Tuesday, October 6, 2009

"Diamonds are a girls best friend".....



....but first we have to find them!!!

This last weekend we went to the Crater of Diamonds
State Park in Arkansas with our
friends the Smiths, Neelys and Knowles.
It is a fun place where you can dig around in the dirt
and keep any diamonds that you find!!!
(Really!!!)
The largest diamond that was found in the park
was a 40 karat diamond found back in 1924!!!


We were told there was still plenty of diamonds
left to find and we were all convinced that we were
going to find some....
so we proceeded to dig.....
(Yes, the Smiths are in the background)


We were told that some of the biggest diamonds
had been found just laying on the top of the soil...
So Wayne proceeded to walk all around the park
looking for a little sparkle!!!


I got tired of walking around so I picked a spot
and dug up all the dirt around me.
But all I found was this cool green rock
which turned out to be......


.....a cool green rock!!!!
Actually they said it was Jasper!!!

We thought Michele might have found a diamond
when we saw her sparkly crystal....

...but it was a sparkly quartz!!!


Some of us like the Knowles decided to use the
sloushing method.
(I don't think that is the exact term)
They washed their rocks first to get all of the mud off
and then sloushed them around some more
and then looked for anything that sparkled....

...they just got dirty....
......but they looked good doing it!!!




The "Diamond Man," which we decided to call him,
found a diamond while we were watching him.
We could tell that he had been diamond hunting for awhile,
maybe because of the magnified glasses on the top of his head,
but mostly because he actually
FOUND ONE!!!


On our way back to our hotel, we stopped at the quaint
little town of Washington, Arkansas which had been
the capitol of the confederate United States for a period of time.
We wished we could have looked around a bit more
this booming town with a population of 148,
but they were just closing as we arrived.



But we did go inside the court house which reminded
us of the court room in the movie,
"To kill a Mockingbird."
There was no balcony but it was a very
beautiful building with wood floors and ceilings!!!

We had a great time!!!

2 comments:

JS said...

That is so fun! I wish you found some diamonds. I would have liked some for Christmas...

oh well.

Jen said...

Looks like y'all had fun...even though there were no diamonds to be had. Too bad Diamond Man wouldn't share.