Meteorite lovers find plenty to see and enjoy in the month of May asthe 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 MakersConference (RTMC) at Camp Oakes in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The Costa Mesa show began for us on Thursday night the 16th. Paul andI took advantage of an invitation to a pizza party at the room of Kittyand Marvin Killgore. Before we could even get to their room we were stickingour noses into the room of Erich and Sylvia Haiderer tointroduce ourselves. We had exchanged e-mail, but 
had never met. We spentsome time there looking at what they had which included Gibeon individualsboth large and small, a nice selection of complete Allendes and of coursewe found a couple pieces we could not pass up buying. They had a very largeamount of Moldavite material.
While in Erich's room who should appear butMike Pimentel of Direct Line Resources with his fiancee Stephanie. 
We had missed connecting up with him in Tucson and it had been a year sincewe had seen him, a nice reunion. We talked briefly with him. We reallyjust 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 renewingour friendship. They had some wonderful little baby size Allendes and somelarger individuals as well. A nice variety of irons including Canyon Diablo,Odessa, Miles, but maybe the most interesting were the very large slicesof Gibeon. They were cut thinner than any Gibeon slices for their sizethat I had seen. Huge surface area with the economy of light weight. Marvinshow us a slice of Gibeon with a large silicate inclusion of as yet undeterminedmaterial. I always enjoy seeing graphite nodules and he had a nice oneand a beautifully veined slice. He had lapped and polished some of theImilac from a recent collecting trip and they had crystals in reasonablynice condition. Like kids in a candy store we looked at everything. Againwe could not resist, and we found something there as well. They were planingto be at RTMC also. The hour was getting late when we left but, we knewwe 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 athree vehicle convoy and arrived right on time just as they were lettingcars 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 whitestuff began to fall. At 1 p.m. dealers are officially allowed to beginselling their wares which include almost anything astronomical even meteorites.But, most of the selling would wait on mother nature as the flurries ofsnow 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 Saturdayafternoon 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 PeterAbrahams who was there with a nice collection of specimens he was selling. 
Amongthose he had with him were Haviland, Holbrook, Camel Donga, Peekskill,Cat Mountain, La Criolla, an interestingly shaped Mundrabilla, and manyothers. But, all these pieces paled beside the beautiful slice of Brenhamwhich he had. I had seen it in books and a couple small pieces before buthis 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 (picturedon 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 (picturedon right) and Mark Earnst of Direct Line Resources who had mostly Gibeons 
includinga 156 lbs. beautiful specimen that almost went home with Bill Whiddon (picturedon left). Sharon and Eugene Cisneros of Mineralogical Research (thoughthey 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 whichincluded several Campo del Cielo in really natural condition, some GuangDong tektites and some other indochinites, Kitty and Marvin Killgore ofKillgore Southwest 
didmake it again this year with a nice supply of Canyon Diablos, Odessas andsome Miles as well as other unusual irons whose names passed without merecognizing them. In addition some of the telescope dealers had meteoritestoo. 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 whythese two events happen in May here in Southern California. May we have this... and May we have that!
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