Think back on your most memorable road trip.
Having five cats definitely contributes to being a homebody. Very few things are more appealing than napping under cats or reading with a cat on my lap. However I do enjoy a good purposeful road trip where you have an interesting something awaiting you. Please direct me to your world’s largest ball of twine. Therefore an adventure to Arkansas to dig for quartz crystals after seeing a post of a favorite jewelry artisan LilyinFlux doing the same, made sense. Adventure Buddy Boyfriend loves geology and was immediately on board.
Fortunately, the Loveless Cafe outside of Nashville made a yummy late lunch sort of halfway point stop. Biscuits and catfish, y’all. Unfortunately, this was the halfway point of an 11-12 hour drive which ABBF thought would be a snap. I knew in my heart and can now confirm that I can no longer tolerant that long in the car. Six hours might be a reasonable max for a long day, but you absolutely lose me and my mind at around 8 hours. Add driving in the dark and I’m just anxious and useless. I spent the last two hours in the passenger seat reporting on armadillo facts and other random things. There are armadillos in Arkansas; we saw plenty of armadillo roadkill, but no live ones.
We hit Hot Springs, Arkansas, around 11:30 pm. There was no one, but us sitting at the intersection until a buck came running up the cross street and hung a left. Welcome to town.
Research had indicated that the Crystal Loop was west of Hot Springs and that the tiny town of Mount Ida had a number of spots for digging. Our first stop called Crystal Vista was a free dig -your -own scenario. You just had to hike up a mountain to do it. It was a very straightforward dirt and rock trail, but it was absolutely uphill the whole 1.6 miles. As soon as I shouldered my backpack, the humidity weighed me down. I was prepared for summer temperatures, but the humidity made it tough. At least one morning on this trip, I woke up nauseated with a splitting headache like I had been on a bender. Zero alcohol. Just dehydrated from existing.
However the hike up gave me plenty of opportunities to stop, try to breath, and stare at the ground where there were the occasional tiny baby crystal on the trail.
We lasted about 3 hours before heat, a lack of significant finds, and a hunger for lunch beyond granola bars sent us back down. It was as advertised: a rocky vista. There was plenty of nature to sit and look at in between turning over rocks and playing in dirt. ABBF made a new bestie. Jeffrey defected from his group of scouts? – Cousins?Church group? The details are hazy- to come chat with ABBF. Jeffrey described himself as a more science minded person and when I overheard him give ABBF a “well actually…”, I knew they deserved each other. Someone in his group, of course, found a really amazing large crystal point.
Our next dig day was at Wegner Crystal Mines. We had driven by this location and other local tourism mines on the way to Crystal Vista. For a fee, they threw about 15 people into a truck bed with benches and drove what felt like full tilt but probably wasn’t up a very bumpy mountain road to the active mine dig. We were delayed from going up an hour by a storm that rolled in with lightning and heavy rain. It turned out to be a good thing. As our guide pointed out, the rain washed off a layer of dirt exposing rocks and crystals. It was also easier to dig in wet mud.
We left covered in red mud, every pocket and a giant blue Lowes bucket stuffed with rocks. We ended the day by purchasing two geodes from the rock shop. ABBF proposed that we each pick out a geode, have them opened, and then trade halves as a souvenir of day. He’s so pretty. He also listened to the rock shop lady.
When choosing geodes, you want to choose the lighter rock. The lighter rock is more likely to be hollow and sparkly inside. I obstinately stuck to my choice because I was certain the pink color on the outside would show up on the inside. I got a solid geode; he got hollow and sparkly. Not sure what that says about our personalities.
It was all we could do not to turn our rental’s white tiled kitchen into a red mud mess. It was so exciting to clean our finds. We limited ourselves to unpacking our immediate pockets for soaking in the sink. Once home, I spent weeks soaking quartz and picking red mud out of the crevices.
Because we hadn’t played in enough mud, our next stop was Crater of Diamonds State Park where there is the tiniest chance that you might find a diamond in the diamond fields. It was raining, mud covered and crowded at the tables where you could strain and sort your finds. The visitors ranged from the ultra conservative, thankfully retired science teacher who had nothing nice to say about anyone different from himself (read that for all the “snowflake hating” and racism it implies) and had chosen to spend his retirement mining with a season pass to tourists like ourselves, but armed with crying children. It was a nasty day out in the fields, but the rode hard, put away wet look of some miners suggested that finding a diamond was their last hope.
It was a neat experience to put on my list of destinations with odd purposes, but I think we both tired of being damp and muddy. We reassessed and headed for Texarkana to find Burt Reynolds.
Leaving Arkansas with buckets of crystals and bags to-be-determined rocks, we plotted a today course, heading to the Missouri Institute of Natural Science. It is a large open space dominated by Henry the triceratops who is slowly being restored using 3D printing. There were cabinets of all manner of specimens. This was the place with a coprolite display in one bathroom.
Their “about story” is pretty amazing. On 9/11 construction crews were told to cease all explosive work. However already loaded charges had to be detonated. The explosion revealed an unknown cave system full of artifacts. Screeching halt and a museum was born.
On one of the cabinets was a sign that said “Ask about fossil hunting”; ABBF lit up. I gave him the fine go ask your new bestie the museum guy. Guess he forgot about Jeffrey already.
A half mile hike from the edge of the parking lot was an outcropping with tons of fossils. We did not find any loose ones, but the ones we could see embedded were very cool. And here I was thinking I wasn’t getting sweaty for a day. We also walked the Springfield Botanical Gardens so much sweating was had. If you’re roadtripping to Springfield, Missouri, I would recommend both stops.
That seemed to be the end of looking at rocks. The next day was a longish drive day.
However when LilyinFlux later posted the jewelry she made from digging in Mt. Ida, I had to have it as a fancy Arkansas souvenir. Just looking at the rock, ma’am.
It took a while to soak, scrub, and pick red dirt out of my treasures. I had a fair amount and offered some to friends, urging them to take a few because I wasn’t sure what to do with them. A yoga buddy with a geology degree geeked out over them. “YOU PUT THEM EVERYWHERE. HOLD YOUR BOOKS UP WITH THEM. PUT THEM ON ALL YOUR SHELVES!” she enthused while stuffing crystals into her fanny pack. She was right.
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