50th Annual "Art In Stone" Bakersfield Show, Pt. 3

Saturday night passed without incident.
I did neglect to mention that while out walking Tequila Saturday night, May 3, I saw an urban black dude with the "homey" look out in the parking lot of the Motel 6.
Earlier in the evening I had seen he has four pre-teen children staying with him so he was out taking a smoking break away from his kids.
When I encountered him during my walk I was out in the grassy area adjacent to the parking lot out of the main glare of the lights of the parking lot.
He was in that glare and had some trouble seeing me out in the dark and was really checking me out as if concerned I was the constabulary. I simply disarmingly waved in a friendly manner and he waved back friendly and that was that.
I could distinctly smell the odor of marijuana on the air in his vicinity: 'nuff said.

We checked out of Motel 6 and arrived at the Kern County Fairgrounds a bit later than Saturday morning as we had no set-up to do this time around and Sunday mornings are typically quiet at the start.

The second day of the 50th Annual "Art in Stone" Bakersfield show started slow but picked up as the day progressed with an unexpectedly brisk level of activity even before the church crowd showed up from noon onwards.

Over the course of the afternoon I traded for some more meteoritic and tektitic material from Sandi's Jewels & Gems of Maricopa, CA.
This time I picked up a polished Nantan meteorite sphere and some tektites from either the Berringer Crater area in Northern Arizona (Meteor Crater/Canyon Diablo) or Kingston Range in the Eastern California Desert.

We got some more repeat business from previous shows on this day and even a visit from a customer from the day before (that guy from Wasco I mentioned from yesterday) which was nice as it is these sorts of customers that keep you in business.
This was the first show I really felt I turned the corner in my business as far as being connected and keyed into a faithful following of repeat customers who follow us from show to show and seek us out which is a deeply gratifying feeling.

About halfway through the afternoon Mike realized his prized boytroidal jade from Monterey County was missing from our display: it had been stolen.
It was priced at $400 but was worth more than that to Mike as it was part of her personal collection and his pride and joy, too.
He felt sick as did I.
I immediately notified show chair Ismael and also walked over to neighboring dealer Kelly to inform her of what happened.
Earlier in the afternoon she informed us somebody had stolen a rutilated quartz crystal priced at $250.
I only told her to make her feel a bit better about her loss (misery loves companey).
She immediately looked at me strangely and told me to send Mike over to her which I did.
She then asked Mike to tell her what was on the bottom of his missing stone and he said a label with the price of $350 (or something like that) which was correct, of course, and so she gave it back to him.
As the two of them were in the midst of that exchange I could see down low out of Mike's direct line-of-sight she had his jade specimen which flabbergasted me.
Apparently what happened is when Kelly noticed her stolen crystal was missing she noticed about a foot away was this unfamiliar stone that turned out to be Mike's boytroidal jade specimen.
My theory is whomever stole Mike's stone saw her's and liked it even more and essentially exchanged one for another.
In any case it was a weird happening with a wonderful outcome for Mike although he still felt stung by the fact somebody had ripped him off for a short time with the original intent of doing it permanently.
On the lip side, he was also feeling overwhelmed with a sense of relief as well.
Indeed, so relieved was he that he rewarded Kelly for finding and returning his jade.

I made a buddy last year at this show in the person of a young gal named Kayleigh who is one of the Kern County Mineral Society (KCMS) "Mineral Mites" which is a youth program of that club and the best one I've seen to date of any of the club shows I've done.
Anywho, Kayleigh showed up later in the day looking a bit spooked.
Apparently, the odd-looking guy who had caught my attention some minutes previously had been real friendly with Kaylie and seemed to her to follow her from booth to booth so she came and hang out with us until he cleared out of the area.
Upon closer observation I noticed he talked strangely and had a wandering eye which she confirmed.
It might have been easy to pity the guy but she recounted his complaining to her about the overall prices at the show being too high.

As a dealer that sort of whining makes me mad as I know for a fact that overall the material at that show was not overpriced.
Apparently, Kaylie may not be at the show next year according to her which might be the case with Mike and I, too, as he really wants to do the Snyder Powwow next year although we are VERY happy with how this show went and have not made a final decision despite my verbal commitment to dealer chair Manny Hernandez to return next year.
In any case I now recommend this show to other dealers and suggest those whom left in the past try to get back in it in the future if they can as the KCMS appears to be serious about bringing the show back to its former glory.

At the end of the show at 5 p.m. Mike and I broke down our booth quickly and efficiently as we now have a great system in place and on our third show of the year have found our rhythm and were done inside two hours and so we helped Kelly get packed up and ready to go before we left and headed home.

I didn't feel like dealing with the freeways at the end of the day in an urban area so I led our caravan out Ming Avenue to the west all the way to Buena Vista Road north to Stockdale Highway west to Highway 43 north to Highway 58 west to a travel center at I-5/SR58 where we got gas and water and snacks.
From there it was on home via Highway 58 west to Highway 33 north to Highway 46 west to Highway 41 southwest to Atascadero which drive I needed to help me unwind from the stimulating and fulfilling weekend.