Did you know that there’s a place you can visit right here in the good ol’ US of A to dig up genuine diamonds? Neither did I, until Bill told me about it. Turns out, Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park is the world’s only diamond mine open to the public. Average citizens are allowed to come try their luck and dig for gems. Kind of like a pick-your-own strawberry field, but with diamonds.

Now this is a place we really need to visit. We’re going to dig our way through the dirt and find the biggest diamond ever. We sure as heck need the money to pay off our hotel and airline bills from this ridiculous travel adventure. Plus, we can put the kids to work digging up their own diamonds to pay for their college tuitions. And, just for good measure, we’ll find a few extra diamonds to string on a necklace for me to wear when Bill takes me out dancing. Oh, and he’d want diamond cufflinks for that, too. This is gonna be good.

We watched a ranger give a brief presentation on the finer points of digging for diamonds. But come on, how hard can it be? We ran out of patience and grabbed some shovels.

So, here’s the thing about finding diamonds.

You don’t.

Not even if you are four people highly motivated to strike it rich.

You find lots of this:

Definitely not what I want to wear out dancing. Definitely not going to pay anyone’s college tuition.

Now here’s the other thing. Five days after we visited the State Park, some woman found an 8 karat diamond there — one of the largest finds ever.

EIGHT karats.

She told the newspapers that she just saw something shiny like glass, and there it was.

Now here’s the other, other thing. When Bill heard that, he said, “well, I saw something shiny like glass, but I didn’t pick it up.”

Eight karats.

I’m considering divorce.

The only thing we took home from the state park was this valuable tip for digging for diamonds. Or just about anything else:

* * * * *

After we dug the dirt out from under our fingernails, we struck out in search of Arkansas’ other treasures. By the way, is that the way you use an apostrophe in this state, or should it be Arkansas’s or Arkansases or maybe even Arkansai? And why on earth isn’t it pronounced ArKANSAS or spelled Arkansaw?

Anyway, we drove along a million highways in Arkansas: US-278, US-82, US-70, US-270, AK-8, AK-26, AK-301, AK-27, I-30, I-40, I-430, and I-440.

As we left the diamond mine and headed toward Hot Springs, we made a true discovery. We may have missed the diamonds, but we finally found Waldo!!

And how about this place?

At least they have some good place names in Arkansas, if they don’t have diamonds for everyone. They also have an abundance of hot water in Hot Springs. We toured one of the old bathhouses used by folks coming to take the waters for relaxation and rejuvenation during the early to mid-1900s.

We were mortified by the contraptions below, which looked like torture devices, but apparently steamed your body like cauliflower. The photo to the right shows how your head would’ve poked out the hole on top, while the rest of your body shriveled into a soggy, wrinkled blob. Now doesn’t that sound relaxing?

We took some of the local waters ourselves, from an interesting water fountain. Scientists have determined that these waters are over 4,000 years old, which may explain the terrible taste.

Onward to Little Rock.

We were hungry as we pulled into town, so we stopped at one of Bill Clinton’s favorite barbecue haunts:

Good thing we were hungry, since they gave us enough food to feed an army!

Very tasty ribs and tamales. All that food must’ve put Bill and the kids to sleep, though, because after dinner they were ready to go to our hotel room and crash. Not me — we were flying home early the next day, so this was our only chance to explore Little Rock. They didn’t seem to care.

I did.

Heated discussion ensued.

Things got ugly.

I managed to persuade them to drive past Little Rock Central High School, another pivotal site in the Civil Rights Movement. In 1957, nine African-American students were denied entry to the school, despite the US Supreme Court’s ruling ordering integration of public schools. President Eisenhower ordered the US Army and National Guard to become involved by escorting the students and patrolling the campus.

We blew past the Capitol, and parked at a nice waterfront along the river. I wanted to walk around and check things out. I’d read that you could even see the little rocks that gave Little Rock its name, although none of the locals I asked seemed to know anything about this. I was outnumbered, so needless to say, we spent the rest of the evening watching ESPN. Personally, I plan to return to Little Rock someday soon because I think it looked like a very fun place to spend some time. Even if you don’t have a diamond necklace to wear out dancing.

32. Arkansas
Diamonds