2 Cuties and a Field Full of Diamonds

Emma Jean

Ava Marie

Splash pool

See any sparklers?

Gateway To Riches

Welcome to Crater of Diamonds State Park. This is the place where anybody can pay their $7 to play in the dirt. We took our chance on Saturday. We armed ourselves with tools and sweated our way through several buckets of gravel to find our sparklers. No luck. This place is a jasper lover's Paradise, though. I found more than I could ever hope to take with me. The weather did not co-operate. Daytime temps were in the 100's with a heat index of 110. There were lots of people out there, though, thumbing their noses at melanoma and heat stroke. There were lots of people ponying up $5.50 apiece to play in the splash pool--3 1/2 ft. at the deepest. We spent 3 hours in the morning in the field and 2 hours after supper. That was enough. This is a nice state park in spite of the heat and humidity. The campground is shady and has a nice walk down to the Little Missouri River. The park offers lots of help on how to find diamonds and has equipment for rent. Because of the tall trees, the campground blocked our tv reception and interfered with our cell phone service and internet. So we spent a rather quiet weekend reading novels. I also worked on my sewing. It was too hot for Duane to carve. But we survived.

The above pix of the little girls were taken on Thursday before we left Texas for Arkansas. They have both grown in the last three weeks. The other pix are from the park.

Basta por hoy,

Louise and Duane