July 11: Memphis, TN-Texarkana, AR

We knew we were heading south by the weather--gone were the lovely cool Ohio days!  We were back to hot and increasingly humid.

We hit the road and headed toward Arkansas.

Bass Pro has a pyramid?

Back across the Mississippi River!

Welcome to Arkansas.

 Because we were getting to Arkansas earlier in the day than we had planned, we decided to go crystal hunting.  The kids are all rock hounds, so they were really excited about this activity.  We decided not to go to the big, commercial crystal place and found a small independently owned one instead.

When we arrived at the point on the map, it turned out to be someone's house.  She and her husband own a little crystal mine and let people go hunt for crystals there.  She gave us a map, a key to the gate, and suggestions for where to look, and off we went.

Giant crystal at the gift shop.

Entrance to the crystal mine.  

This ended up being a whole lot more adventure than we expected.  The road to get to the mine was very narrow and very windy and halfway up a mountain.  We were really concerned a couple times as we met big trucks going the other direction.  Jay and I both held our breath a few times passing people.  But we finally made it to the mine.  And then we drove in and up a dirt road.

The pictures don't really do it justice--this was mostly
uphill and very potholed.

Another view of the road.

 We finally made it to the top and jumped out to start looking for crystals.  They were everywhere!  The whole path glittered with little bits of crystal.  We found a good spot and started to dig.  Pretty soon everyone had pockets full of crystal.

Everyone can dig!

We tried a few different spots and ended up with a good collection of crystal pieces, ranging in size from tiny to as big as Ben's fist.

By the time we were ready to go, we were hot and sticky.  The owner had told us about a nearby place with a natural spring and a wading pool.  We decided to go find it because cool water sounded really good!

The water was COLD and fresh.  We all had a good splash around, then got back in the car to head back to the crystal shop to return the key.  By this time, it was after 6 and everyone was tired and getting hungry.

It took almost an hour to make our way back down the mountain and to the shop.  We dropped the key and headed toward Texarkana, where we were staying for the night.  Unfortunately, because we were in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas, there was no food to be found between where we were and where we were going.  So by the time we got into town, everyone was starving and very cranky.  It was also about 9, so we were all exhausted as well.  We ended up finding a Wendy's and getting a small dinner for everyone.  We took it back to the hotel, and ate in shifts while everyone rotated through the shower.  Then the whole exhausted crew collapsed into bed!