23rd Annual Rockhound Roundup Set-Up Day + Day One

Yesterday and today were the set-up day and Day One respectively of the 23rd Annual Rockhound Roundup hosted by the Santa Lucia Rockhounds at the Pioneer Museum and adjacent municipal park. All went about as smooth as one could expect. Consequently, I am quite pleased with this given I am the chairman of the event and the buck ultimately stops with me. What follows is a montage of images I captured yesterday and today at our show as we prepared for it and then through the first day. Check out the Pre-Set-Up Day, Day Two, our Display Cases and my Booty from the show.

The calm before the storm Friday morning.

Our first dealer/vendor arrived before 8 a.m. as usual and it was Manny & Dalia Hernadez of Bakersfield as usual. This will be their last show with us as they retire from rock shows this year.

The new Blue Rabbit (Jim & Sherri Hare) rig arrived second.

Tom & Lucy DeMaris arrived third.

Mike Shirey arrived in what may be his last show with us as well.

Gene & Barbara Bilyeu overseeing the set-up of the exhibit cases, here standing in front of his two cases.

Club president Richard Smithen posing in his faceting demonstration booth.

The start of Day One with the Native Sons of the Golden West San Miguel Parlor BBQ fully underway.

The morning quiet would seen melt away.

I finally got an Afghan dealer back in our show after the last one got insulted by a local redneck member of the public and never returned.

Former member and former vendor Reneta Howe was back in our show after events last year prevented it.

We gave the local gold prospectors club a booth to promote their overlapping interest with our's.

All is well with our show now that we had Dale Harwood back after he missed consecutive years due to a schedule conflict two years ago and a traffic accident a year ago.

The Geode Doctor is in: Dr. Tom guillotining a geode.

The Good Doctor's geode victim.

The excited child must wait while the grown-up kids in the club ogle his geode first.

Things picked up as the morning progressed.

Dinosaurs and fossils were the theme of our show this year. Member Aaron Miller showed off some of his centerpiece specimens in the showcase display of the entire event. Here is an ancient crocodillian jaw from Morocco.

Some fossil marine vertebrate verts.

A fossilized juvenile mosasaur skeleton from Morocco.

View of entire crocodillian skull from Morocco.

Member Beverly Brown giving member Dale Conrad a lesson in wirewrapping.

The mid-day view today.

We were heartened to see so many families at the show today.

The Doherty's manning the youth booth.

Denise Halapoff and Alice Pellerin womaning the snack booth where the bake sale items were also sold.

This gentleman called me days before the show and mentioned he had a rock he wanted ID's and I invited him to come to the show and show it to us and offered him a near-guarantee we could do so successfully...

....and we did. John McCabe and I were able to tell him it is a local petrified whale vertebra.

John McCabe (holding it here) and I also noted the presence of BOTH disks still attached to the vert which around here is rather unusual.

Guest speaker Richard Wade gave our guests and club members alike a wonderful presentation on dinosaurs.

He did not use PowerPoint but rather physical props which we appreciated given that is a dying medium. Note the slide shown here: The End!

After the presentation ended and most of the crowd shuffled on Mr. Wade stayed around for some time and answered questions and continued to work with the youth with additional props.

The boxes contain sand and fossils buried within them which the kids hunt through.

Dave Richter, Jr. appeared in our show for the first time since he got into the business.

Dave Nelson (left), our "Merch Man" and Suzanne Harrison our Hospitality Queen manning and womaning the hospitality booth in the museum.

Michael Judy (in orange shirt walking towards the camera) spotted me and at that moment I was in trouble.

Michael Judy doing his Dino/Chicken Dance.

When Mike and I are placed together (especially in front of a camera) things will invariably degenerate....

.... into an orgy of horseplay and faux homoeroticsm and other frat-boy-esque hyjinx.

Chris Driesback instructs a youth on the fine art of cab-making.

Where's Richard?

New dealer/vendor Janet Nichols broke into the biz at our show this weekend.

Our new opal dealer Guy Davidge of Shasta County was a welcome addition to our show filling a hole I have been striving to fill for three years.

This is the Chinese girlfriend of new dealer Jeff Steubing of whom we saw much more of the former and much less of the latter over the course of the weekend.

Esteemed and beloved member Kincy Scott manning the silent auction booth.

Dealer/vendors, exhibitors, and club members starting to gather for our annual Saturday evening show dinner as prepared by the aforementioned Native Sons of the Golden West. It rocked per usual.

The layer cake came with this cooleo paleo-topping. Massive amounts of cake frosting was what killed the dinos!

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (except ones in which I appear)(all rights reserved).