Sleepy Sunday in cloudy, cool Tucson

We had a lazy day today, it was cloudy and kind of overcast, the weather is definitely going downhill for the next few days.

Lary and I went to several places for some 'retail therapy' today, first we went to the Big 5 sports store and Lary bought a sweatshirt and a lightweight dark brown jacket, both for a reduced price. Jacket is a New Balance one, very nice quality.

Then we went across town looking for the Old Time Fiddling contest, in Reid Park, just to find that it's next week, not this week. At least now we know how to find it, and the lady inside the Rec complex there was very helpful to us.

After that we stumbled on Bookmans, a giant used book, used CD, used DVD, used record store. They seemed to sell other stuff too, like kids games and some electronics. Used is the operative word. Di was looking for Craig Johnson books, they had Cold Dish and Death Without Company, both of which I had read. He has written 2 more, they are sheriff mysteries set in Wyoming, and his way of writing his mystery novels is so interesting. Lary bought a belt, and I bought some beading mags, and some used CDs for the truck.

Then we found an antique mall with tons of vendors kiosks inside it, where Lary got a nice gold pinkie ring, it has a black etched stone in it with what looks like a Roman centurion carved into it. A great find, and a good price to boot.

Speaking of boots, there were several pairs of gorgeous cowboy boots, down here they are so interesting, snake skin and so many kinds of embellishments on them, it's all fascinating. There is of course lots and lots of western memorabilia.

We need to go back there and spend way more time, there are several antique malls around Tucson, and there is a ton of very unique jewelry, at pretty wonderful prices. Being as this is a state full of different minerals and gems, the things in the stores are gorgeous, and fascinating, too. I find both malachite and lapis lazuli very pretty. Also the combination of turquoise with coral and silver attracts me a lot. There are always long strands of gemstone chips available, for great prices. Only challenge is what to do to utilize them attractively in jewelry making.

Home after the shopping blast, we find that some of the Arizonan drivers are pretty ghastly, one car we saw today, a van with a smashed in rear end, sped quickly over from the passing lane right into the exit ramp area with no signal or sign of its intention, almost crashing into the car that was legally exiting the highway at the same time. No wonder his rear end was all smashed up. He sped across about 4 lanes with no warning at all. Crazed.

We drove through some nice looking housing areas, and some dreadful ones, too. Lots of the homes have bars on the windows, guess that way they can leave the windows open without fear of burglary.

It is quite chilly again tonight, with the feeling that there is more bad weather in store for us.

Tomorrow Monday is a holiday - Presidents Day. There have been a lot of very interesting programs on TV recently about Abraham Lincoln.

We have ordered an external antenna for the laptop, hope that it will make our WiFi reception better.

Heard today from Nadia, she and her husband are down here in AZ at the moment on holiday. It would be such fun to get together with them while they are down.

Also got a long email from cousin Richard H.