I just got back from Tucson late last night.
Words and photos will never do justice to the minerals on display. We spent Thursday looking at the displays at the main show. In almost seven hours we did not see everything. I did take lots of photos. After getting back to the motel and downloading them I was not happy with them.
On Friday we went to the micromount symposium where I gave my presentation. It seemed to be well received. There were also talks on New England micro minerals by Van King, The RRUFF Project by Robert Downs, and Alabama phosphates by Henery Barwood.
On Saturday I returned to the main show with a different lens and a flash and reshot many of the photos. I now have to get them on this computer and see what I have. My wife did not accompany me on Saturaday as she was not feeling well. It was a cold she started the trip with, not the bug making the rounds at Tucson. I did meet Gail and several other folks from Mindat.
I enjoyed looking at the great minerals offered by various dealers. My only purchases were nine micromounts from England for $50.00 and two newly described species from Mont Saint-Hilaire hand deliverd by the Horvaths. It was nice to meet them as I have been dealing with them for twenty years.
On Sunday we went out to the Arizona Sonara Desert Museum and spent the day viewing the fine exhibits there. This was more on the plants and animals found in the desert but the was a small but nice exhibit of minerals. We spent the night camped near there. On Monday it was on to the Old Reliable Mine near Mammoth where we collected some nice libethenite. I have just started to look at that under the scope. Will have photos later. On Tuesday we tried to find a zeolite spot but rain overnight had the stream we had to walk up running with too much water. Wednesday we were in northern Arizona where we collected some Apache tears near the campground. It was then onto Death Valley National Park. We spent Thursday exploring the park and camped there that night. It was rather windy most of the night and we were not sure the tent would stay up. it did. We started for home on Friday and had a 320 km drive through a snowstorm along the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. We got out of the snow near Reno, Nevada. We spent the night in Susanville, California. When we left there Saturday morning we had about 80 km of icy roads to travel before we got to clear roads. We arrived home about 2230 after covering a bit over 1400 km in two days.
I also have a bunch of minerals from the giveaway table at the micro symposium to look over, trim and photograph.
It was a very good trip and the right year to go to Tucson for the first time.
Doug
