On Saturday we were lucky to be visited by our favorite old pal traveling bead salesmen-Peter. He is perhaps the most unique and free person I know. He is unbeholden to any society or culture and truly follows his own path. We met over 25 years ago in Hawaii when I was a young carefree traveler. (Well maybe not so carefree. )He continued to make traveling his lifestyle and calls whatever piece of earth his feet are standing on his home. He has been spending a lot of time traveling around rural China and Thailand lately and has developed close relationships with bead wholesalers in Hong Kong. He comes by every couple of years with his treasures and I get to go through and pick out new goodies while he entertains us with his traveling tales and philosophizes. He brought some fun gifts for the boys too.
These are some lovely African turqoise diamond shaped beads. It was so hard to not go completely crazy and over budget and I had to say goodbye to many of these lovelies. 
Big gorgeous amazonite.
Chinese azurite "gogos"- their name for off centerd beads. I loved the shape and color but had to pass on these too:(
Astounding fossilized bamboo big chunky beads.I said goodbye to them also.
Peter and Henry entertained each other while I took hours to look at everything as he set up my personal gem fair in our driveway.
These are stunning British Columbia nephrite jade large rondells.
Alas I had to say goodbye to these too.
They will probably haunt me.
Some beautiful rainbow labradorite polished giant nugget beads. They got put back in his van too.
"For you number one quality special price"
This is some of what I did buy as I became more practical and had to put back about a third of what I wanted. These were a great deal on lapis and beautiful BC nephrite jade that will make stunning earrings.
Pink Lustery moonstone.
More of my picks-rain forest jasper aka rhyolite, azurite diamonds,african turquoise long thin ovals,sodalite,crazy lace agate and tons more.
These are astoundingly tacky and the fact that they are made from dyed howlite makes them even more so but I know they will sell really well as groovy pendants at the Eugene Saturday Market.
These were really tempting tiger eye buddha beads.
It was a really fun day. Now to find the time to make lots of new things with my new beads!
