Kam arrived!

June -19

It was an early and long day today! We got up at 7 and left at 7:50 to drive to Little Rock to pick Kam up. It was not nice driving weather with drizzle and clouds. We were just about there when she text that she was arriving late and was taxiing in. That worked great for us. We found a parking spot at the Baggage Claim at door “G” and told her where we were. Once she changed clothes we headed for Crater of Diamonds State Park.

It was another 2 hours or so there. She hadn't had breakfast so we made a pit stop for her to go to Starbucks and later we stopped at a Love's Truck Stop so I could get Bill's beef sticks he likes. Then we stopped for lunch at a little place in Murfreesboro. We all enjoyed our home cooked lunch!

When we finally made our destination it was rather surprising

Kelly and Kam hard at work

to see how many cars there were. Crater of Diamonds State Park is 911 acres along the Little Missouri River. The “diamond mine” is a 37 acre field where a massive volcano brought diamonds to the surface of the Earth. It is the only diamond producing area in North America open to the public. In addition to diamonds you may find amethyst, agate, jasper, quartz, calcite and barite. It was getting to be a hot day but it was better than the predicted rain we expected a couple of days ago. It had passed through during the night. Bill brought 2 shovels, 2 buckets, gloves and Kam rented box sifters for us to use. When we went out there had been

Using the box sifter

2 diamonds found already today! One was a 4 carat brown diamond and the other was a 3 carat white. We spend at least an hour out there and we came back with 2 buckets of rocks! We had jasper, calcite, quartz and some others but not a diamond. It was still fun and if we were staying the night at the campground we would have stayed longer. When we finished up another 1 carat diamond had been found. They said most of the diamonds found are the size of the end of a match. The largest diamond found was in 1924 and was 40.23 carats, the largest ever found in North America. There were people who set up canopy tents along the edge of the field and spent the day.

We had planned to have dinner at Doe's in Little Rock but they didn't open

Kam hosing off the mud

up for dinner until 5:30 and the drive from there to Heber Springs is about an hour and 20 minutes and we had to be at work at 8. So we stopped for gas and headed towards home. I had not planned anything for dinner so Kam started looking at Yelp for recommended places and there was one just before heading into Heber Springs. It was home cooking and bbq. The Arrow's Cafe and BBQ. There were lots of cars, always a good sign, so we stopped. We all had a bbq platter with 2 sides and a roll or cornbread. It was all good and we were stuffed.

We managed to get back in time to unload the car, Bill get a shower, me feed my deer and show Kam how everything works. We left her to shower and do some work for her job. She came out while I fed the deer and almost as soon as I went back in my little doe came and Kam got her camera out and took some photos.

We arrived at work on time and it was a super busy first hour. The place was almost full and then people kept coming in with no reservations. There was someone parked on someone else's site and we had to call for a ranger. We sent people to the loops we were told had vacancies and they'd come back and say there were no spaces. Bill drove down to check and didn't see any spaces but we later realized those were family spaces that had one drive with 2 spaces and only one space was being used. It was the worst night we've worked so far. We used the radio for the first time and then had to give directions here to people when we barely can find our way ourselves. Tomorrow has to be a better work day!