Texas Mineral and Fossil Show

A free one-day show in Plano that turned out to be much bigger than expected. She spent hours in it, and was still following the thread six weeks later.

The morning briefing offered two free things to do that day. One of them was crystals and fossils, with the dealers and experts all in one room, and the note attached to it was essentially: this is your kind of thing, isn’t it.

It was. It turned out to be a surprisingly big event, and she spent many hours in it.

Pack a lunch

We brought food and had a little picnic on the benches outside. That works well here, and it is part of why a free show can hold a whole morning without costing anything.

It comes back

As far as we can tell this is annual. Worth putting on a list for next year.

What happened afterward

Six weeks later, on her birthday, she looked up the difference between rose quartz and amethyst on her own. Nobody assigned it.

That is the part worth recording. A free Saturday in a convention hall in Plano turned into an interest she was still following in July, which is a better return than most things that cost money.