February 4-7, 2017 Quartzsite, Arizona

Mid 70’s degree days, sunny, no wind. It is paradise.

We went to the Quilt Show at the senior center today. If we were going to be here Valentines day we could go to the Sweetheart and Roses Valentine Dinner Dance at the senior center. Darn, we will have to miss it. I could also get my hair done at the Cactus Curlers Beauty Salon just next door. The quilts were awesome. The first on here is the one they raffled off. I bought 6 tickets, but didn’t win. The next two were a couple cute ones.

These two quilts by the featured artist Janet Nieuwenhoff are incredible. The squares are 1/2 inch square. The first one Free Spirit has 67,000 pieces and the second one of the butterfly has 47,000 pieces.  They have won numerous awards nationwide. After the quilt show we went to another rock and gem show that we hadn’t seen.  Lots and lots of interesting  rocks.

We got to see all kinds of cool rocks we had never seen before. I had never seen raw opals before. Look at these cool crystals. I love goldstone. Here is gold , blue and green goldstone. I thought it was a naturally occuring mineral, but it is glass. I have sheets of adventurine green and blue glass for fusing too.  The car said it was 77 degrees. Lovely day. I bought some tiny abalone shells, about the size of quarters and some carved full sized abalone with peacocks and love birds on them for future baskets.

A couple shots from my evening bike ride. Once you get away from where every one camps there is lots more vegetation and it is wilder. Very pretty. Not sure what these circles are.

A cut off tree limb that looks like an eye in it, a couple saguaro skeletons and thorns and a live saquaro.  I set some fun things in resin for the baskets. A mid sized abalone shell, 5 tiny ones, two green stone frogs, two stone lily pads with frogs, two arrow heads with blue and red chips, 3 kokopeli’s with blue and red chips, a moose and wolf bead and two of the carved abalone inards on the far right.  Still need sanding and drilling.

It clouded up late this afternoon. Some nice clouds on our 3 mile hike and we only got a sliver of sunset.

Another day beautiful another sunset. A few saguaro with the moon also.

This afternoon we went to the Paul Winer concert. Paul  played concerts and clubs for 25 years- 1965-1990 as Sweet Pie.  He started performing again in 2010.  He does a comedy routine and jazz piano. Very entertaining. Above is the sell out crowd at 5 minutes before the show opened. We were the youngest people present.

Paul runs a great used book store in town. He is a practicing nudist and this is how he shows up for work at the book shop. It was more shocking to see him in clothes for the first time.  Buddy, the man on the harmonica has played with Paul since they were nine years old. The others are part of the band here in Quartzsite.

After the concert we had dinner at the local pizza place named Silly Al’s. Good thing we got there early and got a seat, it was packed.These were on the bulletin board at Silly Al’s, events we will miss since we won’t be here. The 3rd annual Quilt raffle Pig Roast, also the Blythe Fire BBQ Throwdown. Many activities at the Throwdown including A Corn Hole Tournament- what the heck is that?? I finished another small basket to take to the art show next month. I made the beads separatly and attached them to the basket.  I am learning some bead work to use in my basket. This is the first one.