What a long day it has been today. First, Mari gotten ill over night from eating late and her acid reflux. So, we did not get very good sleep. I got up and went to have breakfast at the front office. Grandma was already there eating some toast and having coffee. It turned to out to be a little disappointing what was available. Let me give you the low down. White or wheat bread, plain or blueberry bagels, couple varieties of dry cereal with milk and some processed fruit cups and oh yea coffee. Yum. I guess that is the difference between continental breakfast and complementary. After breakfast checked to see if dad and Ryan were ready to go to the diamond crater to search for our fortunes. Not quite yet, so headed back to the room to drink coffee and check on Mari. She was doing better.
Finally they were ready. So we loaded up (dad, Ryan, grandma, and me) in dad's expedition and headed off to the
Crater of Diamonds State Park. Michelle, Breack, Phoenix and Jason were already out at the crater and brought some equipment from the cabin they were staying at. We got out to there about 8:30. The price to dig through some dirt was $7.00 for the day. You could rent equipment if you did not bring anything. Equipment ranged from a screen for $2.50 all the way up to $11.00 for the advanced diamond hunting kit. Deposit also was $5 to $60 depending on what you rent. Once you pay your admission and got your diamond hunting kit you head off to the field that get turned (aka plowed) once a month. Check out the
virtual tour. The following stars on the overhead picture indicates were we all set up camp for the morning.
I guess people have dreams of striking it rich by digging and find a big old diamond. Ha, well that may occur occasionally but I really doubt that it happens that way. While out her digging, shifting and picking through the dirt it got hot and humid. By noon it was in the low nineties with a heat index in the low 100's. I dug a hole about 3' long by 2' wide and 3' deep. Really did not look very hard. Just looked for fresh soil for dad and Ryan to shift through. Grandma and Jason left the crater and decided that this just was not their cup of tea. Dad broken down and ended up working from his lawn chair doing dry shift and also put up an umbrella to keep the sun off his head and neck. Michelle did the wet shifting with Jason and Ryan trying their had at it as well. Breack dug a different hole and did some dry shifting and hauled a couple buckets of soil for Michelle to do some shifting. While Breack and Michelle were looking for their fortune, Phoenix enjoyed playing in the water park right next to the entrance to the field.
About 13:30 everyone just about had enough and decided to head back to town lunch and rest. Mom and grandma had went to the grocery store and got some stuff for cold cut sandwiches and chips. That was really good instead of eating out. Mari was feeling better and had been out by the pool relaxing and soaking up the sun.
After lunch I decided to join Mari in the swimming pool. I enjoyed that. The water was warm and the pool only had a couple of others. After swimming for an hour I went back to the room to get cleaned up and to get out of the sun. Mom, dad and Michelle went up town to check out some antique stores but returned empty handed.
After a short rest Mari and I headed out to have supper. No else seemed interested right now (17:00) so we went to the only fast food joint in this small town, Sonic. We grabbed our food and headed to
Lake Greeson which is only about 5 miles outside of town. We enjoyed the area. It reminded us of Black Hills, SD and Yellowstone Park, MT. Nice park. Would have enjoyed staying at a cabin around the area and done some trout fishing.
After finishing supper Mari and I headed back to town a different route we came up on using the GPS. What an adventure. It took us down a gravel road that was windy and bumpy. It was and adventure. I kept reminding Mari of all the horror movies where a couple takes a wrong turn and end up being killed by a scary crazy family out in the back woods. She just laughed...nervously. As you can tell we made it back to town, though Mari's car (explorer) needs to be washed.
We headed back to the hotel to show who ever was interest the pictures from our short excursion. While talking to mom and Michelle they mentioned that it did not sound like anyone wanted to go back out to the Diamond Crater tomorrow. They also mentioned that the reservations they made in Hot Springs were for June 7th thru 9th at the
Knights Inn in Hot Springs, AR. So, there were no reservations or any placed lined up for tomorrow night. They said they went through Expedia.com back in January/February and when they tried switching the dates they were getting the run around. So, Mari tried calling the Knights Inn. They did have some rooms available but could not make the changes since Expedia was used. So, I called Expedia and talked to Steph and she made the changes. The only problem was that they had to charge a little extra or just call it a service charge for late notice and penalty. This actually allows us to get to Branson, MO a day earlier and enjoy the large cabin for a extra day.
I checked with dad to see if he planned on going back out the the crater and he did think he was interested but would let me know in the morning. So, we have to be out of the hotel by 11am. Will see what happens in the morning. So good night.
