July 9, 2009
Before we headed for Washington State, we stopped at Fire Mountain Gems for a 10:00am tour of this facility. FMG is a catalog order company for gems and beads. It has been in business for 30+ years and is privately owned by Stuart and Chris Freedman. It is a huge facility in Grants Pass that employs 500 people. They do more than pack and send gem and bead orders. This place is amazing. There is a graphics department that designs the catalogs; a photography/modeling section where the catalog items are photographed. The employees model the jewelry in the catalog. There is a design section where jewelry items are designed and created. Their website shows you how to design jewelry. This company sets the color trend for fashions each year and season. The website has seasonal design directions, color reports and seasonal color forecasts. Stuart and Chris travel a great deal looking for new ideas. They bring back these beautiful huge gemstone sculptures and they gift them to the FMG employees. These sculptures are all over the facility. The employees cover their desk with colorful items and decorate their departments. It feels like being in Disneyland. Everyone is so friendly and happy to be working there. Check out their website www.firemountangems.com . And if you are ever passing thru Grants Pass, a tour of Fire Mountain Gems is a must see; even if you are not into beading, it is impressive example of how a business should be run where the employees are happy to be working there.
Before we headed for Washington State, we stopped at Fire Mountain Gems for a 10:00am tour of this facility. FMG is a catalog order company for gems and beads. It has been in business for 30+ years and is privately owned by Stuart and Chris Freedman. It is a huge facility in Grants Pass that employs 500 people. They do more than pack and send gem and bead orders. This place is amazing. There is a graphics department that designs the catalogs; a photography/modeling section where the catalog items are photographed. The employees model the jewelry in the catalog. There is a design section where jewelry items are designed and created. Their website shows you how to design jewelry. This company sets the color trend for fashions each year and season. The website has seasonal design directions, color reports and seasonal color forecasts. Stuart and Chris travel a great deal looking for new ideas. They bring back these beautiful huge gemstone sculptures and they gift them to the FMG employees. These sculptures are all over the facility. The employees cover their desk with colorful items and decorate their departments. It feels like being in Disneyland. Everyone is so friendly and happy to be working there. Check out their website www.firemountangems.com . And if you are ever passing thru Grants Pass, a tour of Fire Mountain Gems is a must see; even if you are not into beading, it is impressive example of how a business should be run where the employees are happy to be working there.
This sculpture represents ‘moving forward with progress and success’. The one horse is looking back to remember it’s roots; where they started and where they came from.July 10, 2009
This morning we drove into Portland for a few hours. The ‘Gem Fair’ was doing a show at the convention center in Portland. This is a show that Jo goes to almost monthly back home. This is another place where Jo gets her beading supplies. She will miss these shows during the summer while we are traveling, so this was her chance to get her bead ‘fix’.
July 12, 2009
We’ve spent the last few days visiting with our dear friends, the Melchiors, in Gig Harbor. We have not seen them in two years so we had a lot of catching up to do. On Saturday we spent the day at Northwest Trek in Eatonville, WA. This is a 723 acre wildlife park that is home to more than 200 animals native to the Pacific Northwest. The entrance fee includes a naturalist –guided tram tour through a 435 acre free-roaming area where you can view moose, elk, bison, caribou, bighorn sheep, and other hoofed animals. This place also has four miles of primitive trails. It was a very hot day, but we stayed cool walking through this forest like setting. It was a very relaxing day.
Mountain Sheep. Can you find the baby in the middle?
