March 27-30, 2023 Shoshone, California to Las Vegas, Nevada

 60 degrees and sunny. 

John spent the day shingling Judy's shed. Judy was so pleased she bought John dinner tonight at the Crowbar. Judy D and I got to go along. Judy is holding John's chocolate cake which he shared with us. 

Sunset from the Crowbar over the Charles Brown General store. The only store in Shoshone. 70 and sunny in Las Vegas. We are here for my glass convention and  classes. We are at the South Point Casino. This is our room and our view. I asked the lady at check-in for a view of the west and the pool. We got the pool, but are facing south. Guess we are in the west wing. 

We ate in the Italian restaurant here in the casino tonight. We got a free bottle of wine with the coupons they gave us. John had osso buco, which is something a character in books that read always had. Wanted to see what it was. Food was ok. I went to the casino and immediately lost $20, so gave up and left. Examples of what we are to learn in the Mastering on-edge. 

Examples of what we are to learn in the Mastering on-edge. The instructor Alysa Phiel doing a demo.

 My piece so far. A little busy, but I used all the techniques we learned. This is before firing and the back, the front side is down. I can square it up after firing too. Some of the masterpieces the other students made. 

The classroom. It was cloudy, windy and rainy. Lots of clouds for a nice sunset over the casino.

Sunset.

 The casino as we passed through. Libby Lieberman doing a demo of Embellished Wire Wrapping.

Examples of embellished wire wrapping. The last one is the one I made in the class. Examples for nus in  Fun with UV Resin class. The bottom 3 are the ones I made. 

One of the 3 arenas for the horses. And the Saloon by the arenas. 

We went to the bowling alley to order a pizza for dinner. Best place to eat, no lines and the best prices. 

They have 4 bowling alleys for tournaments.  A vending machine with bowling sox.

John enjoying our pizza dinner in our room. We almost missed sunset, but most of it was behind the building. 

I stopped at the slots and lost $19.71. I quit when I had 29 cents left. The Gunslingers are here. I wonder if they are a bowling team, they don't look like cowboys. 

March 23-26, 2023 Shoshone, California

 64 and mostly sunny.

Judy and John reroofing Judy's shed, with Mac watching. Some flowers are starting to bloom in Shoshone. Button brittlebush, dwarf poppy, brittlebush, wooly daisy and evening primrose. 

Brittlebush blooms. Evening primrose and desert gold, yellow wooly daisy, desert tortoise and phacelia. 

Robbie brought his Honda monkey by for Mac to ride. Last light. 

65 and sunny. We did some  volunteer work planting native plants on the new wetland trail. Sue, Judy and Judy.

Group photo of the volunteer group planting at the new wetlands trail.  

We had dinner at Steaks and Beer tonight. Very good as usual. 

Live music on the stage in Tecopa tonight. Sliver moon and Venus tonight. 

In my big box of beads that I just got there were some pieces of dichroic glass. I spent two days gluing on findings and making earrings and pendants. 53 and sunny. My back hurt after doing the planting on the wet lands  trail yesterday, so I passed on the second day. John worked all day. At the end of the project it looks like this. We planted 167 plants and put up erosion control pads on the sides with seeds underneath. All the plants have wire cages around them so the animals will not eat them. The water way is lined with weed barrier to keep the cattails from up stream from rooting. We planted a lot of bull rush instead. We did not put the weed barrier in, it was there before we started. 

Sunset. 62 and sunny with wind. Judy on the Aqua trail in the badlands. 

We had a Primrose Patio dinner party tonight. Our neighbor John who is a geologist had students out here last week learning how to 'map'. we asked what was mapping. He brought a map and explained it to us. 

 

Sunset. 

March 15-22, 2023 Shoshone, California

 67 degrees, cloudy and some rain and wind. 77 in Death Valley when we left. 

Our friends Tracy and Doug were in Death Valley today. We had a nice but short visit with them. We left the Inn today. Good bye pool!

I went on a short hike today on the Shoshone wetland trails. It started out sunny, but then this huge storm rolled in. I got back to the bus just before it started to rain. It was raining at sunset, but there was this tiny bit of pink on the horizon. 

65 and sunny. These are a couple of special order hair barrettes I made from pine needles. We had dinner with Mac and Rod last night. They are staying in the Bunkhouse in Shoshone. 

Sunset. 70 and sunny. Ted Faye gave a talk at the museum this afternoon on the history of mining in Death Valley. He has written a couple books about this area and made some documentary movies. Great talk. 

We had happy hour on the Primrose Patio tonight. I scored this huge pile of beads, tools, findings, cords etc.- about 8 inches high here from a friend who inherited them. I am going to have to make a lot of baskets to use them up.

This middle of this basket started out as a barrette. It was way too big, so I added sides and made it into this. It is made from natural and dyed pine needles, polyester thread, glass beads, a dichroic glass center I fused and an old earring. It is 6 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches. Rod and Mac's daughter and husband arrived today, so we  had a welcoming happy hour on the Primrose Patio. 

62 degrees, mostly cloudy, rainy and high winds with gust up to 50 mph. Judy and decided to go out for a walk. Threatening clouds over downtown Shoshone. There was this huge bright rainbow on our hike. 

Arch on the Aqua trail. Sue in the arch on the Aqua trail. 

We were entertained tonight by Lilly furiously digging for a gopher. We are easily entertained. John came in from working on the trail with a line on his head from his hat, which he said was his halo and posed as an angel.

60 and partly cloudy with some wind. There was no rain in the forecast, but it came anyway. The vintage sign in downtown Shoshone with rain clouds. Mac served us a wonderful burrito delicious tonight. Good food and good friends.