Tucson: Day One, Part One

We came up with what we thought was a pretty simple plan:  see as much as we could as fast as we could.  We decided to ride the free shuttle buses and start with a show at Tucson Electric Park, since it's known for some pretty good cabbing rough and a couple of really good tool booths.  We had only seen the tip of the iceberg from the highway.  When we got to the show we couldn't believe the crates and pallets stacked as far as we could see, with more stuff under the tents.  Wow!  It was going to be even harder to stick to our budget than we originally thought.

Most dealers of rough stones provide water bottles to wet the rocks with so you can get some idea what it might look like when it's polished.  Our first stop was at Redtail Mines for some Brazilian opal, Black Mt. turquoise, and rainbow turquoise.  I have a couple of cabs started from the Black Mt. rough and it looks very promising.
Next we stopped by J2B2 Stones for some pre-slabbed jaspers.  When you buy cabbing rough, this costs a good bit more but it's worth it.   Slabs might be sold by the gram or square inch and big hunks are usually sold by the pound, but you can really see what's inside the stone if the dealer has already gone to the trouble of slabbing it.

We ended our stay at Electric Park with a purchase of something called Sonoran Sunrise, a beautiful mixture of chrysocolla and cuprite, and a visit to Alpha Supply, the hosts of the Facette demonstration crew.  

It was about noon, so we headed back to the shuttle bus and ride to our next stop:  JOGS.  We had been given tickets for a free champagne lunch and it sounded like a good deal to us.