Crater of Diamonds State Park - October 20 - 25, 2018

We hauled the camper to Arkansas, to the Crater of Diamonds State Park, in Murfreesborough. 

It was a fun trip.  The weather was perfect - warm enough for short sleeves during the day, and cool enough for a camp fire at night.  My sister-in-law and brother-in-law joined us Sunday morning, and we hunted diamonds all day.  Found nothing but rocks.

The diamond field is a 30-acre plot outside the campground.  They plow it, occasionally.  They say that the best time to find diamonds is right after a new plowing that has been followed by a rain, and that most of the diamonds are found by people who just walk around (without digging) and look for glints.  Because there is mica in the soil, there are a lot of tiny glints. 

The ground had not been plowed for a couple of months when we were there, but there had been a recent rain.  Where people had not disturbed the soil after the rain, little stones were resting atop thin columns of dirt.  In the bottoms, the mud would nearly suck the boots off my feet.

The in-laws went home Monday morning, and The Husband and I spent the day roaming around the little shops in town.  On Tuesday, we went back to the diamond field and heard news that someone from Texas had found a diamond lying on top of the ground about 5 minutes after walking into the field that morning.  Hmph.  That was MY diamond.

Wednesday, I asked The Husband what he wanted to do that day (we were DONE diamond hunting).  He said, "Let's just drive around and sight-see."  I said, "How about if we sight-see in the direction of a Hobby Lobby?"  The closest one was in Hot Springs, about an hour away.  We drove there, picked up a few crafting supplies, and went downtown to find some lunch.  Tucked against a hillside was a neat little pizza place - I think it was called "Grateful Pizza," or something like that.  The pizza and salad were yummy.

Thursday morning, we hitched up and headed home.  It rained on us all the way home.  We'd considered parking the camper and then heading to Alabama for a story-telling festival in Athens, but by the time we had un-hitched and emptied the camper, the thought of another road trip was not all that appealing.  It was good to be home.