April 14-17, 2026 Las Vegas, Nevada

 76 and sunny.

Vegas on the horizon. We are here for my glass expo. So excited. The glass expo is at South Point Casino. I read by the pool this afternoon. I will be in class from 9 am to 10 pm for 4 days. Won't get any other pool time. Our room is overlooking the pool, looking west toward the mountains. 

The first class I took was was a 2 day intensive cold glass workshop creating the Storms Cube, taught by Jack Storms. Jack in the green apron working with us. Anita polishing glass. 

At the evening meet and greet. Dustin, Anita, Lois, Me and Meggie. Dustin and Meggie are the new owners of  D and L glass, one of the largest wholesale glass stores in the US, that just happens to be in Denver.  Lucky us. Sue, Jamison, Anita and Lois. The opening evening meet and greet was hosted  by Jamison, a famous U-tube glass artist. 

The Blue Rita was the signature cocktail created for the meet and greet. It was yummy. Jamison interviewed some of the well know business owners  in the glass world. Really interesting evening. They also raffled off about 100 real cool prizes. 

Three of the pendants I made on the first day of the Jack Storms class. They have multiple layers of dichroic glass in intricate designs and pictures don't do them justice. They change colors when you move them. The second day of the class Jack has a 3 x 3 x 12 inch block of 24 layers of dichroic glass. He cut it into quarters and we each cut a cube off it, which we squared up and polished. 

Dan from Covington engineering, the company that manufactures all the cold working equipment we were using helping us with the cold working. Jack helping us laminate more dichroic glass  to our cubes. They will be beveled and polished tomorrow. 

In the evening Tabitha, with the blue hair, taught a wonderful class called Layer by layer: designing intricate vitrograph murrine.  She is a famous U-tube glass artist too. She is the vitrograph queen, she owns a company that makes the best murrine. Excellent lecture. The pendant I finished today. Again pictures don't do justice to it, it changes colors as it moves. I won this necklace made by Tabitha at the lecture. The lecture was about how to make these murrine. 

The exhibit  hall opened today. Tons of venders, stages with demos, the gallery of excellence and more. I didn't spend too much money. . . The new Wazer water jet cutter. It is the size of a refrigerator. It is on sale for 15 % off, probably brings it down to about $15,000. Cool machine, but I think I can live without if for now.  And a few other interesting glassy things at the exhibit hall. 

My entries to the Gallery of Excellence. Part of the Gallery of Excellence. Really good show this year. 

Anita and I entered the glass cutting contest. Anita won 2nd and I won third in the intermediate category. Fun contest. I picked up my 'Jack Storms' cube today, it still needs to be cold worked when I get home to finish it. After it is beveled and polished all that dichro should really shine. 

The keynote speaker tonight for the expo was Narcissus Quagliata. He is a very famous glass artist that has been in the field for 55 years. It was an excellent talk. This year is the 30 year anniversary for the expo, and 30 years ago he was the keynote speaker!

April 4 - 13 2026 Shoshone, California

 84 and sunny.

We hiked into the badlands behind China Ranch. Coming back into China ranch. It is a true oasis. 

Some of the date palms at China Ranch. Saguaro blossom, prickly pear, salt heliotrope, sacred datura, side blotch lizard and western whiptail lizard.

Driving out the slot canyon that goes into China Ranch. Chocolate covered peanut butter stuffed dates I made with some dates I bought at China Ranch.

Beginning of sunset. John enjoying dinner with sunset.

End of sunset. We went back to China Ranch to get some more pollen for our date trees and to have date shakes for dinner. 

View over China Ranch's parking lot.  Sunset.

Weird looking cloud. Sunset

I finished this beauty. It got bigger than I planed. It  is made from dyed pine needles, polyester thread, glass beads and the center is a piece of glass I fused from murrine I made. Very colorful. 12 x 3 inches. Close up of the center. 

One little cloud peeping over the horizon for sunset tonight. The desert golds are still blooming, but they are really short and the blooms are about the size of a dime. Not enough water for them.

Sunset looked like a bunch of pink toes on the horizon.  Woo hoo it rained! not very  much, ( 0.06 on our weather station), but enough for a nice rainbow.

We had dinner with Susan at the Crowbar on our last night in Shoshone. Fun to see her and great food. This is all of sunset there was after the rain. 

March 25-April 3, 2026 Shoshone, California

 99 sunny and too hot.

Desert tortoise feeding frenzy. There are 6 living here in Shoshone and they feed them cabbage and lettuce. 3 of the date palms are blooming!! They have to be hand fertilized. Our male tree has not recovered from transplant shock enough to produce pollen so I am going out to get some from China Ranch date farm today.

My cousin Bobbye and husband Cary came to visit from their vacation in Death Valley. We took them to China Ranch and gave them a tour of Shoshone.

Bobby, John and Cary viewing pupfish in Shoshone. Bobbye, me and Judy. We look alike!

Sunset. Moon and Jupiter through palm trees.

Flame skimmer dragonfly. pupfish, too hot to hike, tortoises. Sunset. 

I ordered this camo net to try to shade the bus. I had wanted to just throw it over the bus, but John would not let me, said if the wind came up it would pull stuff off the top. So he installed it on the side of the bus, but it was not big enough. It was pretty cheaply made, John thought it would shred in the first big wind. So I sent it back. More wire wraps I made. 

Some of our palm trees are blooming. They need to be hand pollenated, so here I am pollenating. I have pollen from China Ranch on cotton balls, and just rub it on. We had another Palm Patio Party last night to celebrate Judy's birthday and bon voyage James and Judy who are leaving for the season. We had tons of appetizers left over from our trip to Furnace Creek Inn, so we had apps for dinner. 

John took Judy and I out to dinner at Steak and Beer tonight. Tues will be the last day of the season and then he is moving the restaurant to another location for next season. It was yummy as usual. We have pollenated most of the date flowers now. Each one of those stems will produce 20-30 pounds of dates. Of course there are new blooms each day now. 

A few more jewels I wire wrapped. We had dinner at the new taco place in 
Tecopa with Mike, Susan and Michael. It was very good. Was great to visit with them. 

Sunset with Tecopa peak.