Day 3 - Crater of Diamonds State Park Arkansas

Thursday we arrived at Crater of Diamonds state park near Murfreesboro, Arkansas planning on camping in the park and looking for diamonds on Friday.  What we didn’t expect or think about is it is spring break for the school kids.  The campground was full and we could not get in.  On the road to the park we saw a small private campground advertising a $24 nightly rate.  We stopped to see if we could get in there, but they were also full.  So, based on suggestions from the people at the Crater of Diamonds and the lady at the private park, we called Daisy State Park to see if they had camping openings.  We were able to get into Daisy, which is about 20 miles from the diamond mine.  The Arkansas state parks are first rate, really nice with paved, level sites.

The view from our door.

Day 4 – Friday March 14, 2014

Friday we got to the mine about 10 o’clock to find our load of diamonds.  The day was breezy and cool with mostly cloudy skies.  We looked for a couple of hours and then went to the car to eat lunch and warm up a little.  It was really a lot of fun playing in the dirt.  The diamond field is large and they plow it from time to time to bring new stones to the surface.  It was kind of funny to see all these adults sitting on the ground digging like little kids in a sandbox.  After a total of about 5 hours of looking we gave up.  Dorrie found a couple of pieces we thought might be diamonds, but they turned out to be quartz.  Looks like we continue to be poor!

Wanting to try some local food, we went to dinner at a place called Gayle’s in Daisy.  It was a place to forget.  Dorrie swore her ‘roast beef” was dog food.  Tomorrow we head west.

Day 5 – Saturday March 15, 2014

We dumped our tanks before leaving Daisy State Park.  I had an issue with the hose jumping out of the ground and had to clean up some of the pavement from the spill.  Rick was next and he opened his black tank while I stood on the discharge end to insure we didn’t have the same problem.  He did not secure the connection from the camper to the hose, and had one major mess to clean up.  For those who don’t know, the campers have 2 tanks – a gray water tank that holds water from the sink and shower and a black water tank that holds the stuff from the toilet.  You usually drain the black tank first and then use the grey to help clean out the hose.  So the messes Rick and I had were from the black water tank – nasty stuff!!  He had a much bigger clean up than I did. 

We finally started heading west on our roundabout trip north.  We had rain off and on most of our driving day.  At one point Rick starting pulling over to the side of the road and I asked on the CB what was wrong.  He lost a windshield wiper on his side – said it just went flying off.  He pulled back on the road without stopping and decided to continue to our next scheduled stop – Madill, Oklahoma.

Day 6 – Sunday March 16, 2014

Morning found us on yet another Wal-Mart parking lot.  The wind started blowing during the night and rocked the camper with blast to the side.

We picked up some supplies from our host store and set out on our next leg of our journey.  This day was one of the worst days of driving I ever remember.  The wind was blowing a good 20 to 30 miles per hour with higher speed gusts, which made keeping the camper in our lane a real challenge.  Part of the trip was on two-lane highway with little traffic, but then we hit interstate 35 going towards Oklahoma City.  That was really fun with the increase in traffic, including eighteen-wheelers speeding past. 

Here are some shots while we were driving.  If they are not clear, it is because of the camper moving from side to side from the wind.

At one point a gust hit us and we went over half a lane in the flash of a second.  Lucky the lane was empty at the time.  I have to say that Oklahoma has some of the roughest highways I have driven, including the interstate roads.  They do have some construction going on, so maybe they are trying to correct their problem.

We finally made our way to Foss State Park near Clinton, Oklahoma.  The park is nice but also empty.  There are only two other campers in the campground.

After fixing dinner at the campground we drove to an Indian casino (Lucky Star was the name), but the ones lucky were the Indians that run the casino.

For those who wonder why red duck adventures, here are some photos of the guy on the trip.  The first picture is from Lamar, the last one is not very clear, but he has band aides on his bill and tail area from the beating he took swing in the window during the windy drive.  He wanted ice on his rear, but we didn't have an ice pack that small.