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The topic that I thought would be good to get us started for this evening is to talk
a little bit about the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show that's coming up.
A lot of you are probably hearing things about it.
If you are, you know, in the crystal community you probably know about the Tucson
Gem & Mineral Show.
It's debated whether it's the largest or the second largest show in the world,
the other one being the Idar-Oberstein show.
So, you know, I don't know if it's the largest or the second largest, but it is
pretty darn big -
I will say that. It's a little bit overwhelming, I go every year
for about a week. This year I'll be there for six days, so
I'm really excited about that. And it is the coolest thing
if you're into crystals because you have vendors from all over the world and
they bring
all different types of crystals and minerals. And it's just so fun because it
helps you learn a lot
about, you know, the people, where these stones come from,
and also just the localities. It helps you really get to know,
you know, what an Uruguayan Amethyst looks like as compared to a Brazilian
Amethyst
and how the energy is different. So it's a really good opportunity
if you're into crystals to kind of get familiarized with some of those things.
This is going to sound crazy but, you know, there are all these vendors at the
Tucson show,
and some of them are in the big Expo Centers and,
you know, they have the big fancy sparkly booths and they're really great.
But I've found that you find some of the best pieces and meet the coolest people
at the little tents that are just in the fast-food parking lots.
So off of I-10 in Tucson
there's a Carl's Junior hamburger place,
okay. And in their parking lot there's a big white tent
and there's this really nice guy named Kenafu
Abdelaziz and he's always there with his sister Ito.
And I love Ito. Ito is amazing. But they're from Morocco
and they bring the coolest fossils - ammonites, and
trilobites, and they have fossilized sharks' teeth.
And then they have the primo selection of Moroccan minerals.
So they have amazing pink Cobalto Calcite
and bi-color Azurites, like dark blue and light blue mixed together - it's
really pretty.
Really nice Aragonites and these big quartz geodes
that you just can't get anywhere else and they're really affordable.
I think I got a huge quartz geode for like $20. And
it's like the whole thing with a little lid and everything. They're the nicest
people
and I really like them. If you're looking for something a little bit more
fancy, then you can go to some of those,
you know, bigger vendors. Heaven and Earth is usually a really popular one,
and they have a new location they were at last year and they're going to be there
again this year.
I don't remember what hotel that's in but Tucson's crazy!
If you can imagine an entire city covered in crystals that's literally
what it is.
You can try and picture it in your head, but until you're really there
it's - it's just, it's crazy! I mean every hotel,
the lower floors, they mostly take the furniture out
and it's just display cases and tables of crystals. And this is every hotel in Tucson,
every fast-food parking lot, every Expo Center.
Everything is covered with crystals and so you could go for a whole month,
which the show is like a month long,
and you would still never see everything there was to see.
So it's really really cool. That's one of my favorite people is Kenafu Abdelaziz
in the Carl's Junior parking lot.
Then the Days Inn is another really fun place to go.
It's really big and you have to park kind of far away,
but there's some really cool stuff there. And then there's the
Jim Coleman Crystal Mine. Now there's a couple different Coleman crystal mines.
Jim Coleman is great because they have the most beautiful
Aura Quartz you've ever seen. We have to get there early otherwise all that's
left are the chipped and broken pieces.
I hope that helps - that's a couple I can think of off the top of my head that are really fun.
I'm there's also a place called El Paso Rock Shop
and if you're really nice to those guys when you're checking out, they'll
probably want you to take a shot of tequila with them. Not really my thing
but they're are a lot of fun.
Then there's also a really fun place, kind of a little hippie-dippie
place called Wormtown Trading. It's a bunch of
fun hippie guys from Vermont, and they drive down in their vans. And they have, you
know, tie-dye stuff, crystals,
incense, and wall tapestries, and all kinds of fun stuff like that so
there's something there for everybody.
There's also a really cool African art village and - yeah.
So I won't go too much more into that because I know you guys are here to learn about the crystals,
but those are some of my favorite places in Tucson.