Sunny and 72
Today we ventured to the Hotel Tucson City Center for an overview of the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show. The HTCC was not busy and it was easy to get around. We took a couple of friends who had never been to the shows, and we find this to be a friendly and diverse show.
We noticed new walls around the perimeter of the property. We have heard of thefts in the past of large items, so access to the property is restricted now to a couple of entrance points.
Beautiful Ammonites
Nice desplay as always at The Black Hills Institute Booth
Fossil Bivalves
Major fossil dealers display museum quality fossils in the ballroom. Colorful ammonites shine brightly in the lights. I enjoyed the reconstruction of the saber tooth tiger attacking what appears to be a horse or deer. Other dealers had other fossils including a huge fish skull from Kansas (Xiphactinus audax) that I’d really like to hang on my wall at home.
REALLY-Who would feed a Raptor fruit?? Whomever I hope he wasn’t captured on a security camera.Hmmmm
Beauty and the beast
Marra Mamba in the sun (not an enhanced picture)
The property of the HTCC is hotel rooms surrounding a large center courtyard full of orange trees. A pterodactyl was having a flight among these trees and a raptor was testing his teeth on an orange. Some vendor brought in a huge bronze gorilla that served as a photographic set for visitors. It is always fun to see the dinosaurs scattered around the property. I petted a small dinosaur and nearby some spectacular Marra Mamba were on display.
We saw so many minerals there it is unbelievable. If you want to collect unusual rocks, especially crystals, from anywhere in the world, this is your shopping heaven. Large or small, you can find them all.
Upper Lobby Hotel Tucson City Center
Bonnie & Gail talked with a guy from Russia. He told them he didn’t have much English, so he pulled out his phone and brought up a translator. Gail talked to it and so did he with both the Russian and English showing up on the screen. However, it seemed to have some trouble understanding his Russian, and the answers came out pretty strange. He apparently could read better than he could talk, and would look at it and say, “No, no”, “No, not bad”, “No, not Chinese”, and he’d try again. It was amusing, but they were glad they were not trying to settle the affairs of the
Bead Show Ballroom
Nunn Design
world! 
After a pleasant lunch in the courtyard we took a break and then went to a bead show in search of a particular tool I wanted. We went to the Doubletree that hosts To Bead True Blue. Vendors are scattered in various tents, ballrooms and hotel rooms. Parking can be a challenge here, but we were so late in the day we found a spot. I sought out 5 tool dealers and still didn’t find the cutter I wanted. Most of them had never heard of what I wanted and use every day. I wondered why I fought all those red lights across town to get here!
The vendors had beautiful displays and creative jewelry. Most of the vendors seemed pretty burnt out and disinterested by 5:00. I found one exception of some happy ladies at Nunn Design. We admired each others jewelry. They had beautiful steampunk type jewelry components different from anything else at the show.
Bonnie bought some coppery-looking beads and we happily took our tired feet home.