Crater of
Glistening Ice
State Park

Van Warren

I've always been the explorer type, I even have a geology hammer to prove it. So when my wife said, "You want to go to 'Crater of Diamonds' State Park, I considered the possibility of fabulous wealth and said, "yes".

The rainy drive was punctuated by visions of kneeling pine trees bowed by recent ice storms. But ... "Rain is my friend today. It will wash away the dirt. It will leaving me snowblind from glistening fields of diamonds, ripe for the plucking".

So the question on the way down was, "How many diamonds do we need to find and not be greedy?". What shall we carry our diamonds in? A leather pouch? A bucket? A wheelbarrow? Is there a fashion statement here? I motivated my daughter with comments like, "you can buy a house with just one diamond".

Being the rational thinker I realized that research and preparation are the key. I decided that when we got to the diamond park, I should go to the visitor's center and learn everything possible about the park, its history, the geology, the appearance of raw diamond's, where other's have been found, etc.

So when we arrived at the park I bolted from the car and ran directly into the middle of the plowed field as fast as my feet would carry me. I began the "diamond hunter's prayer" which goes something like this:

Dear Lord,
I know you have heard this prayer before,
but I am telling you today,
that you are the real diamond in the diamond field,
and that having found you,
I have found all the diamonds that I will ever need.

But just in case you were thinking that some
of the diamonds have been buried too long,
and they are making the dirt itch or something,
you can now tell me where they all are.

Amen.

Now equipped with all the God-given ESP that one man can handle, I was ready to to find all the raw diamonds I could stuff into my pockets. Having skipped the research portion of the project I found one other person in the deserted field and said, "My theory is that rain will have revealed diamonds on the inclined sides of the banks". She replied, "The movie in the visitor's center said the green dirt has all the diamond's. Equipped with these two pieces of knowledge and the park basically to myself I stood at the brink of an immediate diamond harvest.

Did I mention that green dirt and regular dirt look basically the same?

It was now time for me to invoke the powers that I had been given to do what I call, "raising the diamonds". Both hands are required. Holding them out, you tilt your head back and roar the following command: "Dance Diamonds Dance". Sure as shootin' on a good day, you will hear a rustlin' in the earth as the diamonds begin to pop out of the ground like Skittles.

Did I mention the mud?

There are a couple of memorable things at the Crater besides Diamonds. One of them is mud. Imagine all the mud you have ever seen in your life. Imagine giant fields of mud. Imagine all the world's mud that was moved, washed away, or lost. You will be heartened to know it has been found.

Did I mention that the rain started to increase?

Remember the mantra, "water is the diamond hunter's best friend". I found this little creek that flows right through the middle of the park. It led to funny litle orange stop signs that said, "No diamond hunting past this point". And I said, "Aha!", "So THIS is where they're keeping the diamonds". I pounded the long end of my geology hammer right in the center of the creek bed, cut a groove in the fine silt and started making my way right to the center of the earth where diamonds are born...