10th Annual Autumn Cayucos Gem & Mineral Show - Day Two

Today was the first official day of the San Luis Obispo Gem & Mineral Club's 10th Annual Autumn Cayucos Gem & Mineral Show at the Veteran's Hall in Cayucos, CA. Effectively, it was the second day of the show as the dealers have already been at the show a day in order to get their booths set up with many of them fresh off doing the Big Sur Jade Festival the weekend before. The following images were captured today with the first set of images being the show itself. Given how beautiful it was again today I could not resist taking some images from the adjacent Cayucos Pier and adjacent Estero Bay area.

David Richter in his Rocks & Relics booth

Mike Lyon's Jade Cove booth

Shasta Palmer in the Earth Art Gem & Jewelry booth.

Richard and Cheyl Sittinger in their WonderWorks booth.

Josie in her Jewelry by Josie booth.

Janice Robertson in Gary's Jewelry & Lapidary Supplies booth

Sonia Delons in her booth

Keith Olivas in his The Art of Jewelry booth

Leslie Nielson in the Raea Jewelry booth in her inaugural appearance

The Brothers Gowdy, Daniel and Gary in the Gowdy's Big Sur Jade booth

Steve Shears made a welcome appearance in Dave's booth

Past SLOGMC president Bob Burless honored us with his presence.

SLOGMC secretary Lynette Bayless and past-president Dan "The Man" Manion

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Catch the Day One Action.

Catch the Day Three Action.

10th Annual Autumn Cayucos Gem & Mineral Show - Day One

Today was the set-up day for the annual Autumn Cayucos Gem & Mineral Show hosted by the San Luis Obispo Gem & Mineral Club. I showed up and spent the day wearing two hats: my SLOGMC show publicity chair hat and my helping-my-friend-Dave-set-up-his-booth hat. Dave remunerated my efforts with a killer lunch at Hoppe's Bistro & Wine Bar in downtown Cayucos wherein I ate my first quail. Below are some images I captured over the course of the day.

The show set-up process

The dolphin sculpture outside our door

The the show venue - Cuyucos Vet's Hall

View from the base of the pier looking up Cuyucos Drive

Estero Bay was gorgeous today and the beach at Cuyucos empty

Cayucos Pier

Kirk Brock and Mike Lyons chatting at Mike's booth

Janice Robertson and Scary Gary From Tulare

Druzy quartz pockets in a recently-found large piece of local petrified whale bone

The show taking shape

Sunset at Cayucos earlier this evening

Cayucos Pier at sunset this evening

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Catch the Day Two Action.

Catch the Day Three Action.

Picture of the Day - Brain Malachite

Sometimes in nature the mineral malachite (particularly in Katanga, Congo) forms in a fashion that is physically hard enough to take a good polish. Likewise, it on occasion at that locale takes on a botryoidal formation. Much less common is when both features come together to create an odd-ball formation that is reminiscent of either cauliflower or the brain. I took the image below of one such specimen in my friend Dave's inventory as it appeared at this past weekend's Big Sur Jade Festival. 

Brain malachite - Katanga, Congo. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Big Sur Jade Festival T-Shirts

I have now attended in the capacity as either a vendor or sales associate for another vendor the past six consecutive Big Sur Jade Festivals. It has brought me great pleasure during that span of time to collect the very cool and distinctive T-shirts that are produced by Estero Bay Graphics and each year features a different hip and cool design created by Brian Hendricks. I proudly own a collection of nine shirts covering six years and each year look forward to adding another shirt or two to my collection. Below are representative samples from each year. Please pardon the uneven lighting of some of the shirts.

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

20th Annual Big Sur Jade Festival - Day Three

Day Three of the 20th Annual Big Sur Jade Festival at the Pacific Valley School began about as slowly one would expect a Sunday morning to start on the Big Sur Coast after a night of carousing by locals and visitors alike. Fortunately, the pace picked up as the day progressed and the show turned out well by the end of the day. This capped a wonderful weekend of fabulous weather that had been preceded by uncharacteristically wintry weather the Wednesday before the show when a thunderstorm battered the grounds of the school and surrounding neighborhood around midday. I made a point of keeping with my tradition of picking up a Brian Hendricks-designed Big Sur Jade Festival T-Shirt. The following images were taken throughout the course of the day and are shown in the order they were taken.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Check out DAY ONE of the Jade Festival.

Check out DAY TWO of the Jade Festival.

Also check out my Big Sur Jade Festival T-Shirt blog posting.