Hidden Gems
One of the best metaphors when thinking about Arkansas as a whole is, “Hidden Gems.” They are all over. From waterfalls in caves to some of the best Brown Trout fishing in the country, this state has the ability to wow you in ways you might have not known possible. This adventure embodies this very idea in more way than one. We threw our camping gear into the car and headed south of Fort Smith. We are headed out to take in some much needed lake time at Daisy State Park on Lake Greeson and then tested our luck with some diamond hunting at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. Hopefully we can find some of those hidden gems!
Mile: 43,287
Quote of the Blog: “You don’t need to go to Rome, Prague or Vienna to find wonderful architecture, amazing stories and surprising, hidden gems".” - Alice Roberts
Song of the Blog: “Diamonds” - Rihanna
On our way down to Lake Greeson, we were driving along and came across a town on the map called, Amity! We couldn’t pass this town without checking it out! Amity was thrilled to find a town named after her! It was a small town with a little town square, and we found a brewery. We had to check it out. The brewery is called Slate Rock Brewery. The beer was great and the people we also great! When the bartender asked us what name we would like to put our tab under, we obviously had to go with Amity. They immediately thought we were messing with them by just saying the town name. After informing them about our little inside joke, everyone in the brewery broke out into laughter and congratulated Amity on her name. This was a fun Arkansas group of people to chat with. We had to push on to get to our camp for the night. No more than 10 minutes down the road, we came across another town with another amazing name; Billstown! Not only is there and Amity, Arkansas but there is also a Billstown, Arkansas!!! Billstown did not have an actual town, but it does have a claim to fame. The Rhinestone Cowboy, Glen Campbell, is buried in Billstown. Claim!!!
Daisy State park was not much further down the road. We pulled in with a good amount of time to get settled in, get out camp set up and head down to the lake. While getting situated at camp, we spoke with a local park ranger who informed us that this area was very special because it is a rare area where the Loblolly Pine Trees and the Cyprus Trees meet, but there were no alligators. We chuckled at the name of the pine trees, and celebrated the fact there were no gators! This area is really pretty and being around pine trees this far south and at this low of elevations is pretty unique! Lake Greeson is a massive manmade lake or reservoir. While we were sitting on the shore, we watched several massive house boats pass by. We came to learn this a thing on this lake. It would be fun to take one of those out for a ride! I did some fishing, but with no luck. It was still a beautiful night. On our walk back up to our camp, we found an area to watch the sun set over the lake. It was hard to think that we were sitting in Arkansas with this view! Definitely found one of those Hidden Gems we were looking for!
Early the next morning we woke up to a strong haze lingering around camp. The humidity was peaked out to the point that you could see the moisture in the air. It was going to be a hot day! We got our things packed up and had a short drive south of Lake Greeson to the Crater of Diamonds State Park, which is just outside of Murfreesboro, AR. While driving through the town we could see that renting serious gear to go diamond hunting was a real thing here. We planned to just get some gear from the state park services, but we were nonetheless excited at the chance of finding a real diamond while digging in some dirt.
At Crater of the Diamonds State Park you can dig for all the gems and rocks you can find. They will even authenticate anything you pull out of the ground. If it’s a diamond they will give you a carat value, and let you walk out with it! All it cost was $15 to get in. We ended up spending another $30 on digging gear; like a couple sifts, a shovel and a bucket. All and all, that is nothing for the chance to find something worth thousands of dollars. While coming into the park there is tons of info about how to dig for the diamonds, what they look like and a list of all the diamonds recently found in the park. People literally find these things just sitting on the top of the dirt sometimes. The park itself is a massive dirt field that gets tilled up regularly by the park officials. People are scattered around everywhere just digging away in the dirt. Some people are much more put together than others, we were on the side of newbies!
We randomly found a spot and started filling the bucket up with dirt. We initially started with some dry sifting for stones, before finding that there were some water troughs in the middle of the park that were cover with a roof. This way we could go through much more dirt, much faster. We would also get out of the blazing hot sun. We periodically would walk back out to a random spot, fill up the bucket and head back to the troughs. We did this for a few hours before calling it quits. All in all, we found a ton of gem stones. Lots of Hidden Gems to be found everywhere. Unfortunately, none of them turned out to be diamonds. I swear that every clump of dirt we tossed to the side had a massive diamond in it that we missed!
Although we did not succeed in our hunt for a diamond, we did have a lot of fun! This was a very unique experience. The fact that this park is open to the public to come out and look for diamonds in is crazy! The fact that people find diamond weekly is crazier! Maybe we will be back here in our lives. Until then, we have to head back to Fort Smith for more work and planning for our next adventure! Live Rad Y’all’s!