Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Alpine Mountain Days 2017

Each year we participate in six or seven shows, (we could do a show every weekend but that’s too much and would take away the fun). Some are indoors but the four shows we do in Wyoming are all outdoors, so hoping for clear weather, we paid the show fee and set up our tent, tables, and rock art at The Alpine Mountain Days in Alpine, Wyoming.
This is the fourth year we have sold our work at this show and of course we always want to do well. It’s a real test of the quality of our work, the ultimate test really as we are asking people to inspect, critique, and spend their hard-earned money.
It’s not like anyone needs our cabochons, jewelry, or knives to live on as they are not really one of the necessities of life, (all though some would argue this point). There is a second reason for doing shows and that is to meet other people who also love rock hounding.
The show is a good one for us but some days drag and at this show it’s Friday. The crowd was just a trickle as most people are working and this year Friday was a slow as we have ever seen. We did however meet a couple from Afton who showed up all decked out with beautiful rock art.!
Herbert told of his love of working fire agates and brought some of his stones. Now we do have some fire agate rough ourselves but we have spent very little time working it as it is extremely time consuming. This may sound funny to some but retirement is not a slow day to day existence and we simply don’t have enough time to do everything we love.
His work is some of the finest we have ever seen. He also told us of his technique of first tumbling the agates before selecting the best ones to work on. Carefully removing a very small piece of stone he grinds away each layer, knowing full well that the fire agate layer is extremely thin and that with one careless move he can destroy any beauty in the stone.
Saturday also started slow but then the deluge hit, and our booth was crowded with tourists and locals, many repeat customers. You never know what people will like, but they certainly loved our work and we had an extremely good day. We also meet quite a few people that live in our same rv resort, several of whom are rock hounds!
Sunday was another slow day with not many people, but we did still manage to have an ok day. Reaching our goal for the show, it closed at three in the afternoon and we closed tore down and packed our displays. We don’t have a lot to tear down, compared to many of the other venders, and so we were on our way home in less than an hour.
We don’t have another show till the Solar Eclipse, August 21st, so it’s time to get caught up on some rv repairs, (replacing the carpet and kitchen floor), fly fishing, and wildlife watching. We also time to work more stone, replace the pieces we sold. and especially work on more opal. Clear skies


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