April 3-7, 2023 Las Vegas, Nevada to Shoshone, California

 What a change in weather. The high in Shoshone was 62, cloudy and very high winds. 40 mph with gusts to 60. The high was at midnight, it cooled off all day after that. 

Blustery the whole way though Las Vegas. Red Rock Canyon on the west side of Vegas was beautiful with the clouds. The sun was shining on the red Calico Hills. There are nice hiking trails in the Calico Hills. 

Red Calico Hills. To the west the Spring Mountains are under dark clouds and either rain or blowing dust. 

Red Calico Hill from the scenic overlook.

Spring Mountains closer to them. There are amazing slot canyons into the Spring Mountains from this side. This cloud we drove into looked ominous. 

Dark clouds over windy Shoshone. I caught some kind of cold or something in Vegas. I kind of sore throat and sort of congested. But mostly just bone tired. I slept the last couple days and feel way better now. Of course now John does not feel well. . . I have been trying to make sour dough whole wheat bread for the last couple weeks with no luck. The starter would not foam and the bread would not rise. Tues I started feeding the starter between naps, fed it every 12 hours till this afternoon. I think the problem may have been it was not warm enough in my house. Today I put the starter, then later the bread to rise in the car that is in the sun. Worked great. It helped that the high was 73 degrees.  I tried two different recipes. One from King Arthur flour and my normal whole wheat whole grain recipe. Both were a success! Three beautiful loaves of whole wheat sourdough.

I finished this basket. Mostly going to and from Vegas. It is made with natural and dyed pine needles, polyester thread, ceramic beads and the center is a ceramic pot my friend Susan made for me with holes around the top to attach the basket. It is 11 x 11 x 4 1/2 inches. Love how it came out.

Side view of the new masterpiece. My friends Linda and Fred passed through today and I took them to Carla's to purchase some beads. You can only see about 1/3 of the beads she got in this photo, the rest are behind the front bunch. Great to see them  and so much fun looking at the beads. 

Besides a few more beads I also purchased this gorgeous bracelet from Carla. She inherited all these beads from a good friend Linda and a few boxes of Linda's finished work. I really liked this bracelet Linda made last time I was over and this time I got it. Beautiful work. There were fields of flowers on the way back. These are filaree.

Filaree, yellow mustard, Fremont phacilia and fiddleheads. There were also fields of yellow mustard and Fremont phacilia.

Fremont phacilia and yellow mustard. The ground is carpeted with green and flowers. 

More green and flower carpets. Suncup.

Brown eyed primrose. Cryptantha, desert pincushion, brown eyed primrose, chicory, suncup, and a bush called mountain  pepper weed. 

Sunset tonight.

March 31-april 2, 2023 Las Vegas, Nevada

 66 and sunny I spent most of the day inside the Glass expo.

I took John Ferrando's Decorative motifs with fused glass. John and his assistant Debbie are explaining what we will learn. With an example of what we will learn. What a great fun class. Another example of what we will learn.

We started with a sheet of glass with stringer (long thin pieces of glass) fused to it. Cut it up into 1/2 inch strips, then arranged the pieces in  patterns. This is the piece I made. It is not fired yet, but will be by tomorrow. 

At lunch and after class I went to the exhibition hall to see new glass products and see what was for sale. I was whupped, so I took a nap at the pool.

John and I met Karen who is here from Denver for the Glass expo for dinner. Nice to see her. This is Marti doing a demo in the Tasha's Eye class. We made pendants from anodized niobium. 

I am cutting niobium, Ends up I am terrible at sawing metal. I was hoping to learn a new way to mount my glass pendants.  This way won't work, I am terrible with it and it is very expensive. Niobium is more expensive than silver or titanium. A bowl on the show floor, two winners in the Gallery of excellence and the little animals are all beaded. Tasha's Eye that I made, a prize winning piece in the gallery of excellence. 4 pendants that Marti made, mine came out pretty lame next to hers. 

The gallery of excellence These are from a silver clay class I took last night. The piece before and after firing. Also way too expensive for me. The amount of silver clay in this piece cost $40. Looks cool though. 

This morning I took my last class. Another wire wrapping class from Libby Liberman. it was excellent. First  photo is working on the pendant using a fancy tool-a safety pin. the next two are the front and back of my finished piece. Libby made the bead this is made with. Wire wrapping I can do and afford. 

Fancy slot machines in the casino. I didn't play today. All I did was loose money the last two times I did. 77 degrees and sunny. John and I spent the rest of the day at the pool. This is the sun setting behind the horse arena over the pool.

John cooking dinner tonight. Reheating pizza on the iron in the room. It is lame that they don't have microwaves in the rooms any more. 

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.