Digging Deep: Using Old Stones

Posted on November 26, 2019 by Maria Langer

My stone collecting obsession and how I’m trying to move forward.

Let’s get one thing straight from the get-go: I like rocks and always have. I’ve collected interesting rocks since I was a kid. You know — like when you’re out on a walk and you see one on the ground that catches your eye and it winds up in your pocket and later on your dresser.

Or when you’re on the beach with your family and you wind up picking up more rocks than shells and you keep them in a jar of water at home so they stay wet and shiny but become an algae-filled science experiment that disappears one day while you’re at school.

Or even in the school playground one afternoon in the 1970s when Steven Gaydos claims to have a moon rock and sells it to you for $2. (Yes, I was one of his suckers.)

Buy my jewelry!
After being encouraged (or nagged?) by too many other artist friends, I finally opened an Etsy shop to make it easy for folks to buy and for me to sell my finished pendants. It’s called MLGemstones. What I like about selling on Etsy is that it’s relatively easy to keep up-to-date — I can add pendants as I make them and remove them as I sell them — and Etsy does all the work to create for receipts and postage labels and calculate and pay sales tax.

Even when I got older and into a relationship, I collected pretty rocks. My future wasband did, too, which I always thought was natural. We’d go out in the desert and come back with a bunch of rocks. One day, while Jeeping out near Congress, AZ, we came upon a really nice, almost perfectly cubed piece of white quartz. It took three of us to get it in the back of the Jeep and it wound up in the front yard of our home. (It later disappeared; I don’t know if my wasband took it or someone looking at the house during the years it was for sale took it. I certainly had no use for it.)

Quartzsite Makes it Serious

Every year, when I lived in Arizona, I’d take at least one trip out to Quartzsite during the January rock shows. I exercised a lot of self-control in those days, but I did come home with rocks now and then. I had, by that time, seen the pattern of my rock acquisitions: find, bring home, set aside, lose, repeat. It made no sense to pay money for something I’d too quickly lose interest in.

After I moved to Washington state, I’d still go down to Quartzsite as part of my winter migration. And one year, I caught the rock bug bad.

It’s almost embarrassing to share this photo of my second pendant, but sometimes you need to look behind you to see how far you’ve come. I recently found this pendant (after misplacing it for a year) and plan to reframe it and wear it as a reminder of the rock that started it all.

It started with a rock seller giving me a nice, polished bacon agate cabochon. I had to do something with it. That’s when I started playing around with jewelry making. I was awful back then and never realized that I would get better. All I thought about then was that now that I had something useful to do with the rocks, it made sense to buy a few.

A few hundred, is more like it.

The Growing Collection

Kingman Turquoise with bronze is one of my best selling stones these days. I get these from a lapidary in Pennsylvania.

Since then — which was only two years ago this coming January — I’ve not only added to my collection, but I’ve begun displaying the stones in Riker boxes with felt inserts. Each box has a type of stone: jasper, agate, moss agate, jade/opal, turquoise/chrysocolla/azurite, etc. Each stone is meticulously inventoried with a tiny sticker on the back with its name, inventory number, and selling price. Yes, I now sell cabochons, too. I have become a rock dealer.

I get about half my stones in Quartzsite or Tucson every year. Honestly, I get better deals in Quartzsite so that’s where I mostly shop, starting as early as December.

I get another 45% of my stones from lapidaries — people who polish stones into the cabochons I use for my jewelry.

I bought one of these so I could polish local stones.

The final 5% are made in my shop. When I got rock fever bad enough, I bought a CabKing 6 cab making machine. I have a very large supply of local petrified wood and obsidian that I got in trade from a client. They both make very nice cabochons — when I have the time to polish them. Of course, once I got the machine, I started acquiring slabs of rock from all over the world so I could make my own cabochons. Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble finding time to do that.

Selling Stones

My cabochons range in acquisition price from $1 to $20. I obviously sell them for more than that. I have them on display at venues where I sell my jewelry. I get a lot of rock lovers stopping by to look — some of them can spend 15 minutes or more at my booth looking and chatting with me. I enjoy sharing my knowledge and learning from some of them. And I love hearing their stories! I don’t even mind when they take up a bunch of my time and don’t buy anything. (The only thing I do mind is kids with dirty hands touching the tops of the display boxes. 🤯)

This Fallon Nevada Wonderstone was one of the first “expensive” rocks I bought. I think I paid $15 for it. The pendant sold for $79 the other day.

This was the first Picasso stone cabochon I bought and I think it was the nicest. It sold last weekend.

This was one of the first 100 stones in my collection. I’ve since learned that square stones are a tough sell, but I suspect this one will eventually find a home.

I obtained this petrified wood cabochon long before I got about 100 pounds of local petrified wood in trade with one of my clients.

I remember the day I bought this Ocean jasper cabochon and another very much like it in a Sacramento, CA bead shop. I paid too much (as I now know) but got my investment back (and more) when it sold last weekend.

Although the main reason I have the stones on display is to entice shoppers to have a custom pendant made from one of them — I can do it while they shop or have lunch — I also wind up selling a lot of stones. Just last February, I sold 20 stones over two days to a woman in Wickenburg, AZ — she came to my booth twice — and one day this past summer I sold 18 stones to a woman in Leavenworth, WA. These sales are good and bad. They’re good because I’m making money on inventory that requires no work other than cataloging and transporting. They’re bad because these folks often pick my best stones, leaving me with ones that aren’t quite as interesting or impressive. (Of course, that gives me an excuse to buy more.)

And then there are the folks who buy out my entire stock of one particular stone. I’ll see these folks at rock shows, like the one I do in Mesa, AZ every January. I discount all my cabochons by 20% to stay competitive with other rock sellers at the event. One day, a guy bought all of my K2 granite stones and the next day another guy bought all my bumblebee jasper stones. Fortunately, I went right back to Quartzsite the day after the show and was able to replenish my supplies.

Digging Deep

My stone inventory is listed by date and I still have a bunch of stones from my early days of collecting them. I’ve begun making a conscious effort to get these stones out of my inventory by making them into jewelry. And that’s what I’m showing off here: photos of stones I’ve had in my collection for over a year that I’ve finally made into jewelry.

It’s interesting to note that I started writing this blog post earlier this month when I began making these pendants. Since then, three of the five have sold. That tells me that even back when I first started collecting I had pretty good taste in stones.

Over time, I’ve learned what sells quickly and, when I get to Arizona, I’ll be stocking up on those stones. But I’ll also be on the lookout for some other beauties that I won’t be able to resist. When I find a stone I really like, I price it so high that no one wants to buy it so I can keep it as long as possible. But everyone seems to have their own idea of how much is too much and I often sell them to collectors anyway. That’s okay; it funds my future collections.

As for my current status, after buying and selling stones and pendants made from stones for nearly two years, I have 370 cabochons in my collection. Is it any wonder that rock lovers stop and stare when I have them laid out in my booth for everyone to see?

My stones get their own table when I set up my jewelry booth at shows, like this Holiday Artisan Fair in Wenatchee last weekend.

A Tab-Mounted Gemstone Pendant

Posted on October 31, 2019 by Maria Langer

I make my first tab-mounted gemstone pendant.

The definition of cabochon from Merriam-Webster dictionary.

I have about 500 gemstone cabochons in my collection these days. When customers marvel at them on display, I joke that “I make jewelry to support my stone habit.” Sadly, although it’s a pithy punchline, it’s also kind of true.

I made this Picasso Stone Jasper in sterling silver and copper pendant recently.

I use the cabochons (or “cabs”) three ways:

I make silver and/or copper framed pendants from cabochons I select from my collection.
I let customers select cabochons from my collection and make silver and/or copper framed pendants for them.
I sell cabochons from my collection. (Yes, I mark them up from their purchase price. No, I don’t double the cost to come up with my price.)

That Rose Quartz Cab

I purchase most of the cabochons at gem and mineral shows or directly from lapidaries. I do, however, also have a CabKing cabochon maker, which I can use to make my own cabs from rough or slabs. While I’m glad I have the CabKing, I honestly don’t use it enough to make it worth buying. The trouble is, it takes a long time to make a cab — sometimes an hour or more per stone. So unless I can’t get a cab elsewhere, it just doesn’t make sense for me to make it myself. At this point, I use it to make cabs from local stones such as petrified wood, obsidian, Ellensburg Blue agate, and Washington State jade.

But back when I first got it, I made a bunch of cabs from stones I’d bought to tumble. One of them was a piece of rose quartz that, for some reason, I’d cabbed into a triangle. (What was I thinking?) The piece sat in my collection for well over a year. It was time to do something with it.

Tab Mounting Ideas

I pulled it out on Sunday and took a good look at it. I wanted to use it with one point down, but I knew that it would look ridiculous framed in wire. And then I realized that it might be a candidate for a new (to me) technique I wanted to try: tab mounting.

Tab mounting requires you to take a piece of metal and cut tabs into it that you can then bend up and over the stone to secure it in place. I had seen a few videos about the technique and even read up on it in some of my jewelry making books. Coincidentally, I had passed on a jewelry making class in Tacoma that very weekend that covered tab-mounting. (I had already driven to the west side of the mountains three times this autumn and felt that was enough.) Maybe it was time to try it myself.

I took out a piece of paper and started sketching — which is something I rarely do. (I have no drawing skills.) I came up with an idea that might work, however, and got very excited about giving it a try. Unfortunately, I was at my day table booth in Pybus Market for the day and had agreed to meet a friend at the neighborhood winery afterwards. So it wasn’t until Monday morning, after dropping off my truck for some maintenance, that I had a chance to explore my idea.

Making the Pendant

Here’s the sketch with the stone positioned on top. Because the stone was translucent, I wanted the area behind it to be mostly empty.

Here’s the sketch without the stone. I shaded in the area that would be cut away.

I glued the sketch diagonally on one end of the metal strip.

Here’s what the piece looked like after it was cut.

I started by re-sketching the idea. You see, it required a lot of cutting with a jeweler’s saw — a skill I learned last year during the three-day Beginner Intensive Metalworking class at the Tacoma Metal Arts Center. I’d been taught to take what I wanted to cut and paste it onto the metal with rubber cement. After it was cut, the paper could be peeled off.

So I traced the stone on paper, drew dashed lines to mark the center, sketched in the tabs I’d need to cut out, and then drew the pendant’s border around the stone. I shaded in the area that would be cut away, mostly so I wouldn’t make any mistake about where I cut.

Then I prepared the metal. I planned to use 22 gauge copper for this first experiment. I needed a piece approximately 2-1/4 inches wide so I cut a strip that wide with my bench shear. I wanted the metal textured and decided to use my rolling mill to keep the texture uniform. It was important to roll the copper before cutting it since rolling it tends to stretch it a bit. I picked a texture plate and rolled it out.

Next, I cut out my sketch with a pair of scissors and glued it to the textured metal. It didn’t matter which way the texture ran so I placed it on the metal to minimize waste.

Now the fun part (not!): cutting. There were two cutting techniques required for this piece:

Cut around the outside of the template. This was easy — I did it with a pair of metal shears.
Pierce cut along the black lines inside the pattern to remove the shaded area. This required me to drill a small hole in the shaded area (to pierce it) and then thread a thin blade on my jeweler’s saw through the hole. Then, resting the piece on my bench pin, I sawed on the lines. Although this wasn’t particularly difficult — the jeweler’s saw is made for this kind of work — it was time consuming. And I did break three saw blades. (#4/0 blades are a lot thinner than the #2 blade I use for most of my work. Fortunately, I buy all my blades in 24-blade package.)

Once it was cut out, I peeled away the paper and cleaned any remnants of glue off the piece. Then I spent a while doing my least favorite thing: filing and sanding the rough edges. One of these days, I will find the perfect tool for doing this quickly and consistently. Monday was not that day.

At this point, I could have mounted the stone and finish up. But I wanted to use another technique to add some creative elements to the metal: fusing sterling silver onto its surface. I dug into my sterling scrap bag — I recycle all my sterling silver — and pulled out a piece of 22 gauge square wire. I cut it to length and curled its ends into a pair of spirals. Then I took my beloved solder cutting tool and chopped up the remaining square wire into tiny pieces. I positioned all this silver onto various places on the textured copper and laid it out on the charcoal block at my soldering station.

I cannot say enough good things about this torch, which can supposedly reach 2500°F and doesn’t have sissy features like child-proof ignition.

I used my new Blazer Big Shot butane torch to melt the silver onto the copper. This is something I’d learned earlier in the month at a jewelry making class. It’s not difficult to do, but it does require your full attention and quick reflexes. I wanted the tiny chips fully melted but I wanted to retain the shape of the swirls. I think I did a decent job, although I wish I could have melted the left swirl a little better.

As you might imagine, the copper got very hot — glowing red. I let it cool naturally on the block for a short while, which really didn’t make sense because charcoal really holds the heat. Finally, I quenched it in some water and dried it off. It was very black. I used a 280 grit radial polisher on my flex shaft to clean it off, then repeated the process with a 400 grit polisher to give it more shine.

I was going to do some fire painting to bring some more color into the copper, but so little copper showed through the silver that I didn’t think it was worthwhile.

Here’s the almost finished piece. I still have to add a bail at the top. It’s interesting the way the silver appears shiny in some places and blackened in others. I like that look. I’ll probably make a pair of simple copper with fused silver earrings to go with it, using the same spiral motif.

So, instead, I just mounted the stone. It was easy enough to do: I pulled the four tabs forward, bending them where they joined the rest of the piece. To my utter amazement, the stone fit perfectly between them. I bent the tabs back over the stone. It was all very easy to do since the piece had been annealed when I melted the silver.

I’m very happy with the results. I know that this kind of jewelry isn’t for everyone, but neither are my sterling/copper framed cabochon pendants. I think it’s important to have a variety of items to appeal to many people. I can see making a “line” of jewelry in this style. Every piece, of course, would be different.

I can make silver pendants this way, but I can’t melt copper onto them. I’d have to use other techniques to make the pendant’s backing interesting: texturing, stamping, antiquing, etc. It’s exciting to me, in a way, because I get to try different things. When I show them at art shows, etc., I see the reaction of shoppers and learn what works and doesn’t work.

Two Jewelry Classes

Posted on October 29, 2019 by Maria Langer

I take the camper to Tacoma to learn more about making jewelry.

Note: I actually wrote this and much of the post after it about my new cargo trailer back in early October while I was still traveling. I can’t tell you how many blog posts I start writing and don’t finish. This one’s done. I’ll try to get the other one done this week, too.

Last September, I took a 3-day intensive beginner metalworking class at the Tacoma Metal Arts Center in Tacoma, WA. It was an amazing experience that really transformed the way I think of making jewelry. I learned a bunch of metal working skills and how to use new (to me) tools that would take me to the next level in my work: cutting, soldering, texturing, shaping, and polishing sheet metal using jeweler’s saws, shears, torches, flex shafts and attachments, dapping blocks and punches, rolling mills, texture plates, and burnishing tools. I left class with the basic tools I’d need to practice what I’d learned.

Getting Serious about Jewelry Making

Over the winter, I decided to get serious about making jewelry. I paid a contractor friend to frame in a 12 x 24 foot space in my absurdly large garage so we could make an insulated shop for me. That would give me a climate controlled space to work on jewelry projects. While I was in Arizona over the winter, I shopped for the tools and equipment I’d need to set up a full-blown annealing/soldering station and jeweler’s workbench. When I returned from Arizona, I ran the wiring in the new shop and my friend returned to put in the insulation and drywall while I fastened T1-11 paneling to the two outside walls facing into the garage. Then I painted the inside of the room and added some trim around the windows. I installed the two glass-paned doors last week with another friend. The room is large and bright from its two windows and four track light setups, with an 8-foot ceiling and 288 square feet of loft space above it that I’ll likely never use.

Some shop tools purchased from Rio Grande earlier this year: a Durston Agile 110 Rolling Mill, a Swanstrom Round Disc Cutter, and a Precision 12″ Bench Shear. (Catalog photos not to scale; the disc cutter is actually quite small.)

With the help of the folks at Rio Grande — my primary supplier of metals — I purchased a few rather costly quality tools: a Durston rolling mill, a Swanstrom disc cutter, and a PepeTools ring bender. I also acquired a set of dapping blocks/punches and a metal shear almost as good as a true guillotine style cutter. I moved my jeweler’s bench into my new space, putting it right beneath one window where I’d get plenty of natural light. I built a solid workbench for the corner where I bolted down the rolling mill. Then I moved in the rolling storage cabinets I’d been collecting for years, set up one as my soldering station, another as my rock storage and jewelry photography studio, and a third as storage for the display and packaging equipment I’d accumulated. Half the room is set up as a jewelry studio while the other half is my regular workshop with the big workbench I built several years ago, my tool chest, and the rolling cart I’d converted into a storage and charging area for my power tools. My table saw, miter saw, tile saw, and Cabking cab making machine remain in the garage, on the other side of the wall. (The room is big, but not that big.)

Now, in addition to the sterling silver and/or copper framed gemstone cabochon pendants I’ve been making for a while, I also make textured and etched silver and copper earrings, soldered silver and copper stack rings, hammered bangle bracelets, silver plated “spoon rings,” and novelty keychains. This gives me a full range of products to offer customers when I show and sell my jewelry. I make these items in my shop and make my cabochon pendants when I go to shows.

This summer, however, I realized that I was ready for more.

Classes at the Tacoma Metal Arts Center

The Tacoma Metal Arts Center (TMAC) offers a variety of jewelry classes. Although I wanted to take the three-day course again with a different instructor to polish my skills and learn things from a different person, the dates and times it was offered did not work with cherry season, which requires me to be at home every day for three months — roughly June through August. There were a few one-day classes in September and October that looked interesting, but I wasn’t interested in coming to Tacoma for just one day. And then I saw the two one-day classes offered on the weekend of October 12 and 13: Molten Magic and Possibilities of Precious Metal Clay.

Molten Magic’s description was as follows:

Ruth [the instructor] will show you how to cut a shape from copper sheet for your project, then you will cover it with texture through the molten magic of melted silver! The result is a wonderfully rich surface texture of ridges and waves. Then, you will learn how to apply an iridescent patina with a torch by flame painting the surface.

Possibilities of Precious Metal Clay was described as:

PMC (aka Precious Metal Clay). Create fine silver jewelry from a clay: this material works like earthen clay so it can be shaped and formed, textured and refined and then fired. The result is precious metal in pure silver. Once it is finished into silver you can polish it or apply a patina for that vintage look.

These two seemed perfect for me. I was interested in taking my sheet metal work to the next level and fusing silver and copper sounded very interesting. As for PMC, I had actually bought some of the stuff and a bunch of tools to work with it but because of its cost, I was hesitant to get started. This would give me the information I needed to try it with confidence — or realize that it wasn’t really for me.

I signed up and planned to spend the weekend, camping out in their back parking lot in my truck camper as I had done the year before. Not only would I save on overnight lodging, but I could bring Penny the Tiny Dog along.

Molten Magic

Although I’d been hoping to get to Tacoma the evening before Saturday’s class, a big project at home kept me busy until 4 PM. By the time I prepped the camper, it was 6 PM and sunset was less than 30 minutes away. I try hard not to drive in unfamiliar places at night, so I didn’t depart until 5:30 AM the next day. Of course, I still had to drive in the dark over Blewett Pass, which I seldom drive. It wasn’t light until I got to Snowqualmie Pass.

To give you an idea of the variety of food items Metropolitan Market offers, he’s a shot of some of the mushrooms they had for sale that day.

Traffic was light and I got there early. So I kept driving and stopped at Metropolitan Market, a supermarket that is so posh it makes Whole Foods look like a Smart and Final. I parked in the lot, got out to visit the restroom and buy some snacks, and then took Penny for a walk down the adjoining residential street. Then it was back to the TMAC, where I drove into the alley behind the place and backed the truck into the narrow parking area, trying (and failing) to use up only half the width of the space. The back gate was locked (as I knew it would be), so I got Penny set up in the camper with food and water, locked it up, and walked around front to the main entrance.

I was the first student to arrive. I met the instructor and chatted with her for a while. She must have thought I was a nut, talking to her as if I’d known her for years. I do that. The second of four students arrived before the 10 AM start time. The third arrived loudly 20 minutes late, after class had already begun. The fourth never arrived.

The instructor, Ruth, did not have a very structured teaching style. It was all very casual. There would be no specific project. Instead, she told us about the techniques we’d be using, handed out sheets of copper and scraps of sterling silver, and encouraged us to practice on the copper scraps in a bin near the rolling mill. Then she took us back to the polishing and soldering stations and demonstrated how to clean off the metal with wheels on three bench grinders there and then use heat from a torch to oxidize the copper enough to get different colors and patterns. She showed us how to melt silver onto the copper, including how to somewhat control how the silver melted by using heat to guide it across the copper.

Then she let us go to it.

There were three soldering stations and three of us so it worked out well that the fourth person hadn’t shown up. We each played with the sample copper for a while. One of the scrap sheets I’d taken had been run through the rolling mill and had a pattern on it. I managed to get shades of orange and pink on it. Later, I’d turn it into a pair of twisted metal earrings suitable for sale. (Yes, I can make jewelry out of scrap metal.) My silver melting wasn’t quite as interesting. I couldn’t come up with a suitable shape, so I’d traced a plastic spoon. No matter how I looked at it, it looked like a spoon. And I didn’t like the way I melted the silver on it.

Meanwhile, my two companions were working on nice projects. I felt uninspired. And disappointed. You see, I had already played with “fire painting” copper so it wasn’t new to me. The only thing I’d learned was that you could polish off the color to start over — I normally used “pickle,” which is an acid that removes oxidization — and that it was possible to melt sterling silver with the same little butane torch I used to solder and anneal.

Ruth spent a few minutes showing us how we could create a chain for a pendant using sterling silver wire and jump rings that she provided. I liked the chain on the sample piece she’d brought along, but it had been created with 14 gauge wire and she’d give us thinner 16 gauge wire. I played around with it for a while but didn’t like what I was doing.

Here’s the pendant I made in class. I finished it with a leather necklace and added a pair of matching earrings. They sold as a set on the first day I displayed them in my booth.

Then I got an idea for a pendant that would consist of three textured copper panels, each of which had silver wire melted on it. I’d join them together with jump rings. So I cut some of the copper sheet and went at it with two different hammers. Then I took some of the wire she’d given us to make a chain and made a zigzag pattern with it. I made tiny dots with more wire. I melted the wire to the copper without allowing the zigzags to get completely molten so they were fused onto the copper without losing their shape. I polished off the oxidation and then used the torch to apply just a tiny bit of color. I liked the result. I fetched some copper jump rings from my camper, colored them a bit with the torch, and put the whole thing together. Funky, but I liked it.

By this time, the day was pretty much over. Amy, the owner, came in to do some paperwork and she took photos of what we’d made. I felt that I made a respectable showing; everyone seemed to like the pendant and earrings. My companions had created more things than I had, but I didn’t mind. I had some ideas and that’s all I needed.

More at Metropolitan Market

After class, I went back to the camper — I’d checked on Penny at lunchtime — and put Penny on her leash. We walked the mile or so to Metropolitan Market. I parked Penny at the outside dog parking area where an Australian Shepherd was waiting for her human. I bought some things for dinner from their extensive prepared food area, remarking to the person behind the counter that if I lived nearby I’d be 300 pounds and flat broke.

Penny and I shared a gelato — I scooped some of mine out into the lid of the container for her — and walked back. Then we climbed into the truck and drove to a local U-Haul place that filled propane tanks. One of my tanks was completely empty and the other was only 1/4 full. I did not want to run out of gas overnight. That done, we returned to our parking spot and I backed all the way in so my back door was only a few feet from the back gate.

I heated my dinner in the camper’s oven — I wasn’t plugged into power and hadn’t brought along a generator so the microwave was useless — and worked on some earrings while I waited for it to finish heating. After dinner and another quick walk with Penny, I stretched out on my bed to read.

I slept well. During the night, I was treated to a rainstorm. The only thing I love more than hearing rain on my camper’s roof is hearing it on the metal roof of my home.

The Iliad and The Odyssey

I was up at 5:30 the next morning. I lounged in bed for a while, like I do at home, and then got up, threw on a pair of sweatpants, and made my coffee. I did a little web surfing at the table while I had my coffee. Before I knew it, it was 7:30. I made breakfast and ate it as Penny came down off the bed to let me know she was ready to go out.

I put the leash on her and we walked down the alley. There was a Bartell’s pharmacy about two blocks away and it looked like the kind of place that might have a refrigerator case. I really felt like having some orange juice. They had every sugar or alcohol drink in that case except real orange juice.

We crossed the road to a coffee shop. They didn’t have orange juice either. But they had a nice staff that let me bring Penny in so I bought a latte and caught up on Twitter at a table near the window while Penny ate a dog biscuit and a nearby dog watched her.

At one point, a young guy came over and complemented me on how well behaved my dog was. That got us into a conversation about dogs in public and how the owners really needed to keep them under control. I pointed to the other dog. “That’s a well-behaved dog,” I said.

This is the edition recommended by my friend.

I noticed that he was reading The Iliad and asked him if he was reading it for a class or if he was just reading it. He told me that he’d always wanted to read the classics and figured he’d start with the first one. (At that point, I found myself wishing he was about 20 to 30 years older and single — I felt the same way about reading the classics but needed a bit more motivation to actually do it.) I had recently explored reading a specific translation of The Odyssey that a friend had recommended. I told him about it and looked up the translator’s name for him. He said that was next on his list and he’d look for that version. I think he really will.

Possibilities of Precious Metal Clay

By that time, it was 9:45 and I was running the risk of being late for class. So Penny and I hurried back. I put her in the camper and went into class. I arrived at about the same time as one of the previous day’s students, Ellen. Two other students joined us. Again, there was a no-show.

This instructor, Meredith, had a more structured approach — but not much more. She spent some time talking about PMC — what it is, how it works, etc. She sent around examples of her own work — some of it with problems she pointed out as examples of what can go wrong. She handed out 9 gram packets of PMC3, bunches of 10 standard playing cards (which are used to gauge thickness for rolling), tiny pieces of plastic needlepoint grid (for a simple texture, a small sheet of foam (for creating our own textures), and long pins with masking tape flags on the end (for cutting clay). She seemed a bit disorganized; she’d forgotten to bring along work surfaces for us. Instead, we’d be rolling out the clay on the same teflon surfaces we’d use to dry it on. All the other tools were laid out in piles on unused benches and workspaces.

And then she let us go to it, again, without a specific project.

I guess wanting a specific thing to make is something that affected me more than my companions. I suspect that it’s because I’m pretty new to art — so new that I usually don’t provide a straight answer when people ask me how long I’ve been making jewelry.

Although I’m a visual person when it comes to learning, I’m not visually creative. (My creativity has always come with words; I have always been a writer.) Show me how to make something specific using a set group of techniques or skills and I’ll make it. Then, as I make it over and over, the creativity comes out. You can see that in my silver framed jewelry. Dorothy taught me how to make a pendant in her style using her materials and tools. The more pendants I make, the more my materials, tools, and final products differ from hers. I look at a stone and I think about how I could make an interesting pendant from it. The idea clicks and I make something creative and new. But when it all comes down to it, I’m just doing the same thing over and over, with minor twists that make something new.

Although Ruth had provided a project idea — the sample pendant she’d made for the course description — I hadn’t been interested in duplicating that. And Meredith did provide many examples of what we could do with PMC, but there were too many. I guess I was expecting her to walk us through the process of creating some of these things rather than giving us an overview of how to make them and then answering questions to help us complete our own personal products.

My problem was that I lacked ideas.

I made two textured pieces that could be earrings or charms. It took only minutes to do, even with the custom texture I created in the foam I’d been provided. I was interested in creating a bead and had picked out a small piece of cork clay to form a bead around. I had a few false starts — you have to surround the cork with clay before applying a texture (duh). My mistake was choosing such a small piece of cork; it meant that I was working with a very tiny object. But the damn clay is so expensive that I can’t imagine using it to make anything large. And we’d only been provided with 9 grams of the stuff so I was afraid to use too much right from the start.

Around lunchtime, Meredith set out a timeline for the rest of the class. All of the pieces had to be fired for about 45 minutes in a kiln. It took 30 minutes to ramp up the kiln to 1470°F. After that, we’d have to brush, tumble, and burnish our pieces, which would take at least another 15-30 minutes. With the class ending at 4 PM, that meant we’d need to get everything in the kiln by 2:30 at the latest.

I decided to use the rest of my clay to make a rectangular pendant with shapes adhered to it. This would enable me to practice “gluing” pieces together. What I made was ugly, but it did let me practice techniques. I worked and fine-tuned my pieces until 2:15 and laid them all out on the heating pad with the others to dry.

Compared to everyone else’s work, mine was pitiful. I didn’t even take a photo of them.

Meredith loaded the main kiln, which she’d brought along with her, and, while the kiln was coming up to temperature, talked to us a little about kilns. She’d brought along a smaller kiln designed for enameling that also worked with PNC and wound up firing that up for a few more pieces. Then we waited, asking questions and looking at more examples.

Finally, it was done. Meredith opened the kiln shortly after it was finished firing, opening and closing the door at short intervals to cool it slowly. She pulled out and quenched our pieces in a bowl of water. As I expected, they were all covered with a white film. She had us brush them off with a brass brush that put scratches in my pieces. I was pleased to see that none of them had any problems, although none of them had gotten any nicer.

Then she prepped the tumbler and dropped all of our pieces in. We cleaned up our workspaces while we waited. The owner, Amy, had come in and we shopped. TMAC is an excellent source of jewelry making tools and equipment at reasonable prices. I bought a small hand drill and two silver hallmarking stamps (.925 and .999FS).

Out of the tumbler, my pieces still had a lot of white residue on them. Meredith told us to burnish them with steel. I found a suitable tool and went to work on one of the pieces. The silver shine popped out. So now it was ugly and shiny.

Of course, I’m half joking here. Although my work wasn’t anything to be proud of, I had learned quite a bit about working with PMC and am no longer afraid to play with the 30 grams I bought earlier this year. I’m hoping to get my tiny desktop kiln running again; it’s the perfect size for this kind of work.

I just need some ideas.

After Class

Although I’d originally planned to spend the night in Tacoma, it was early enough to get a start for my next destination: Yakima. I needed to pick up a cargo trailer that I’d be converting into a mobile jewelry studio.

But I think you’ve read enough here. I’ll cover that in another blog post.

Snowbirding 2019 Postcards: Buying Gemstones

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Maria Langer

One of the reasons I’m in Quartzsite, AZ again this year is to buy raw materials for the gemstone jewelry I make. I’ve been shopping for stones at the rock vendor booths at Tyson Wells and Desert Gardens. Here’s a small sample of the 70 or stones I bought the other day.

Some of the gemstone cabochons I purchased on Sunday. I’ve bought over 100 stones so far in this trip and expect to buy at least another 20 more before I leave.

I choose cabochons — polished but unfaceted gemstones — that meet certain criteria:

Sized just right. Neither too small to work with nor too large to make into jewelry.
Popular stone. I get requests for malachite, lapis, amethyst, Larimar, turquoise, quartz, moonstone, labradorite, etc. I try to stock up on popular stones so I can make the jewelry people want to buy.
Beautiful stone. Sometimes I just buy a stone because I think it’s beautiful. Those are the ones I like to see lingering in my collection. Sometimes I just like to look at them. And I admit I’m thrilled when a customer picks out one of these stones for jewelry even though they’ve never heard of the stone. K2 Granite, Crazy Lace Agate, ruby in zoisite, azurite in chrysocolla, Montana moss agate, bumble bee jasper — these are all examples.

I get a lot of joy out of collecting and working with the stones. I’m looking forward to making new jewelry this coming week. Follow me on Twitter to see photos of each piece as it’s finished.

And if you’d like a pendant made out of one of these stones, get in touch. I can ship to addresses in the US.

Snowbirding 2019: In Mesa and Gilbert

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Maria Langer

I take a break from camping and spend some time selling rocks and visiting friends.

Posts in this series:
• The Long Drive
• At the Backwaters Campsite
• In Mesa and Gilbert
• A Quick Stop in Wickenburg and Forepaugh
• Off Plomosa Road
• Camping at the Big RV Show
• A Trip to Organ Pipe with the WINs
• The Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows
• Wickenburg Gold Rush Days
• Constellation Park Interlude
• White Tank Mountain Park
• Bumming It in Phoenix and Apache Junction
• A Dose of Civilization
• Return to the Backwaters
•

With my Colorado River Backwater vacation over, it was time to get back to work. I was scheduled to participate as a vendor in the annual Flagg Gem and Mineral Show in Mesa, AZ from January 4 through 6, so that was my next stop.

Setting Up My Booth

I headed east on I-10, letting Google Maps direct me to the Mesa Community College campus where the event would be held. At about 3:45 PM, I was following a young guy on foot to the space in the covered parking area to where my booth would be.

There was not much I could set up. After all, I’d chosen space under the covered parking area so I wouldn’t have to set up my tent shelter. But although that saved me some work, it also made some extra work for me. Without the tent and its sides, I couldn’t just leave my merchandise out overnight. There was no point in setting up more than just the tables to mark my space. So that’s what I did: I pulled the three folding tables out of my truck’s back seat area and set them up in a row along the outside edge of my booth space.

I should mention here that my booth space was huge: 14 x 28, I think. I didn’t need that much space, but it was the smallest space they offered. This was a big contrast to the 5 x 8 space I’m allowed at Pybus Public Market in Wenatchee where I do most of my selling. Rather than the usual challenge of cramming my wares into a tiny space, I had the unusual challenge of spreading everything out so it looked as if it filled the space.

The “Rough” Cargo Trailer

Meanwhile, I’d been texting back and forth with the owner of a cargo trailer listed on Craig’s List in Chandler. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was only 4 miles away from the show. I headed over to see the trailer.

The owner, Dan, lived in a kind of cool neighborhood in Chandler. From the street, it looked like any other subdivision, but each home had a very deep back yard — so big, in fact, that I suspect many of his neighbors had horses. Dan had a goat — the biggest goat I’d ever seen. It was very friendly and kept coming up to us to be petted. He also had a pit bull mix dog who was equally friendly but not quite as annoying about it. And he had a big garage in the back yard (although not as big as mine; as if anyone’s is).

He’d bought the trailer three years ago from someone else on Craig’s List to use as a storage shed for his tools until his garage was finished. Now that his garage was done, he didn’t need it anymore and wanted to sell it.

The trailer was in reasonable condition. Sure, it had some dents — thus his description of it being “rough” — but it was solid. It was outfitted the way I wanted: side door, back barn doors (vs a ramp), and two axles. It even had a screen vent and lighting (which needed some work). I could stand up straight in it. The price was good, but I’ve learned never to offer the listed price for anything on Craig’s List. (Frankly, you’re an idiot if you ask your best price since everyone wants a deal.) I offered him 10% less and he took it. He agreed to hold onto it until I was ready to come get it. I told him that might be Monday and he was okay with that. I also took a close look at the plug for the connection to my truck since it seemed that it might not be long enough to reach the truck with the hitch extension I needed to use with the camper on top. I went back to the camper, raided my mobile bank, and paid him. He gave me the title.

I do admit I had buyer’s remorse several times until I picked it up. What if it was too big? Had I paid too much? Did I really want to tow a trailer for the rest of this trip? Did I really need a trailer? The usual. All that cleared up a few days later when I put it to use.

Friends in Gilbert

From there, I went to Gilbert, where I’d be staying with friends. Tiffani and Jan have a house in a subdivision there with a guest room that’s always available for me and Penny. They’re great people and lots of fun and I know they think I don’t drink enough and go to bed too early. (I’m just not a party animal.)

I backed into their driveway, in front of the door to the extra garage they didn’t use, not sure whether overnight street parking was allowed there. (It was, fortunately.) Then I went inside where I was greeted by Jan. Tiffani came a short while later with a pizza to put in the oven. A while later we were eating pizza and drinking wine and watching something on television with the volume turned way up.

I did my laundry in their enormous washer and dryer. I was wearing my last clean pair of underwear and only had one pair of socks left. My jeans were so dirty I think I could have grown potatoes in them. The washer was so big, I only needed to do two loads, although I suspect that if I didn’t care about whites vs. darks I could have gotten it all — including my camper’s sheets — into one load. When the first load was dry and I had clean clothes to put on, I took a long, hot shower. It wasn’t until then that I felt as if I was done camping for a while.

At the Flagg Gem and Mineral Show

I put out two boxes of rock from a Washington friend to sell. A slab of obsidian was the first thing I sold, but it was also the only slab I sold all weekend. Go figure.

The next day, I was out by 7 AM and on my way to the gem show. The show opened at 9 AM and I had until then to set up. After offloading most of my stuff, I backed the truck and camper into a spot against the fence. Then I went about putting the table cloths on the tables and setting up my easels for pendants and earrings, my display pieces for rings and bracelets, and the display boxes for cabochons. I also put out boxes of petrified wood and obsidian slabs I’d brought from Washington; if there was any place I could sell them, this would be it. Of course, I never took a picture of my booth.

The show was pretty big and well managed — which makes sense considering it’s been an annual event for more than 50 years. Lots of vendors selling everything: rough stone, slabs, cabs, specimens, display pieces, beads, and, of course, jewelry. The organizers of the event required every booth to have at least 75% of its merchandise related to stone or jewelry so there weren’t the usual vendors selling salsa or microfiber cloths or blenders that you see at so many shows these days.

The other vendors were very friendly. The couple behind me, who were from Idaho, sold mostly Asian-made stone items such as bowls and statues and display pieces. The wife was completely entranced with Penny, who I had tied up in my booth for much of the first day. The guy west of me owned a local prospecting shop and was promoting his business, as well as selling metal detectors, books, and all kinds of prospecting equipment. The woman east of me was Native American, selling mostly beaded jewelry. Across from me were some guys who owned a nearby coffee shop that featured jewelry and items from local artists; they were selling mostly turquoise cabochons at prices a bit beyond what I like to spend.

I spent most of the first day cataloging the stones I’d purchased the day before and putting them on display in the appropriate box. I have my cabochon boxes sorted by price: $10 and Under, $15 to $20, and $25 and over. (I wish everyone did this.) Although I originally began displaying my cabochons to give people an opportunity to pick one for a custom pendant, I soon began selling cabochons to people who just wanted the stones. That’s fine with me since I mark up all the stones I sell — and sell ones I’ve polished myself — so I make money on every sale. It’s actually better when I’m really busy, since special orders can get stacked, making them difficult to fill in the two hours I say I can fill them in. At this event I sold about two dozen cabochons and took special orders for three pendants. I also sold some pendants that were already made, along with some earrings, a bracelet, and a ring.

Friday was a bit slow, but things picked up on Saturday, which is when I started selling more jewelry than rocks. A man who had taken a deep interest in my recently completed rosary came back with his wife for a second look. I could tell that they really liked it, but the $140 price tag may have been too high. (It’s a lot lower than the $180 I’d originally wanted to price it at.) I sold out on all my K2 granite stones — I started the day with seven of them — and also sold a bunch of bumble bee jasper. And I sold a handful of cabochons that I’d made from Washington state obsidian and petrified wood, leaving me without samples of finished stones to help sell the slabs.

Here are two of the five pieces I made on Friday and Saturday: Tiger Tail Jasper in sterling silver and Kingman Turquoise in copper and sterling silver. The turquoise piece sold literally two minutes after I put it on the display board — the buyer was standing right there when I hung it — thus reinforcing my belief that I need to buy more turquoise stones.

The Vehicle Shuffle

In the meantime, I’d asked security if I could leave my camper parked overnight in the lot. They said I could, as long as I didn’t sleep in it. No problem. On Friday, I dropped the camper’s legs and moved the truck out, then lowered the camper nearly as low as it would go. I didn’t bother with the sawhorses since I wouldn’t be spending much time in it. So on Friday evening, when I returned to my friend’s place in Gilbert, the truck was camperless.

That made it a lot easier to pick up the trailer, which I did on Saturday after the show. I’d brought along the hitch extender from home — I suspected that I might buy a trailer while I was in Arizona — and put that in place to see how the trailer would tow at the end of it. I was ready to try to back out of the deal if it looked as if the trailer was too heavy for it. Dan was still home — he told me he had plans to go out that evening — and helped me, which made things a lot quicker. Satisfied that the trailer would be okay at the end of the hitch extender and that the wire might even reach, we disconnected it and reconnected without the hitch extender.

The trailer did have two immediate problems:

The trailer had no license plate, making it a perfect target for any cop who wanted an easy ticket to write.
My truck was so tall that the trailer’s front wheels were off the ground. I assumed that once the camper was back on the truck the rear end of the truck would come down enough to make that problem go away.

I didn’t consider either problem too serious to drive away, so I did, already feeling a little better about my purchase. I parked in the road in front of my friend’s house that evening. It looked pretty funny with those wheels off the ground.

Overnight, it rained hard. I’d wondered a bit whether the trailer leaked — there was a dent in the front driver’s side near the top — but it was bone dry inside in the morning. I took it with me to the gem show, where I arrived after 9 AM, and parked near where I’d left the camper.

Sunday at the Show

The show was off to a slow start that morning, with a lot of very wet booths and no shoppers. I was glad I’d packed up everything except my tables before leaving the night before. I debated whether I’d bother setting up for the last day. I told myself that if I saw blue sky to the west when I arrived, I would. I didn’t see any blue sky at all.

Slabs are usually on display in water because when they’re wet they give you a good indication of what they might look like when polished. This vendor’s display clearly identified the rocks and where they were from. I took photos of the displays so I could document the stones later on.

I decided to do a little shopping. I walked up and down the rows of the rock seller booths, looking for inexpensive cabochons and slabs. I found plenty and spent much of the $120 I’d brought with me that morning. (I’d somewhat wisely left much of what I’d taken in the day before back at the house.) I wound up buying two nice turquoise stones from a mine in New Mexico — that stood me back $43. (Ouch!) I also bought some very inexpensive slabs. And a nice pair of perfectly matched mookiate jasper cabochons for earrings.

Along the way, I stopped at a rock club booth where a bunch of older guys were chatting together. I asked if anyone could help me identify some slabs I had. They said to bring them over. So when I was done shopping and had dropped off my purchases in the truck, I returned with a box full of slabs. By that time, most of the guys were gone, but one person suggested I talk to “Richard” and another brought me to Richard’s booth and introduced me.

What followed was about 45 minutes of me pulling out slabs and Richard telling me all about them, including how they were formed and where they were most likely from. I pulled off pieces of masking tape, wrote the info he provided on them, and stuck them on the rocks. I stumped him once or twice and to make up for it, he’d reach into one of his boxes of slabs on display for sale and hand me another slab, telling me that it was like another one I had. It took me a moment to realize that he wanted me to keep these rocks, too. Soon he was giving me more rocks than he was identifying. It took a little effort to keep him focused, but we finally got through them all.

I told him I wanted to buy him lunch and he said no. So I asked what I could do for him.

“Buy some rocks,” he said.

“But you already gave me a dozen of them,” I replied. “My box is full.” I handed him a $20 bill, which was all I had left.

“Do you want change?” He asked.

“No, I’m good,” I told him.

He gave me another six or so slabs, telling me what each one was. Then he pulled out a gorgeous piece of imperial jasper marked $10. “Do you like this one?” He asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “It’s gorgeous. But I don’t have any money left.”

“Just take it.”

He handed it to me and I put it in my box with the others. Then I thanked him and made a quick departure before he could give me any more.

Leaving the Show

I dropped off my rocks in the truck. By this time, it was after 1 PM. The sun was breaking through the clouds and there were shoppers around. About a quarter of the vendors hadn’t set up that morning. I debated only briefly about setting up. It would take at least 30 minutes to dry off the tables and get them set up again and the event ended at 4 PM. It wasn’t worth it.

So I packed up the tables and stuck them into the trailer with anything else that was large. I had no way to tie anything down, so I left my jewelry and cabochon cases in the truck, not wanting the cases to get damaged if they shifted around.

I disconnected the trailer and put the hitch extension back on with the hitch on the end. I raised the camper, backed under it, and lowered it onto the truck. I fastened the tie-down straps. Then I backed up to the trailer with the assistance of a man who saw me backing up and came over to help. I hooked up the trailer and plugged it in. The cord just reached. Success!

Here’s my truck, camper, and new old trailer in the parking lot right after hooking them up. It would be a few days before I got the kayak and tent frame off the camper roof.

Well, partial success. The front wheels of the trailer didn’t make firm contact with the ground, so I’d need to get a drop hitch. And since my truck knows when there’s a trailer plugged in, I learned quickly that every time I made a right turn, the plug would come undone. That means I needed a longer cable or extension.

I stopped at Walmart and Napa and picked up various supplies to drop the hitch and rewire the plug to the trailer. I’d do it all in the morning, I figured. I was in no really hurry to leave.

Purple Nail Polish, MVD, and Visiting another Friend

I always choose boring colors for my nails. This time, I picked something crazy. Lavendar?

On Monday, which was Tiffani’s extra day off from work — she’s off Sunday, too — she scheduled pedicures for herself, Jan, and me. So after I treated her for breakfast, we met Jan at her regular nail place and settled in for a good foot pampering.

Then it was errands. She needed to run up to Scottsdale to pick up medicine for one of her cats. I needed to go to motor vehicle to get a temporary permit to legally tow the trailer up to Washington. She very graciously volunteered to drive me there so I wouldn’t have to take my truck with camper and trailer attached to motor vehicle where parking might be scarce.

By then, I was on hold with USPS. A package I was expecting from India had been recorded as arrived in Phoenix but not scanned in. It had been in limbo for about two weeks and I needed to follow up. We were near the head of the line at MVD over an hour after starting the call when someone finally answered. He was unable to provide any additional information and told me to call DHL, which is the company that supposedly handed off the missing package. Good thing I hadn’t sat around waiting for them to answer. Instead, I managed to wait on hold for one bureaucracy while waiting on line for another, thus wasting time while wasting time. (Oddly enough, ten minutes after he told me he couldn’t help me, my phone pinged with a notification that the package had been scanned in and would be delivered by the end of the week. Coincidence? You tell me.)

When we were done with motor vehicle, we headed north. Tiffani had to pick up Jan at Falcon Field Airport, where their company is based. She knew I had another friend I planned to meet up with who lived up there and suggested I visit him instead of going all the way up to Scottsdale with her. So I worked my phone and arranged to meet him for lunch. Tiffany and Jan dropped me off.

My friend, Mike, is a retired FAA guy. He owned a piece of property across the street from one of the orchards I fly at every summer. In 2010, when he was just starting to build a house there, I rented space on his lot to park my big fifth wheel while I was on contract with the orchard. I would up spending the next three summers there — every summer until I bought my own land in the area.

He’d built the home as a place for he and his wife to retire to. But when he was done, she told him she didn’t want to move there. I really felt awful for him; I’d gone through a similar situation with my wasband when he broke similar promises he’d made to me. He wound up selling the home and if I hadn’t been financing a helicopter overhaul at the time, I probably would have bought it. It would have been an excellent AirBnB property and I already manage the house next door.

Mike was now in the process of getting divorced and had bought a home in Mesa. It was a nice place on a corner lot in a subdivision. He looked great when I saw him — healthier and happier than I think I’ve ever seen him. It’s funny how beneficial a major life change can be.

He showed me around his place, which still needed a lot of furniture. Then we left Penny behind and took his car out to lunch. We wound up at a place Tiffani had suggested that he knew well. I had an excellent eggplant parmesan sandwich, which is something I haven’t had since my New York days. We talked about what he was doing to keep busy and what he’d learned about dating. He pretty much confirmed what I already suspected; too many needy women wanted full-time relationships but the ones that most interested him were the ones who wanted to maintain their own separate home and space. I think the smart folks have it figured out — at our age, we just don’t want the changes and compromises that come with a live-in partner.

Afterwards, we fetched Penny and headed back to the airport where I was going to meet up with Jan and Tiffani. Mike dropped me off and I promised I’d come again, perhaps before the end of this trip.

Woody was at the airport when I got there. He’s the other partner in Jan and Tiffani’s helicopter flight school business. Like Jan, he’s a recently retired airline pilot. But he also flies helicopters. He was one of the cherry drying pilots I worked with last summer. It was good to see him and to finally meet his new dog.

When Jan and Tiffani showed up, we didn’t hang around long. Jan had to go down to the San Tan Valley to see a telescope he was interested in buying. He has a 12-inch telescope in a backyard observatory and was interested in upgrading to a 16-inch. So he, Tiffani, Penny, and I headed down to see it.

Here’s the telescope Jan is considering. It needs to be mounted on this angle (33°) so it can properly track objects in the night sky. Jan is concerned that it might not fit in his observatory.

The guy who greeted us was a spry older man — 85, we later found out — who had not one but six telescopes. Four field telescopes were in his garage and the other two larger ones were mounted in a shack in his backyard. The shack didn’t look like much and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how he opened the flat roof to look out. But then when Jan asked him to open up to get more light in, he unfastened a few latches and then slid the entire roof back onto a frame just outside the building. It was a neat setup. Chatting with him, we learned that he was a helicopter pilot, had gone flying with a friend in one of Jan and Tiffani’s helicopters years ago, and used to live in Wenatchee! Small world.

I sure wish I could remember what this cocktail was. It was extremely tasty, even with the bacon.

Afterwards, we went back to Jan and Tiffani’s house to drop off Penny. Woody showed up with his two dogs. We climbed back into two cars and headed out to dinner. It was early, so dinner consisted of happy hour drinks and bar munchies. It was my last night in Gilbert and I enjoyed spending it out with friends.

Heading Out

I woke up early this morning, stripped the guest bed, and threw the linens in the washer with all my dirty clothes. Then I took my last luxury shower until the next time I was someone’s guest, making sure to wash my hair thoroughly. When the linens and my clothes had gone through the dryer, I remade the bed, arranged the nine (!) pillows on it, and started bringing things out to the camper. The inside of the camper was a complete mess that I’d deal with when I stopped for the night.

It was nearly 10 AM when I said goodbye to Jan and Tiffani. Realizing that a professional could do a better job at rewiring the trailer than I could, I’d made a 10:30 appointment at a local U-Haul dealer so their “hitch pro” could do it. With the clock ticking, I pulled away from their house while they prepared to go to work.

Appointment Stacking

If there’s one thing I’ve learned living 10 miles from the closest supermarket and other in-town conveniences, it’s what I call “appointment stacking.” That when you schedule all the things you need to do within a certain window on a certain day. If done just right, you can get appointments and errands crammed into the minimal amount of time, thus making the absolute best use of your time without a lot of additional trips.

That’s what I did on Tuesday. I stacked the U-Haul appointment, DOR errand, Napa and Walmart return errands, lunch, eye appointment, grocery shopping, and long drive from Gilbert to Peoria into one 8-hour period.

At the U-Haul place, the pro did what I asked: he cut the existing hitch wire extension and replaced it with the longer wire I provided. He was able to reuse the plug. While he worked, I fiddled around with the hitch. I realized that the adjustable drop hitch I’d bought at Walmart dropped the hitch too much. Fortunately, U-Haul had other options. I chose one and asked them to put the 2-5/8 inch ball I’d bought on it. When they were all done, the trailer sat pretty level with all four wheels on the ground and the wiring cable was plenty long. Total cost: $65. So worth it. Later, I’d return the extra parts I’d bought at Napa and Walmart.

The next stop was the Arizona Department of Revenue office where I needed to renew my business permit for Flying M Air to sell drone photos in Quartzsite. That went surprisingly fast and only cost $12.

Then I had time to kill before an eye appointment. I took care of the returns and headed north through the Phoenix area. My appointment was in the Deer Valley area in North Phoenix. So was P.F. Chang’s and I was hungry.

My eye appointment was at 5 PM. Sunset was just after 5:30 PM. I was at least 50 miles from where I wanted to spend the night and I knew I wouldn’t make it before it got a lot darker than I like to drive in. So while I ate I started thinking about alternative places to spend the night, using satellite view in Google Maps to get ideas.

One of the best parts of RVing with a self-contained rig is that you can camp for free in a lot of different places. I know this particular area well; I used to land my helicopter at Wild Horse West for burgers once in a while.

Eye exam and some grocery shopping done, I climbed into my truck at about 6 PM and headed out. I ended up about 15 miles away, parked for the night in a deserted off-road vehicle camping area that was technically in Peoria. I didn’t think anyone would bother me and I was right. I spent the next hour organizing my camper for the next part of my journey and settled down with Penny to read a book. I was asleep by 9 PM.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, writer, video producer, jewelry artist, boat captain, and helicopter pilot. Blogging since 2003.

Tag Archives: jewelry