Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Cutest Prarie Dog Saying Hello! Remember when you had to write an essay about “My Summer Vacation”?   That is what came to mind when I decided to share my recent visit to Tucson’s ‘Sonoran Desert Museum’ www.desertmuseum.org .   Peter and I spent about 4 hours enjoying the landscape and animals and could have spent more time.   This is one place I visited often when I lived in Tucson; one place I miss and one place you should know about! Hundreds of saguaro cacti line the mountains on the way to the museum.   Half the fun is driving on the winding mountain roads outside of Tucson, getting to the crest and looking over the desert floor.   It makes me feel small and full of wonder. This place is a world renowned zoo, a natur al history museum and a botanical garden.   Walking along the many paths, you see interpretive displays.   The plants and animals represent a large area of the southwest- Arizona, California and many states of Mexico.   There are more than 300 animal species and

When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave Stone'.  He