Vegas Roadtrip 2018 {Arkansas & Oklahoma}

It's been a couple years since we've been to Las Vegas. We'd been feeling the pull to visit our friends and some of our favorite places for quite some time. We left from Tallahassee after spending time with family. We even managed to take Grandma to the doctor utilizing some creative transportation. There are two states between here and there that we've never been, so we took a northern route to spend some time in Arkansas and Oklahoma. First stop, Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas.

Asher has been looking forward to trying his luck at digging for diamonds ever since he first learned of the place a couple years ago. Upon arrival we found out they were closing early! Ugh! We had only an hour to search, but our admission ticket would be honored for the next day as well. We did our best without tools, but were unsuccessful.

We were surprised to see they have a pool for summer visitors. The campground was full, so we stayed at a small campground nearby. The people there were very friendly and suggested we take a short hike from the campground to a small pond. I spotted some nice birds along the way and then we heard a large animal deep in the woods, stomping and grunting at us! We imagined bears or some other wild and dangerous creature. We later learned it was a herd of deer that regularly come thru those woods. The next morning we took their advice again by driving to the dam overlook. The dam has been here for about 50 years and only three times has the water level been this high!

Back at the state park, we decided to rent some tools for today's search.

There are three ways to find diamonds. The first is called surface searching. This is what I did. Raw diamonds are smooth, round and reflective. If you get close the the ground, with your back to the sun, a diamond should glisten in the sunlight. Though six diamonds larger than half a carat were found in the last two weeks, you're most likely to find one about the size of a match head. And whatever you find you can keep!

The other two search methods incorporate the use of screens. For dry screening, scoop a few handfuls of dirt into the screen and shake left and right to allow the dirt to fall and leave you with just rocks to pick thru. The third method is wet screening. After filling the screen with earth, hold the screen under a tray of water and slowly shake. The heaviest stones will fall to the bottom of the screen. Remove from the water and carefully turn the screen upside down on the ground. Any diamonds will now be on the top of the pile. Sort carefully.

We gave it a good try, and after a couple hours we decided to call it quits and have lunch. We had fun and fortunately the kids weren't too disappointed. The beautiful pieces of jasper and quartz we found left us feeling pretty content. The ranger was shocked by the large quartz I found while surface searching.

Later that day we arrived at Red Slough Wildlife Management Area in Oklahoma. 

We'd reached our 47th state together!

This hotspot has recorded over 300 species of birds! I enjoyed birding from the ground and the platforms while daddy and the kids tried to spy an alligator. No luck, but I was very happy with my birds.

An American Bittern trying to hide with his bill pointing to the sky while looking at me under his chin. Too funny!

We spent the night at a Cracker Barrel parked next to these beauties! Next stop, sand dunes!