Picture of the Day - Dan's Ghost Dance

Tonight I attended an outdoor birthday party for my friend Donnie. It had a distinct Big Sur Jade Festival vibe to it and like the Jade Festival it featured my other friend Dan The Man doing his hilarious but sincere cultural appropriation of Native American culture dancing around a nocturnal fire in a quasi-ecsatic state partly helped along by the White Man's firewater. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Two-Day Show In Two Pics

This weekend was the 1st Annual Autumn Cambria Gem, Mineral, & Jewelry Show. As previously mentioned in this space, we had to move our Cayucos rock show due to our former facility being condemned until structural weaknesses are repaired. The club elected to move up the highway to the Vets Hall in Cambria, CA. Immediately below was an image shot yesterday (Saturday).

As beautiful a location as Cayucos, CA, was for our show and as charming a venue as the Cayucos Vets Hall was for our show, the new home for the San Luis Obispo Gem & Mineral Club's Cambria, CA, reincarnation of the former Cayucos Gem, Mineral, Jewelry Show is even better in both practical and aesthetic terms. It has more square footage, more electrical capacity, easier ingress and egress from the structure, fewer restrictions on how we use the space,especially the external space, and the baseline income level of resident and tourist alike is higher.

This image I captured with my iPhone4 whose camera is not as good as that in more recent models, thus the lack of sharper focus in this image. However, it nonetheless conveys the great beauty in variety of colors and shapes and patterns of the stones in this Art of Stones display case at our show. Both photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Inaugural Cambria Gem, Mineral, & Jewelry Show

This weekend the San Luis Obispo Gem & Mineral Club hosted its inaugural Cambria Gem, Mineral, & Jewelry Show at the Cambria Vets Hall. This was the former Cayucos Gem, Mineral, & Jewelry Show relocated to Cambria due to the Cayucos Vets Hall being condemned a little over a month ago following an inspection by state engineers. A small, rag-tag segment of our already small club made the magic happen in Cambria, exceeding all expectations given the short amount of time to reorganize the relocated show in a new community 14 miles up the highway. What follows is my photo account of how the show floor looked today and an image of each our our beloved and mostly long-term vendors.

Club member Leslie managing the welcome counter.

View looking south towards the stage.

Another view of the show floor looking south.

View looking north from the stage.

The stage area occupied by Richard Sittinger who helped get us into this venue.

Another view looking north from the stage.

View from the southwest looking northeast.

View looking east into the side room which is much larger than the one at the Cayucos Vets' Hall.

View looking west from the side room back at the main hall.

Show Chairman Mike Lyons at left with one of his jade people.

Pam Spears with Sister Stones.

My friends Keith and Marcella Olivas.

Andy Delong and his lovely wife Sonia I keep trying to seduce away. (joke)

Kirk Brock in his Rock Solid Jade booth.

Jen toiling away in the Rocks & Relics booth.

Santos Sarabia in his I Luv Rocks booth.

Aaron Miller of Ancient Earth Trading Post.

Scary Gary from Tulare and his better half Janice... two of my dearest friends in the rock world.

Mary Mary (Rafferty) whose gaze at the moment this photo was snapped was quite contrary.

J. Michael Santos and Charlotte Stewart of StarStruck Meteorites were in our show!

Esteemed clubmember Leslie Nelson and her daughter.

Jessie & Josie brought the Gaoiran family barbecue operation (Morro Bay Catering) and took care of business as always.

Richard Sittinger and his Wonderworks ladies. Without Richard we would have been up a creek without a paddle. All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

55th Annual Cayucos Gem & Mineral Show

This weekend I participated in the 55th Annual Cayucos Gem, Mineral, & Jewelry Show at the Cayucos Vets Hall next to the Cayucos Pier. The show was a huge success again this year. In fact, it may have actually expanded in visitation and lucrativeness for the dealers relative to previous years. This was a result of a convergence of factors including my efforts in promoting the show (if I may say so without fear of coming across as tooting my own horn). As important was the hot weather inland driving folks from the Central Valley and inland valleys of the Central Coast to escape to Cayucos. It also helped that this year Cal Poly's graduation ceremony occurred the previous weekend and not the weekend of our show as is often the case. In any case, I had a great time helping out setting up the show (on Friday morning) and breaking it down (this evening) and with security throughout many hours of it both yesterday and today. My good friends Diana Enscoe and her awesome husband Max could not be with us this show which bummed me out and made for less eye candy to include in this blog post compared to usual.

The weather was perfect at the coast and made coming to our show here at the Cayucos Vets Hall seem attractive.

Anna Pense at the front welcome counter giving me the evil eye.

Don Pense looking at me with quiet desperation. Beyond him the show beckoned.

Esteemed club member Leslie Nelson in her booth.

Esteemed club member Beverly Brown (right) in her side room booth space.

Kirk Brock's Rock Solid Jade booth as viewed from the backside.

Esteemed club member and show chairman Mike Lyons in his Gem Cove booth.

Looking from one Richter booth into another Richter booth... a one-time convergence!

David "Shaft" Richter wearing a Cheshire Cat grin.

Esteemed club member Lynette Bayless helping out in Keith Olivas' booth.

Santos Sarabia's new brand label is rather catchy, even from across the room.

Great color in Richard Sittinger's Wonderwork booth.

Shaft with the reason for his aforementioned Cheshire Cat grin.

Jesse, Josie, & company did another wonderful barbeque performance at our show.

My friend Mike's Lyon's new display case looks awesome!

Jenn and Anja of Team Dave (Rocks & Relics) honored us with their presence this year. Nice to visit with old friends.

Garnet on Fluorite from China on display in Mike Shirey's booth.

Keith Olivas was selling this awesome smokey quartz point.

The material in the necklace at left was amazing... it contained an assortment of inclusions in quartz kind of like Super Seven. 

My dear old friends Crazy Gary From Tulare Gary Robertson and his lovely wife Janice.

It must have been the new display case: Mike's booth was rocking this weekend.
All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).