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My first trip to Tucson


Most of you haven't even left yet, and I just got back an hour
ago. Here's a brief glimpse of a whirlwind of events I've just been
through.

A month or so ago I had a nice talk with Cathi Casper about an order I
made with Michael Casper, and she told me about the show.  I hadn't
actually planned to go, since I have some pressing business where I
work at a software startup in Silicon Valley.

But then I thought that I could possibly leave San Francisco on Friday evening
and get back on Sunday evening and I won't be missed too badly at work.

I decided to arrive this weekend before most events would start in the
hope that I would have a nice chance to see the best things before
they got sold. I offered to help Michael Casper unpack and set up in
exchange for some of his time to talk.

Lucky for me he was happy to take up my offer.

My next stroke of luck occurred when I read that Mike Farmer offered
to help folks that didn't know the area.

I emailed him and arranged to talk with him when I arrived.

Last week my wife arranged the flight and we got one of the last hotel
rooms available downtown for this weekend.

We arrived, exhausted, late Friday night. On Saturday morning I called
Michael Farmer and he offered to drive me to Michael Casper's room.

You've probably seen Michael Casper's calendar, with that grin,
surrounded by behemoth rocks.

Well, that's pretty much what this room was beginning to look like.
I struggled with one giant Gibeon, Farmer was dollying an even bigger
one, and the two of us together needed to jockeye another into
position. This went on for some time. I was sweating and coated with
iron dust and oxide.

In the space of a few hours I was handling and immersed in more
meteorites that I had seen in my whole life!

After we had all the large objects laid out, we took a break and
Michael Casper started to open up suitcases of smaller objects.

These were his personal collection and many very special
things.

We saw a piece of a lunar meteorite, I held a fabulous Murchison the
size of an orange (was it my over-active imagination, or was there
a faint aromatic smell when the bag was opened?). It was so black it
was hard to see any details at all, almost perfectly spherical.

I could go on, but truthfully, I've forgotten the names of most of them
already.

Farmer and I then had the privilege of going through all these wonders
and picking things we wanted to buy.

I was whispering to Farmer over and over again, how much do you think
this costs, what do you think that would cost, etc. He was ogling some
of the small, perfect Juancheng, selected some, and did the same for
many other small individuals. If you are in the market for small
individuals, go see Farmer in Tucson before everything he has is sold.

For myself, I picked out some splendid Sikhote Alin's individuals,
Imilac, Esquel, Sahara E3, an etched Gibeon end piece, some
Mt. Egertons, Tatouhine, and some other specimens. I'm not a dealer,
these are for my collection and I'll have pictures up at my web
shortly, once I catch my breath.

I could hardly sleep that Saturday night at the hotel, partly from the
shock of spending about 3 times the amount I planned and wondering
what had I done, partly from the dazzle of having put together a
collection of such fine objects.

I think Farmer also was a bit dazzled because the next day we met
again and he had spent most of the night just cataloging what he had.

Michael Farmer then drove my wife and I around a bit more to see some
other places, and we joined Michael's wife, Melody, for a banquet
lunch.

Michale Farmer graciously offered to drive us to the airport and 10
hours later I'm writing this. This didn't happen, it's a dream.

I'm sure you will all have a wonderful time in Tucson, where the
street signs have been temporarily changed to names like 'Mineral
Road' and 'Fossil Way' and so on... Next year, I'll have to plan things
a bit better.

Michael Farmer - thank you for being such a kind chaperone and for
explaining so many things.

Namaste, Michael Casper.

















-- 
    Jim Hurley         mailto:hurleyj@arachnaut.org
 Arachnaut's Lair    http://www.arachnaut.org/ >
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