Diamonds in the Rough

Now that we felt that we had successfully toured both Tennessee and Kentucky, it was time for us to decide what to do next. Our ultimate plan has always been to make it down to the Florida sun, but seeing as our current plan is to be in Jacksonville by February the 16th, we have some time to kill. Again, fate seemed to make our decision for us and just as we were beginning to plan our trip further south I received a phone call from my buddy Steve. Twice now we have stayed with Steve on our trip, both times out in California in different cities. Now, he told us, he was working in Pine Bluff Arkansas, just south of Little Rock. He called to see if we would be interested in coming by and keeping him company for a night. We decided, why not, and headed west again on Thursday morning instead of south. Memphis is really the only thing in between

Nashville and Little Rock and though it did have a minor draw for us (Graceland, Sun Records, and some Southern BBQ) we decided to pass up the city entirely and headed south to visit the Battle of Shiloh National Park. We spent the whole afternoon here doing the 12.7 mile long auto tour as well as taking numerous small hikes to read about the battle. The rest of the day was spent driving on back roads until we reached Pine Bluff just after 7 p.m. Here, Steve treated us to an excellent dinner at a Hibachi restaurant. I had never been to a Hibachi place before and was fascinated the whole time by the cook lighting everything on fire with oil, spinning his cooking utensils around at blinding speeds, and trying to flip broccoli into each of our open mouths. The meal itself was just as good as the show if not better and by the end we all were so stuffed that it hurt to get up and exit the building. After saying "thank you" to the entire staff, we picked up some beers and spent the night in Steve's hotel room hanging out together once more.

Friday morning we headed west into Arkansas after seeing Steve off to work and enjoying our complimentary breakfast at the hotel. We were still making our way west because aside from seeing Steve there was one other thing that Arkansas had to offer, diamonds! Crater of Diamonds State Park is the United States only diamond mine and the world's 8th largest diamond reserve. The best part about this place is they let you dig for diamonds here yourself AND let you keep whatever you find! Katie and I had read about this place in our travel book long before we were anywhere near Arkansas and now a trip to the state would no be complete until we had gone. Before we started digging for diamonds we stopped off at Bill Clinton's high school town, Hot Springs Arkansas, to visit the Hot Springs National Park. This national park is a strong contender for the title of most boring national park that we have visited; granted we didn't explore the back country or any of the camping areas. The national park, as it appears to most of its visitors, is a row of old bath houses situated on the main street through town. Known in the past for their healing qualities, the water of the hot springs has been diverted over time to fill these illustrious bath houses. At the beginning of the century, people came from all over the world to bathe in the healing waters of the springs. Earlier, when we heard of the national park, Katie and I envisioned the various hot springs that we had visited along this trip and hoped to take a dip ourselves in one of these. We even almost grabbed our swim suits from the car as we headed into the park. But as we found out, the bath houses have been long closed down due mainly to the advances in modern medicine, thus rendering them obsolete. Unable to experience the water for ourselves, we took a tour of one of the old bath houses and left the city unsatisfied. Though slightly downcast our spirits began to rise as we got closer and closer to the diamond mine. Once at Crater of Diamonds State Park we got right to work. We rented a shovel, bucket, and sifter, then headed out into the field to find our fortune. There are many methods for finding diamonds but Katie and I chose to dig with our hands mostly. They also have running water on sight allowing for sleuthing or you could simply walk along the rows of upturned dirt hoping that erosion had laid bare a shinny morsel. We stayed at the park until close, bringing our findings to be identified by the staff. As you may have guessed, we did not strike it rich, nor did we find any diamonds. We did collect lots of interesting rocks, coming away with a small sack full of quartz, calcite, and jasper. From the diamond mine we headed south toward Texas, hoping that it would treat us better than our last visit. We stopped in the border town of Texarkana for dinner then spent the first night of our trip in the comforting belly of CJ.

Our first night in the van felt like coming home after a long vacation. Though we have been on the road for over a week, it hasn't seemed like proper road tripping with all of the fine accommodations that we have had staying with our friends. The weather was pleasant throughout the night and we both had a great night sleep, refreshed to take on the day. We decided to give Texas another shot for a number of reasons. First and foremost was to visit

Katie's friend Margie who lives with her husband and child on Fort Hood Military Base. Also, we felt that the state deserved a second chance. Being so big we figured there must be something good within its bounds, and with a hopeful attitude we headed to the Dallas Fort Worth area to spend the morning. In Dallas we drove by Dealy Plaza where JFK was shot but

were unable to tour the book depository because we were visiting hours before the museum opened. Next we made our way over to Fort Worth to visit the famous Water Gardens Park. I had been here before once with my dad when I was younger and was excited to relive a bit of my past. The park has 3 fountain areas, a quite pool, an active pool, and an aeration pool. The coolest one by far is the active pool where you can climb down to the center of the fountain and experience the

rushing water all around you while leaping from platform to platform, hoping not to fall in. I remember being quite a bit more terrified of falling into the water as a child and could see that a similar fear had taken hold in the minds of other children who were visiting the park with us. After leaving the chaotic atmosphere of the active pool we were entranced by the subtlety of the quite pool. Here the water cascades down an even greater distance but leaks slowly down the walls without making a sound. The neat part here was you could put your hand on the wall, diverting the flow of water as you wished. After playing in the park for about 40 minutes we hopped in the car and headed a few miles down the road to the Fort Worth Stockyards. Here we arrived just in time to watch the noon cattle drive then we proceeded to browse the many shops. After a while we made our way over to Billy Bob's to enjoy a beer at the countries

largest bar. We walked around for about 30 minutes looking from room to room at all the attractions and doing our best to avoid the main dance floor where a group of seniors were line dancing. After Billy Bob's we got began our southward journey to Fort Hood. When we arrived at the military base we were shocked to see how many people were visiting that weekend along with us.

We had to stop off at the visitor center in order to register for a guest pass and we were met with a full waiting room that would put any DMV line to shame. We took a number and proceeded to wait around for 45 minutes before we got our chance to submit our request for entry. Once we got the all clear we went to Margie's house where we hung out for a bit playing with the baby as well as the dogs. Before the sun set Margie and Aaron took us for a tour of the base. We went by the spot of the recent shooting that took place on the base, visited a full scale model city of an Iraqi town used for training, and stopped by a museum like grouping of old tanks and planes. We spent the night at their house playing video games and eating pizza.