The odd couple ... me and Gianpaolo during the overseas flight.
The Wholesale area close to the Oracle Road, big and interesting dealers over there !
My best american friend, John Veevaert of Trinity Minerals and his wife Ronna. 2 very generous and good friends met at the Elk's Lodge Show.
Fine Minerals (Daniel Trinchillo) is a must ... what a show of incredible rocks !
Look at this giant fluorite from Russia
Some of the Italians: Gianpaolo, me, Alessandro Paladini and Marco Lorenzoni
Some more Italians ! it is fun to spend time together !
The Superb Mineral Show (from India)
Incredibly large and heavy geodes with apophyllites and stilbites !
Rhodo from Alma, Colorado
Wulfenite from Red Cloud, La Paz, Arizona
An other incredible Wulfenite from Red Cloud
What a fluorite !
Rhodos ....
... and even more Rhodos !
A centimetric pink fluorite from Alps
A spectacular Elbaite from Afghanistan and the Westward Look Show
... and finally here we are again with a tall saguaro behind us !

Tucson Show is always a great Show, nothing to say. I have been waiting to leave for Tucson with a lot of expectations. Also Gianpaolo was very anxious to arrive in Tucson and both of us had in mind a lot of things to look for as well as to see !

The arrival in Tucson from Verona (Italy) was at 9 pm local time ... more or less 28 hours after we left our home in Italy. Very tired but also very happy to be there ! We reached our Hotel with the rented car in 15 minutes and we went to sleep almost immediately, destroyed by the jet lag.

The day after started, as you can imagine, very early ... at 4 am we were both sitting on the bed looking each other. That time for Italy correspond to 12, almost lunch time ! a chat, a phone call back home, a shower and finally 7 am arrived. Let's go for breakfast ! The first day of "rock hunting" in Tucson was starting !

The first stop were a Top Gems, Wholesales of Collectors' Edge, Christalle and some other dealers all close to Oracle Road. Lot of rocks to see ! and lot of rocks inside our boxes ! we found nice italian old specimens, but also very nice classics from USA and South america. Also some nice new findings of bright epidotes from Peru.

It was later in the afternoon that we left the Oracle area and moved to Tucson Hotel, a very peculiar place for minerals but also because almost all the Italians had a booth over there ! just to say hi to a lot of friends and to start to arrange for lunch and dinner of the following days !

It is difficult to tell you everything with the right order since the memories are mixed up by the lot of rocks and shows we ssaw and visited ! we found interesting the Superb Show (from India) where hundreds and hundreds af zeolites of every kind were on show !

Also Pueblo, Rapa Gem and Kino Shows were of interst and again the number of our boxed minerals increased a lot in number ! Every evening when going back to our Hotel, we always checked and looked again at the best of the aquisition of the day, especially Gianpaolo who decided to take the best close to his bed ... rock collectors are always kids !

7 days passed quickly, but the atmosphere of Tucson is still in out souls and probably we will feel positive energies for a couple of weeks more now that we are back home !

Fortunately all the boxes we packaed arived safe and so all the material will be soon prepared for our collection (just a few) and most for our next shows and website.

Stay tuned to see something cool !