A Prosperous Vacation

Okay, sign me up. I want to go to Arkansas for my next vacation. Now before you start checking my temperature and before I get inundated with complaints from people wondering why I'm potentially knocking the great state of Arkansas let me elaborate. I have been a fairly frequent follower of the news for a long time now and one story that keeps coming up is the one about the fact that someone has found a diamond at Crater of Diamonds National Park which is located in Arkansas. See the great thing about this national park is the fact that whatever you find you keep. It doesn't matter how big or small, if you find a diamond you keep it.

Well earlier this week a man visiting the park on a fairly frequent basis turned up a diamond and with that the park officially marked the 1,000th diamond found at the park this year. Generally the park has a varied number of finds per year and before you get excited (like I did) with visions of diamonds scattered around like hundreds of thousands of pebbles, be aware that it does take some work. As you can see in the picture, the park is fairly large (obviously since it is a national park) and there are lots of other people aware of this fact as well. Since the park opened in 1972 to the public, there have been a handful of years where this many diamonds have been found. It would appear that 1994 was the banner year for the park because that was when the public uncovered approximately 1,421 diamonds. The largest discovered so far (and again... kept by the finder) was a 16.37 carat diamond found in 1975.

I think it's fascinating that the park has remained open all this time and has remained a place open to the public for the digging and discovery of diamonds. The park was originally privately owned before it was turned over to the state at which time it opened to the public and the digging began. If one visits the website they will highlight the fact that the park also has wonderful recreational facilities including campgrounds and such but the real allure of the park comes from the fact that the park allows you to dig and keep any diamonds (or other precious stones) you find at the park. Kids has young as 13 have found fairly decent sized diamonds there and as such, the park has become a major source of revenue for the state. This doesn't mean that everyday someone walks out of there with a diamond. You certainly have to do your share of digging and searching and hoping but still, there's always a chance.

There's something mystical about a park of this type. Mystical I think in the sense that it helps return us to our childhood when searching for buried treasure was a game but in this case the game has become a reality. Thanks to geological fortitude and a generous state, the Crater of Diamonds State Park has allowed many people to live out their fantasies of digging for buried treasure. Now while I am not necessarily interested in digging up the largest diamond ever unearthed there, I wouldn't mind finding a small one simply because I would want to enjoy the feeling of discovering a true treasure from the earth. Sure you can go to a store and get one but it must be a real thrill to go and unearth one from the ground itself knowing that it has made it's way from the depths of the earth to your hands.