The Day Trip Of A Lifetime You Can Only Take In Arkansas
By J.B. VanDyke|Published February 04, 2017
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J.B. VanDyke
Author
J.B. Weisenfels has lived in rural Arkansas for three decades. She is a writer, a mom, and a graduate student. She is also an avid collector of tacky fish whatnots, slightly chipped teapots, and other old things. In her spare time she enjoys driving to the nearest creek to sit a while. If you were to visit her, she'd try to feed you cornbread.
There are lots of things you can do in Arkansas that you really can’t do anywhere else. You can’t float the Buffalo in any other state, you can’t look out from Hawksbill Crag or Mount Magazine in any other place either. Other places have mountains and rivers, but they don’t have that river or those mountains. There is one thing Arkansas has that no other place in the entire world does—a diamond mine open to the public, where anyone can dig for diamonds. That diamond mine is located in the charming town of Murfreesboro, which is also home to unique Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village. You’re sure to have a great time exploring both on this unique-to-Arkansas day trip.
You’ll enter the park for a small fee, and you can rent equipment in the Diamond Discovery Center, which also provides useful tips for your diamond mining adventure.
After all, the Natural State is home to more than just diamonds. There’s also a possibility of finding some of Arkansas’s other naturally occurring gemstones, like quartz crystal, for example.
If you’re concerned that all the diamonds have been found, no worries. Over 75,000 diamonds have been discovered there since 1906, and last year in October someone found a 2.03 carat diamond.
Both Crater of Diamonds State Park and Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village can be explored in one day, making a trip to Murfreesboro a one-of-a-kind adventure every Arkansan should have.