21st Annual Big Sur Jade Festival - Day Two

Last night I slept surprising comfortably in my car and woke up refreshed and ready to go and the whole day seemed to flow smoothly like that in sharp contrast to the night and following morning four years ago when I first (and last) camped at the Big Sur Jade Festival held at the Pacific Valley School on the Big Sur Coast on the Central Coast of California. Below are the images I captured of the middle day of this year's event and they are shown in the order in which I captured them. Note: I have now been a part of the past seven consecutive jade festivals here in various capacities and to various extents which means I have had the honor of attending one third of the Big Sur Jade Festivals held thus far.

Be sure to check out Day One and Day Three of this event.

The Sunday morning drum circle: after what some people did last night I'm sure some of them weren't happy to hear the noise of these drums.

Lorenzo (left) and Curly (right) standing next to Curly's BBQ smoker. Lorenzo runs the taco wagon next door.

The Rock Solid Jade booth in which I worked all weekend.

Mike Burkeo's blades again... my weekend obsession.

A Burkleo piece.

An amazing piece of botryoidal jade.

The morning drum circles now in full swing.

The sky offered no threatening or annoying dramas this year during the show unlike many past years when smoke or storm threatened.

That is a piece of rare Vonson blue jade from Marin County on the right.

This is Wyoming jade, the jade with my favorite outer rind.

More Wyoming jade.

An amazing piece of sodalite worthy of inclusion with all this great jade.

This is a great event at which to acquire jade blocks or .....

.... jade slabs for making various cool things.

The view into the show from the northern entrance at the northern parking lot.

The view from the northeast corner of the show from along the base of the dirt road that heads up to a substantial home overlooking the Pacific Valley area.

A sweet specimen of polished cats-eye jade.

The opposite side of the aforementioned choice chunk of cats-eye jade.

The layout of jade displays in general at the festival this year really seemed to jump in aesthetic quality.

As stated previously, the quality of display of material seems to be really climbing as dealers try to outdo each other.

This was one of the better jewelry displays I saw this weekend.

The mix of wood and jade is very aesthetically effective in my view (and other's apparently).

This was a simple but nice touch for displaying these pieces.

Another notable jewelry display.

My favorite jade carving at the festival this year - a great green, er, white shark.

View this afternoon down the easternmost aisle.

View this afternoon down the middle aisle.

View this afternoon down the westernmost aisle.

The first-ever pocket jade rock throwdown - a contest to see whom has the sweetest small unaltered pocket rock from each major jade locality.

A fine piece of Big Sur jade.

The legendary honey lemonade served at the festival.

South view from the south driveway entrance to the venue.

North view from the south entrance to the venue.

The filled overflow parking area next to the public parking at Sand Dollar Beach across the street from Pacific Valley School where the jade festival is held.

South view from the north entrance to the venue.

North view from the north entrance.

That's pretty close!

The Fabulous Versa-Tones performing at the Saturday night music party for the dealers and volunteers.

View of the school grounds during the aforementioned Saturday night music event.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).