From July 11th-
After we left our hotel we drove the rest of the way to Crater of Diamonds State Park. We were going to find some diamonds!
There’s lots of stories of all the great diamonds people have found there, and whatever you find you can keep. (You pay to get in and to rent the equipment to dig, if you need it.) But otherwise, everything you uncover is yours!
We didn’t realize what a giant patch of dirt this would be! We rented some tools and headed out in the hot sun. This whole trip was just HOT. We thought it would be super touristy, but there were some people there who clearly just do this for a living – sit on a bucket, smoke, and dig in the dirt hoping to strike it rich.
Heading out to a patch…..
Digging around and sifting to find rocks. Mostly they just kept “cool” rocks they liked.
Abbi ended up with a giant bag of brown rocks.
Every night they till various patches of the dirt to make it easier to dig in. The small shady patches are the most popular.
It was hot, dirty work and we didn’t last too long. We found a couple of quartz and a few little pieces of glass, but nothing really exciting or worth a lot of money. But we can say we’ve done it……
Our next stop was Hot Springs National Park. We really thought it would be woodsy and scenic – not a massive tourist area with old bath houses! By far this was the strangest national park we’ve ever been to. A major tourist and shopping zone, with these old bath houses in it that you could tour.
They were very pretty and I’m sure back in the day something to really behold the wealthy people enjoying.
But to me – they seemed sterile, scary and downright gross compared to the spas today! Seriously like things out of torture movies!!
And this was their gym! Ewww!
We did do the short trail where you could get close to a few open hot springs. And of course we had to touch it – and for real that water is super hot!
A sweaty family selfie in front of the spring! Next stop – on to more of the curious attractions of Hot Springs!
