard.

Ken Flood-Keweenaw Gems & Gifts

This show is fun because of the fiberglass dinosaurs scattered around the grounds. I saw a raptor waiting for an orange to fall, baby dinosaurs, and a horrendous fight where two raptors were ripping pieces of meat out of a large beast. Very gory. A couple reproduction t-rex heads were lying in the courtyard as well as a raptor waiting for fresh meat to emerge from the swimming pool.

By exploring other dealers in a couple larger tents in the rear of the hotel, I saw a beautiful display of back-lit onyx and agate. I chatted with Ken Flood, a friend who sells Keweenaw materials, speciallizing in copper items. He said he was having a good show.

This one was sold

This was like a coffin for the person that has everything

This one $500,000

Inside the giant Geode

Even further behind the hotel I discovered Aurora Minerals in a more permanent building (called the Granada Avenue Mineral Show) featuring shockingly large amethyst cathedrals. One was sixteen feet long (that’s a stretch Limo!), possibly the largest ever found in Uruguay. I’ve never seen the likes of this. The pictures of this give you an idea of how nice it is–the cathedral was filled with gem grade amethyst. It had a long journey by train, ship, and truck. It can be yours for $500,000, if you are inclined. If I’d won that Lotto, I could have had a petrified wood table, a triceratops, AND a prize amethyst cathedral. I might even let my Facebook friends in to see them for free.

These Ammonites are always the most colorful things at the show

Backlit agate and onyx

I guess that giant Amethyst being sold by Aurora Minerals was really todays highlight. It ofter pays to have a look out back in these shows. A couple years ago I found A T-Rex loitering way out back in this same show.

76 Sunny Windy

Our day started off with the same question we ask every morning in Tucson; ” Where are we going today?” We look at the Showbook and today we decided on the largest combined shows at one location, The Holidome Marketplace and the Holidome Pavillions as well as a quick stop at Intergem which is in the Clarion (used to be Holiday Inn). The Gem & Lapidary Wholesalers (GL&W) is also on the grounds and is comprised of another two enormous hard-sided tents. These are wholesale shows.

So you have 4 giant hard-sided tents, so large it is impossible to fathom, sort off in a circular formation, like spokes, with an end of each tent tied into a central outside courtyard where assorted food is prepared and sold.

The Intergem Show is quite small consisting of dealers inside the hotel, both in the ballroom and halls as well as in a tent next to the Hotel. Bonnie found some very fine beads, and I mostly just sat in the lobby and waited. I liked the strands of faceted Unakite beads that we had not seen in other shows, as well as Tigereye. Sodalite, and banded Agate.

Bonnie selects stones for earrings

Our car was left in the Clarion where you can take the free shuttle to most other Gem Shows around town.

Inside a giant tent

You have heard me expound on my love (NOT) for bead ladies with big suitcases in crowded aisles where they run into your ankles and block traffic. You may have doubted me, but here you can see a vendor offering “Free Parking” for the suitcases while the Bead Ladies pick out their treasures. I talked to one Bead Lady who said she had a small suitcase, but I told her she was not a true Bead Lady.

The Holidome tents are maybe 60% finished jewelry, mostly imported from Asia, which is not of interest to us. Beads at the shows also tend to be from China or India, and the sellers are of these nationalities. We see quite a few foreign buyers at the shows, but not as many as there used to be, due to similar shows overseas. While Bonnie was looking at beads, I found faceted bicolor Lemon/Smokey Quartz with a phantom smokey crystal in it. I will be making this into jewelry soon.

Here are a few chic beads we found today.

Faceted Unakite

Sodalite, Tigereye

Ocean Jasper

Together we selected several pairs of matched cabochon beads for earrings. It was fun sorting through a large assortment of these.

We only went through the Holidome tents today. We have two more (bigger) tents left at this site!