DONNA AT ELECTRIC PARK
- OUTDOOR ROCK and MINERAL SHOWS part 4
- ELECTRIC PARK TUCSON AZ the outdoor Mineral show. Of all the 40 + shows in Tucson I probable enjoy Electric Park the most . A tent city set up by the Keno Sports Complex, 20 acres including parking. It is arranged like a big square, large commercial dealers have huge tents several hundred feet long, maybe 50 ft. wide, set up around the outside. In the center are smaller individual tents, over 150 dealers selling, the largest variety of rock related items and a some items that are beyond description.In one big tent, Kent tools sell every kind of lapidary supplies you can think of, in the same tent there are literally tons of beads and jewellery. Diamond Pacific has a huge tent, large mineral dealers selling tons of Brazilian Amethyst, other big tents around the outside selling minerals and cutting materials from various countries, Peru, China, Mexico, India. It is truly mind boggling; you wander through that park, wishing you were rich, with no upper limit on your spending. If you want to buy something for a gift, the Peruvian tent sells carvings of birds, assembled from minerals like Lapis, Rhodocrosite, Sodalite, Calcite, mounted on good mineral specimens. They vary in size from tiny 2 inch ones to complex carvings several feet high. These colourful creations are there by the hundreds.
DONNA WITH BIG CARVINGS AT ELECTRIC PARK
- Or if your interested in jewellery there are dealers there that can sell you any type of pin, pendant, earring, necklace, ring, and for those with royal ambitions I even saw Tiaras.I still get glared at by Donna when I take too long looking at cutting material, but then in the same boat I get a bit bored when she is trying to decide what strand of beads to buy when there’s tables covered with them. We might end up bickering a bit over this and that, but usually we go back to the trailer with tired aching feet and happy with our purchases.
A TABLE OF BEADS ELECTRIC PARK
- The February weather in Arizona in is usually quite pleasant, 70 + but this past winter when we were there at Electric park they set record lows, everything froze up. I felt sorry for the Mexicans, Moroccans and all the southern US dealers, sitting outside in 30 mile an hour wind, freezing their butts off. They are not used to it at all, and some didn’t even have a winter coat. It was strange having to wear a down filled coat to look at rocks; the only thing good about it was it didn’t snow.In a field next door to the Electric Park show, they have just started an RV Park show, where about 50 Dealers set up tents beside their rigs and sell. These dealers are mostly selling cutting material, but if you have been to Quartzsite you will remember many of them from the PowWow. The Electric Park show probably has the highest attendance outside of the big Tucson club show. I repeat, there are 40 plus Mineral, Jewellery and Bead shows that run during the first 2 weeks of February. I find it sort of ironic that when you are so far from home and during those two weeks, you see more of your mineral minded friends from Ontario than when your back at home. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at seeing them, for during those two weeks, Tucson is the mineral capital of the world, and their minds are just as boggled as mine.
