Meteorite lovers find plenty to see and enjoy in the month of May as
the gem and mineral show comes to Costa Mesa in the middle of the month,
and the next weekend more can be seen at the Riverside Telescope Makers
Conference (RTMC) at Camp Oakes in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The Costa Mesa show began for us on Thursday night the 16th. Paul and
I took advantage of an invitation to a pizza party at the room of Kitty
and Marvin Killgore. Before we could even get to their room we were sticking
our noses into the room of Erich and Sylvia Haiderer to
introduce ourselves. We had exchanged e-mail, but
had never met. We spent
some time there looking at what they had which included Gibeon individuals
both large and small, a nice selection of complete Allendes and of course
we found a couple pieces we could not pass up buying. They had a very large
amount of Moldavite material.
While in Erich's room who should appear but
Mike Pimentel of Direct Line Resources with his fiancee Stephanie.
We had missed connecting up with him in Tucson and it had been a year since
we had seen him, a nice reunion. We talked briefly with him. We really
just confirmed that he would be at RTMC the following weekend.
We finally got on our way to see the Killgores.
There was still pizza and snacks and we stayed for a couple hours renewing
our friendship. They had some wonderful little baby size Allendes and some
larger individuals as well. A nice variety of irons including Canyon Diablo,
Odessa, Miles, but maybe the most interesting were the very large slices
of Gibeon. They were cut thinner than any Gibeon slices for their size
that I had seen. Huge surface area with the economy of light weight. Marvin
show us a slice of Gibeon with a large silicate inclusion of as yet undetermined
material. I always enjoy seeing graphite nodules and he had a nice one
and a beautifully veined slice. He had lapped and polished some of the
Imilac from a recent collecting trip and they had crystals in reasonably
nice condition. Like kids in a candy store we looked at everything. Again
we could not resist, and we found something there as well. They were planing
to be at RTMC also. The hour was getting late when we left but, we knew
we would see them and other dealers the next weekend.
Paul was able to return to the Costa Mesa show on Sunday with his family.
His daughters were able to get some neat rocks
and add another meteorite and Moldavite to their collections.
We headed for the telescope makers conference on Friday morning as a
three vehicle convoy and arrived right on time just as they were letting
cars into Camp Oakes.
May in Southern California is not the time we think much about snow,
but as we parked in our favorite campsite the first flurries of the white
stuff began to fall. At 1 p.m. dealers are officially allowed to begin
selling their wares which include almost anything astronomical even meteorites.
But, most of the selling would wait on mother nature as the flurries of
snow became a real storm. There were other priorities; snowmen
and snow ball fights and generally keeping dry and warm.
The snow continued intermittently for a day and a half. By Saturday
afternoon it was clearing and no more bad weather would spoil the weekend.
During the snow when most were huddled down inside we had run into Peter
Abrahams who was there with a nice collection of specimens he was selling.
Among
those he had with him were Haviland, Holbrook, Camel Donga, Peekskill,
Cat Mountain, La Criolla, an interestingly shaped Mundrabilla, and many
others. But, all these pieces paled beside the beautiful slice of Brenham
which he had. I had seen it in books and a couple small pieces before but
his large slice was spectacular. We gave some of these a new home also.
Peter's specimens had been a real surprise.
Fellow South Bay Astronomical Society club member Jerry Gmoser (pictured
on left) brought some nice specimens of Canyon Diablo
shale.
And yes, we bought these too.
Among the regular dealers usually at RTMC were Mike Pimentel (pictured
on right) and Mark Earnst of Direct Line Resources who had mostly Gibeons
including
a 156 lbs. beautiful specimen that almost went home with Bill Whiddon (pictured
on left). Sharon and Eugene Cisneros of Mineralogical Research (though
they did not stay because of the weather), it was nice to see them again,
Mike Martinez of Mare Meteoritics, Mike had a selection of irons which
included several Campo del Cielo in really natural condition, some Guang
Dong tektites and some other indochinites, Kitty and Marvin Killgore of
Killgore Southwest
did
make it again this year with a nice supply of Canyon Diablos, Odessas and
some Miles as well as other unusual irons whose names passed without me
recognizing them. In addition some of the telescope dealers had meteorites
too. Among these Astronomy To Go had a selection of Wolf Creeks and tektites.
It was a most interesting and different RTMC this year. We now know why
these two events happen in May here in Southern California.
May we have this...
and May we have that!
