Gem and Jam Music Festival / A Quick Trip to Tucson

We hurried down to Tucson last weekend to check out Gem and Jam, a music festival that goes on in the Southwest around the Tuscon Gem and Mineral show.

On our way down (a 14 hour trip) we stopped at one point in a small town to make lunch and this friendly white dog came up to join our gang and smell the delicious food…

Another morning we woke next to the Rio Grande… There she is…

And if you didn’t know, our new kitty, Satoshi Nakamoto, got to go on her first road trip.

She didn’t hate it… but she’s not the biggest fan of Trill Dog breathing on her or near her.

This is a roadtrip and festival totem I have hanging in the window.

In the small town of Hatch, NM (or is it AZ?) we stopped for a quick breakfast here:

There weren’t many options but this little hole in the wall served tasty food. And no matter what you got it had the distinct flavor of chili peppers. The whole town has that flavor actually and you can tell by all the dried peppers hanging everywhere.

Past Hatch we came across this gigantic field of solar panels and turbines. It was really cool. The picture doesn’t do the expanse of it any justice.

And then we were in the festival! This is Railroad Earth, The first band we saw for the night.

I write stream of consciousness style at all the shows I go to and this was no exception. Check out my Gem and Jam 2018 Being There post to read that.

We walked around and checked out the booths. One accepted Bitcoin!

I also saw this shirt for sale and had to laugh. This is my good friends old band. The band isn’t really around anymore, the remaining members changed their name and it’s got a new vibe (Legato is the new name).

At another stage we saw Emancipator play.

and we saw a giant praying mantis… I wish I coulda got a better picture! It was a magnificent costume!

And then there were the amazing artists. It’s funny that the music draws the people because I honestly think some of the painters and other artists at the event were better than some of the music.

This guys work was amazing… Couldn’t figure out who he was though.

And we stayed to see Papadosio… It was our first time seeing them and we were tired and cold. I didn’t get into it. It just seemed too all over the place. So we headed out to camp somewhere in the foothills.