Crater of Diamonds State Park, Arkansas

As we eat breakfast, we look out the window and see this large truck pulling a large 5th wheel trailer pulling a jeep! I think it's the longest, largest rig that I've ever seen!

We decide to take a slight detour in our trip and try our luck at diamond mining at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. It’s about a two hour drive from Hot Springs so we’re there by lunchtime.

This is the 8th largest diamond deposit in the world and the only place where you can mine diamonds and keep whatever you find. We realize we probably won’t find any diamonds but we’ve heard it’s a lot of fun, and definitely something different. The diamonds are strewn across a large ‘field’ of plowed dirt within the state park.

We pay our entrance fee of $6.50 each, watch the video & read the information boards about diamonds,

rent some equipment (shovel, bucket, screens), and head out to the field to get rich.

They find an average of two diamonds per day here, and yesterday they found three. We pick our spot, dig up some dirt and then start looking for our diamonds.

Several hours later we are diamondless. I decide to switch spots in the field and look for amethyst instead. I do find some amethyst, but still no diamonds. Oh well, no one else is finding diamonds either. Then around 4:00pm a woman less than 20 feet away from me looks down at the path (that Joe and I had just walked on) and picks up a 1.2 carat brown diamond. We were so close!

We stay til they close at 5pm and then walk back to the campground. No diamonds, but an interesting and fun day.