Snakes and Stones

[Bogertophis]

I miss going to gem shows. It's been forever. I wouldn't know the first place to look where to even find a schedule or anything. So much stuff at those that I would have never thought existed before seeing it. I fondly remember being absolutely blown away with watermelon tourmaline. I had no idea at the time that they could grow like that with different colors vs multi-colored stones that you see more commonly where it's several little layers or speckles of color. Since then, I have become quite fond of fluorite with the huge variety of purples and greens, every one looking unique. I've got a small collection of tumbled stones and pieces of crystals but probably nothing like you have! And I have never tried to polish or cut anything myself. I have enough hobbies as it is

There's one that comes to my town every year for 2 days (over a weekend), except with this pandemic, it's probably off again. But I'm a devotee, as is a friend of mine who makes & sells jewelry.

When I previously lived in the So Cal desert, we had one every year there too, & the house I owned there was built & occupied before me by "rock tumblers" & they left piles of geodes in the yard.

I probably shouldn't have moved...it was a very special place, & I never got around to breaking open any of the rocks they left. There was snowflake obsidian & "Apache tears" laying around, & all sorts of things. And don't get me started on the cactus plants. In addition, they built huge red-rock terraces in the hill that the house sat atop. They freaked out though with the big earthquake we had (Landers quake of '92), moved out of state & put this house up for sale that they built & had planned to stay in forever. No one else was buying houses for a while after that...it sat there waiting for me to come along & fall in love with it. Yeah, I probably should have stayed, part of me is still there with the coyotes & the rattlesnakes, but life gets complicated, doesn't it?