My Adventures Began Yesterday

I highly recommend that you take a trip to Arkansas. The drive alone, through this Natural State, is worth it. Lush green wherever you turn, lakes around every bend; it’s a beautiful state and there’s unlimited opportunities for fun recreation. During your trip, take a detour to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where you’ll find Hot Springs National Park in the middle of downtown and a fun and speckled history. The naturally thermal pools (or hot springs) remain around 143 degrees Fahrenheit and lack the Sulphur odor of most hot springs, which caused many doctors to recommend these pools for health and healing. In addition, thoroughbred horse racing began in the early 1900’s (and gambling was made legal in the 20’s). This bought an influx of people to the city, which became neutral territory for gangsters and was Al Capone’s home base for many years (check out the  Gangster Museum  when you visit!). Spring training was held here so the ball players could heal their sore muscles (

Crater of Diamonds State Park was a scenic hour drive west of Hot Springs, Arkansas. After deciding to sleep in, we missed the “how to mine for diamonds” class by 15 minutes. Oops. Probably should have attended so we would know how to utilize our rented equipment (tray, shovel, and 3.5 gallon bucket) and thereby increase our odds of finding a diamond! Side note: in 2016, there were 501 diamonds found here with only 161k visitors (better odds than the lottery!) and 17 of these diamonds were over one Carat. Largest diamond found in 2017 was 7.44 carats. Now, that’s what I was hoping for…a 7ct diamond!! Could you imagine? Eagerly, we took our mining equipment and hit the…open dirt field. Time to work. Mining for diamonds was back breaking work. Filling the bucket with dirt (and fingers were crossed, diamonds!), and carrying it to the water trough became heavy after the 6 th , 7 th , and 8 th time. But what a unique workout! We would then sift through the dirt utilizing two st