January 30 - February 5
The next few days are filled with a mix of exploring, eating, laughter and walks. A few highlights:
Wednesday, we spend 5 or so hours helping with set-up Chap and Mam's booth at the 22nd Street venue of the Tucson Gem Show. There are dozens of different venues throughout the city.
In the early evening, Anita and Kevin arrive and we go out to dinner at Mi Casa, a small family-run restaurant in Benson - good Mexican food.
Thursday and Saturday we spent some more time at the various venues of the Gem Show. As you can see, much more than gems are on sale.
Here is Chap and Mam's booth all set up.
Here are some of Mam's designs.
Petrified Wood.
Amethyst & Citrine Crystals - mostly from Brazil and Uruguay.
Tons of Beads.
Lamps made from slices of agate.
We loved these Kachina Dolls made from silver and turquoise.
Another gorgeous sunset.
On Friday, we started the day with a nice walk near Tom & Sue's neighborhood.
Then Greg and I went to visit the PIMA Air & Space Museum. A huge facility!
We took a tram tour around the outside exhibits
And then walked through many hangers with planes, helicopters and displays from WWI and WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm.
On Sunday, we actually had a bit of rain, on and off. We went to visit a nearby Donkey rescue place run by Tisha and John.( Unfortunately, Chap and Mam were hard at work daily.) They gave us quite a tour of the sweet animals - which can live up to 40 years. Nearly all had a story, usually sad, as they are used for roping practice and have very little value, so are often abused and/or abandoned. Very clean and neat place, they have 27 Jacks(M) and Jennies(F) at the moment - near capacity and they are obviously well taken care of. Some were very social and followed us around while others still haven't warmed to human contact.
John and Tisha have a nice adobe home - no heat or ac, but a wood stove. It fits so well with the terrain!
We managed to get a family photo in on Sunday
and enjoyed some songs and poetry after dinner, that had Tom and Chap (and the rest of us) near tears of laughter. ( We suspect there were some verses they didn't share.)
Anita and Kevin found a work van for their company back in PA and had made a purchase, so on Monday morning Kevin left for the airport to return to PA, Greg hopped in the Trek headed for Texas, and Anita and I began the long drive back to Pennsylvania. Road trip!
Gorgeous sunrise as we hit the road early.
We traveled with Greg to a spot near Deming, New Mexico, where Anita and Kevin had found some interesting fluorite in their explorations last week.
We found some more interesting materials before enjoying a last Green Chili Cheeseburger at Blakes, and hitting the road again.
We waved to Greg as he continued on I-10 and we turned northeast on I-20 toward Dallas.
We had uneventful trips to TX and PA. Well, Anita and I did spend a little extra time in Odessa, Texas with some tire/alignment issues, but overall traveling went well and it was good to spend time together. Beth flew back to Houston from Baltimore on Sunday, just before a snow and ice storm arrived! Whew!
