The Gem Show = Frantic Happiness

The Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase is the largest gem and mineral show in the United States, boasting more than forty separate sites around town, thousands of sellers and buyers in attendance, and everything from diamonds to jewelry findings to prehistoric fossils to lamps made out of salt rock.

(please do not touch the cauliflower)

(yet another tent o' beads)

(prehistoric fish fossils!)

(I've always wanted my own hand-carved lion statues)

Inevitably, I spent more money than I intended to (and I only made it to two locations!) but I found it way too difficult to merely window shop. Here are just a few of the treasures I acquired: