We woke up in the RV outside The Nash's and strolled in for breakfast and coffee before saying goodbye, unplugging Fred and heading North to Arkansas. Our first stop was Trip Advisor's #1 thing to do in Arkansas - mine for diamonds at Crater of the Diamond State Park in Murfreesboro, AR. It was less than 4 hour drive from Wylie. It went by quickly playing games like UNO.
Just after 2PM, we arrived at Crater of Diamonds, a one-of-a-kind experience that brings people all over the world to Murfreesbora, AR. It is 37 acre plowed field, the eroded surface of a volcanic crater, looking for all kinds of precious rocks including diamonds. It is the only public diamond mining place in the USA, where anything you find, you keep! It is common to find brown, yellow and clear diamonds. Carter did the math and on average, 2 diamonds are found everyday. Famous 15, 16 and 40 carat diamonds have been found here. Carter had been beyond excited for a month, since we had told him where we were coming here and what we were going to do. He had researched how to mine and what materials we needed. We brought a couple of large 5 gallon buckets, foam knee pads and shovels and rented sifters there for $5. Upon arrival, we found out that mining closed at 4PM, so we parked the RV at the site a quarter mile down the road and came back at 3PM where our $10 ticket including mining today for the hour, as well as all day tomorrow.
At closing at 4PM, we explored the facility and museum and watched a video on tips for the 3 ways to look for diamonds. We got lucky and met a couple who found a nearly 1 carat brown diamond and got to see it upclose. Then we bought some firewood and leisurely walked back to camp walking through a magical Fall forest and just soaked in the beautiful Arkansas fall leaves.
I had the expirations of this first RV trip being filled with all kinds of moments that we would have to be agile and adjust. Upon leaving, we even posted a sign that said, "How We Turned Lemons into Lemondade." I had no idea, though, that multiple examples of this would come during our VERY first evening meal!
For dinner, we decided to have hot dogs and beans. We quickly figured out that we didn't have skewers to roast the hot dogs so we used screwdrivers to roost them on. Then, the fresh wood we bought wouldn't burn and we didn't have fire starter, so we brainstormed and brought the hot dogs inside and warmed them inside the pot of beans, which ended up being delicious and we had bean covered hot dogs. During that process, we also realized that we forgot a can opener so we got to be social and go introduce ourselves to some professional looking RV neighbors and they quickly took a liking to Addie and her personality. They became fast friends. It's true everything you hear about RV folks being the nicest people in the world. When the kids returned the can opener, they couple surprised us with dessert and the following day, they came over to chat and said that we remind them of the movie, RV with Robin Williams. We didn't know how to take that comment, since we had seen that funny movie of a city family deciding to take an impromptu RV trip.
This particular evening was filled with such great example of being flexible and brainstorming when things aren't perfect and how many times, things turn out better that you had originally imagined!
Since it got dark each day at 5PM, around 7:30PM, we would get cozy and all watch a movie, including Aladdin, and the first 3 Harry Potters. It was so dark and peaceful at night, if seriously felt like midnight at 9PM. Which I loved how well rested we were on this trip.
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