I renewed my drivers license, replaced the muffler on car and insured it so now am ready to hit the road again to sell some more rough for my ticket money to Australia. The car is packed to the brim including the passenger side seat. I have retrieved the now proof read copies of my soon to be printed cookbook. It helps to have those who know nothing of the opal life proof read for you because they point out what was confusing to them. When I get to LA, I will work on the corrections and print the master copy to send to the printers. I have been told to add a touch of color to the front cover. I need to play with how to color it. I think I have found printers that can help me with my planned series of books. It’s all about the money of course. Now off I go singing  Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again”

Holy rocks! I have seen some beaut opals! Just like I thought, amidst the complaints of “no opal” are those who found their patch this year. Grawin black opal seam, a parcel of black Lambina, red on blacks hidden within a white sandstone tailings lump and other kaleidoscopic delights are amongst the opal vendors tables.Cheers, Barbara

Here I am still on the road again at the Tucson gem show. I come here not to sell or buy but to check out the opal market. The main part of the show gets going today and tomorrow so have seen only a bit of Yowah and Koroit opals at the stalls. The Queensland boulder opal blokes are complaining that the year was lean for them to produce any quantity of opal. they tell me Quilpie is flooded in and the Parroo River that you must cross to get to Yowah is rising. There are reports of much water in the Coocoran Lake around Lightning Ridge. I have heard these cries of no opal no opal many a time before. I aim to check out their validity here. It has been my experience in the past that there is always SOMEONE on opal. The key is to find out who and where they have it for sale and to get to them first! I only go to check out pricing and new discoveries or types of opal. There is a new book out this year hot off the presses. It is full of magic pictures and updated information. I will interview the publisher today and share info with you soon. Now off to the opal trenches of Tucson.

Yesterday I spent took a break from book writing to spend time in the attic sorting RVing clothes (for the upcoming dirt in Quarztsite Rock and Mineral shows) from a little-more-cleaned-up outfits for the Tucson Gem Shows in February. I was pulling some photo images for use in my blog, and finding individual unique looking specimens of rough Yowah and Koroit opal for my books. I am constantly reorganizing what I haul in my car from place to place on the rock and gem track. I have stashes here and there at places I regularly stop at so that there is always something I can do, book to write, talk to give, seminar to teach or a chunk of rock to polish. Jars get broken, plastic containers get skuzzy,  and boxes split and have to be redone.  So stack em and pack em was the name of the day.

Had a good customer give me my kinda gift… an opal. It is from Africa and looks good enough to eat. A shere shaped white opal that piles upinside the small half shell like opalized whip c ream with clear crystal windows into the froth here and there. The rainbow spectrum of collrs in the whitest of white is lovely. I am used to seeing the dark chocolate centered variety that are quite beautiful but this one is refreshing to see and acts like, I know it sounds crazy, but it acts like a cleansing of the palate, as if looking at opals were like consuming gourmet food! This Yowah opal field gal finds Ethiopian, altho a volcanic form of opal, to be breath taking. And at my age takin’ breaths is real important…oh oh I wonder if the fact my birthday was yesterday had anything to do with “age” comment?

The trouble with opal mining is there is so much  dirt mixed with the opals and so little time to separate the two. I do that days and then tackle the other commodity…words, at night. There is so much to say and share about opals and the life to those who care. So I spend any free time working my other mine, my word mine! I work it with taking jpegs  and slides, and writing blogs, and in my books.  Well with my car broken down here in USA, I am at the  computer working on four books: Opals Win Some Lose Some, and on a book about cutting Yowah opal maybe to be called Dirty Little Secrets About Cutting Yowah Opal, Fancy Pattern Opal of Queensland, and Smoke gets in Your Eyes Cookbook. The writing comes easy to me but putting it together electronically… well that is still a learning curve. Plus putting information out there that is both useful AND entertaining ….well that hurts my brain!