Dreary day in Little Rock
Oct. 16th, 2006 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamagotchaRain pattered on and off during the night, so it seemed a visit to the diamond mine was in order (many stones are found immediately following a rain, which washes off dust from visible diamonds on the surface of the field).
We packed up and I made some scrambled eggs and cocoa for breakfast, augmented by the remains of the previous evening’s pasta. Linc and Clay fed the rest of the burger buns to the ducks, I loaded up all our gear, and we were outta there by 9 a.m.
We took a newly built highway to head towards the diamond mine, and while we saved a good 20 minutes or so, were treated to more Applebee’s and Chili’s and such. I’m not sorry we went the other way the day before! We did spot a purple dragon in the little town just outside the mine (this one’s for you,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jedusor:
The diamond mine was in the middle of yet more forestland, but it was pretty much a ten-acre dirt field. Dry, hard, dusty, pebbly dirt. We decided to try the wet-mining technique... while surface searching seemed to be the way most diamonds are spotted, that’s on wet or recently rainy days... and it turned out that there wasn’t any rain that fell down this direction. Darnit. So our next best bet was to dig up some likely looking dirt, and sluice it through a series of three meshed frames, gently settling the heaviest rocks to the bottom of the finest mesh and flipping it like a cake.
There were several thrashed-looking locals doing the same thing, and some whiskered old rockhounds picking here and there, and one old prospector actually was using divining rods... and he’d found a matchheaded sized diamond the day before!
Most folks seemed to come in, poke around a while, maybe splash a bit in the sluice boxes, and wander off. I wanted to give it a chance, so Clay and I went at it together for about three bucket-loads. Linc wandered the area, with a little orange bucket and blue shovel a nice lady had given him (us big folks had to rent our own toys). The boys got tired of it after that, and went back to the visitor center and van while I did three more bucketloads, then I gave up. We were there about 2 hours, but nobody found anything while we were digging (they sound a siren every time a diamond is found).
One sweet old couple was there, and she was resting on a bench while he washed through trays of dirt. Finally he sat down with her and said, “This is too much like work. How about I just buy you a diamond?” I told her she had witnesses, and she held up her hand and said, “He bought me a diamond 50 years ago, and it’s just fine!”
I was feeling a little hot, tired and cranky by this time, so it was time to give it up. I met the boys in the visitor’s center, where the cheerful stories of 12-year-old girls wandering onto the field and tripping over softball-sized sparklers were now being eyed with a little less excitement by those of us who had dirt ground into our skin so deeply we were quoting Lady Macbeth in the muddy bathrooms.
Winding through the woods again, we decided to head for a KOA in Little Rock. Clay practiced navigating by estimating miles between towns, and then confirming his guesses by the roadsigns. I saw a few tiny little cemeteries and decided to stop at the next one... I’ve always loved wandering through graveyards, reading the stones and wondering about the people beneath.
Sure enough, another one popped up almost immediately after I voiced my desire. Saline Cemetery was a teensy little plot right next to the road. Close up front were the newer graves... husbands and wives, a 22-year-old boy with a little basketball hoop and ball, veterans. But back from the road were a couple of turn-of-the-century stones, in the stylized script of those day.
And behind those were several cairn-style graves, only a few with readable headstones.
There was one larger cairn, and I wondered if it was a family crypt, or just one person. There was no writing on any of the stones that I could see.
While I was exploring these, Clay called out: “Mom! Quick! Turn on the camera!” He’d spotted a wild armadillo, and I managed to snap him before he scurried through the branches out of sight. A very strange looking critter! It sort of moved like a rabbit with a raincoat...
We got into Little Rock in the late afternoon, and Linc hadn’t taken a nap at all. It had started to cloud over and drizzle off and on. We checked in and found our cabin nestled among trees and a little dry creekbed, with a flat basketball on a little court, and a flat tetherball on a pole. Clay and Linc put those to good use right away in the dusk while I scraped together some curried rice, chicken soup and salad (the first two were boxed mixes, and not all that great, but we were hungry).
We were waiting for the rice to finish cooking, and Clay found a little wire-caged firepit thingie between the cabins. “Mom, can I make a fire?” Sure, why not? So I had him gather some paper bits, kindling and tinder, and he found two large pieces of unused firewood at another cabin (dry, even!). He managed to get a decent fire started by dinnertime, and he ate while he enjoyed warming his feet... it really wasn’t that cold, but when you’re 12 and you get permission to play with fire, you’re gonna enjoy it!
He did learn a little lesson by grabbing the metal door when he went to put on his second log. “OW! MOOOOM! Why didn’t you TELL me?!” He had a little blister on his left forefinger, nothing disabling but enough to remind him to be careful... what we call “extreme homeschooling.” He was otherwise very proud of himself, and by the time we were ready for bed, it was dying down (and the rain was getting heavier).
He wasn’t wounded enough to forego another chapter of Snicket, and he read aloud as I got the baby cleaned up and ready for bed. Lincoln actually fell asleep while Clay read, and after that I decided to take advantage of the campground’s spa and sauna.
It was dark and quiet, which was a little odd... the campground was full, so I thought I’d see folks chatting around some campfires, comparing travel notes and RV repair guys and such, maybe enjoying the hot tub too. But nobody was out. All I could see was these hulking RVs with thick white umbilicals snaking out to scattered satellite dishes. I was alone in there the entire time... wish I’d just ditched the bathing suit. The chemicals were sort of strong, but the sauna was heavenly... I think I’ll go back tonight.
The rain started in earnest by the time I got into bed, and kept up all night. Linc was wakeful again (what is UP with that?) and Clayton very kindly took him for an hour or so in the morning so I could have some uninterrupted sleep (oh, I just remembered... while I was dressing him, he kept saying “boot-a-boo-boo!” which is his first play on words. Sometimes he kicks at you, saying “bootaboot,” until you tickle him, then he says “enough boot!” This variation just had half a boot to it... and he was referring to some boo-boo salve he was holding). They played in the van and around the cabin... the rain had gone back to a drizzle again and it was actually quite warm, just wet.
At 9:30, I finally dragged myself out of the sack and we staggered out to find some hot food. I asked about a local greasy spoon and was directed to “Kierre’s Kountry Kitchen” in the middle of an industrial park. It really was just a door in a warehouse:
But once you got in, they plied you with good strong trucker’s coffee, fantastic buttermilk biscuits (we got the last two!), and solid griddle fare. Linc swiped all my bacon and OJ, but barely touched his pancakes today.
Clay was called a girl again by the waitress. I really don’t see it, but then again I’m his mom. He’s been mistaken for a girl more often than not all along this entire trip, and it’s getting funny. He won’t consider cutting his hair, so I guess he’s just gonna have to get used to it.
After carbo-loading, we decided to track down the Aerospace Museum that was listed on one of our brochures. After much debate and wandering, it was finally found... only for us to discover that it was closed on Mondays. Grr. We were right by the airport, so we watched a few Fed-Ex planes take off for Linc’s amusement, then headed back to a children’s Discovery Museum we’d seen earlier. Little Rock’s has been building up the river area as a tourist attraction, along with the Clinton Presidential Library. It’s got a really nice outdoor amphitheater, a convention center, a fairly generic kid’s museum (it seemed new, but a LOT of the displays were broken or out of service), and tons of bars... I imagine there’s a fairly lively nightlife in the area, but today it was just wet and empty.
The kids looked around the museum a while (there was a nice smaller kids’ area that Linc got to run around it, a cool origami exhibit, the same Grossology exhibit that was in KC a few months back, and some info on the local forests, which I’d been curious about).
While we were there, I got a call from my sister in New York. Her dog had died suddenly... another horrible blow for her this year. It sounds like poor Drew dog wasn’t in much pain or fear, but still... poor Ken and Amanda. Clay and I cried and said goodbye to Drew, and decided we’d had enough museum for the day.
Here's a picture of Drewski from my trip to New York in the spring of 2005. He was great with Linc on that trip (Linc didn't do much then, really, except make a few funny noises and smells) and again on our trip this spring. He let Linc do anything to him, and chased the balls Linc threw for him over and over. Clay loved Drew, too... Drew kept him company the week after Linc was born. He was a very patient, good-natured, sweetheart of a dog, and we'll miss him.
After a burrito lunch around 2pm, we visited the Clinton Presidential Library.
There were some fountains out front that spilled over their walls... just right for a 2-year-old to lean into and get soaked. Argh. We never made it in the doors.
Back at the van, I’m stripping him down and he’s poopy to boot. No change of clothes in the diaperbag.... must’ve used them already and forgotten to replace them. I just stripped him down and tucked him in the carseat with my sweater around him. I drove around aimlessly for a bit and he conked out finally...
As we were meandering, we came across the state capitol building, and Clay snapped a photo:
The rain has been dripping steadily all day, and back at the campground, we found the little creekbed about 8” full of water! Clay thought that was very cool, and wanted to go wading. I’m using the rest of the baby’s nap to type this up... still no internet but we’ll try again later.
We’ll do the Aerospace Museum first thing tomorrow, then it’s off to Memphis, this time fo’ shure!
We packed up and I made some scrambled eggs and cocoa for breakfast, augmented by the remains of the previous evening’s pasta. Linc and Clay fed the rest of the burger buns to the ducks, I loaded up all our gear, and we were outta there by 9 a.m.
We took a newly built highway to head towards the diamond mine, and while we saved a good 20 minutes or so, were treated to more Applebee’s and Chili’s and such. I’m not sorry we went the other way the day before! We did spot a purple dragon in the little town just outside the mine (this one’s for you,
jedusor:The diamond mine was in the middle of yet more forestland, but it was pretty much a ten-acre dirt field. Dry, hard, dusty, pebbly dirt. We decided to try the wet-mining technique... while surface searching seemed to be the way most diamonds are spotted, that’s on wet or recently rainy days... and it turned out that there wasn’t any rain that fell down this direction. Darnit. So our next best bet was to dig up some likely looking dirt, and sluice it through a series of three meshed frames, gently settling the heaviest rocks to the bottom of the finest mesh and flipping it like a cake.
There were several thrashed-looking locals doing the same thing, and some whiskered old rockhounds picking here and there, and one old prospector actually was using divining rods... and he’d found a matchheaded sized diamond the day before!
Most folks seemed to come in, poke around a while, maybe splash a bit in the sluice boxes, and wander off. I wanted to give it a chance, so Clay and I went at it together for about three bucket-loads. Linc wandered the area, with a little orange bucket and blue shovel a nice lady had given him (us big folks had to rent our own toys). The boys got tired of it after that, and went back to the visitor center and van while I did three more bucketloads, then I gave up. We were there about 2 hours, but nobody found anything while we were digging (they sound a siren every time a diamond is found).
One sweet old couple was there, and she was resting on a bench while he washed through trays of dirt. Finally he sat down with her and said, “This is too much like work. How about I just buy you a diamond?” I told her she had witnesses, and she held up her hand and said, “He bought me a diamond 50 years ago, and it’s just fine!”
I was feeling a little hot, tired and cranky by this time, so it was time to give it up. I met the boys in the visitor’s center, where the cheerful stories of 12-year-old girls wandering onto the field and tripping over softball-sized sparklers were now being eyed with a little less excitement by those of us who had dirt ground into our skin so deeply we were quoting Lady Macbeth in the muddy bathrooms.
Winding through the woods again, we decided to head for a KOA in Little Rock. Clay practiced navigating by estimating miles between towns, and then confirming his guesses by the roadsigns. I saw a few tiny little cemeteries and decided to stop at the next one... I’ve always loved wandering through graveyards, reading the stones and wondering about the people beneath.
Sure enough, another one popped up almost immediately after I voiced my desire. Saline Cemetery was a teensy little plot right next to the road. Close up front were the newer graves... husbands and wives, a 22-year-old boy with a little basketball hoop and ball, veterans. But back from the road were a couple of turn-of-the-century stones, in the stylized script of those day.
And behind those were several cairn-style graves, only a few with readable headstones.
There was one larger cairn, and I wondered if it was a family crypt, or just one person. There was no writing on any of the stones that I could see.
While I was exploring these, Clay called out: “Mom! Quick! Turn on the camera!” He’d spotted a wild armadillo, and I managed to snap him before he scurried through the branches out of sight. A very strange looking critter! It sort of moved like a rabbit with a raincoat...
We got into Little Rock in the late afternoon, and Linc hadn’t taken a nap at all. It had started to cloud over and drizzle off and on. We checked in and found our cabin nestled among trees and a little dry creekbed, with a flat basketball on a little court, and a flat tetherball on a pole. Clay and Linc put those to good use right away in the dusk while I scraped together some curried rice, chicken soup and salad (the first two were boxed mixes, and not all that great, but we were hungry).
We were waiting for the rice to finish cooking, and Clay found a little wire-caged firepit thingie between the cabins. “Mom, can I make a fire?” Sure, why not? So I had him gather some paper bits, kindling and tinder, and he found two large pieces of unused firewood at another cabin (dry, even!). He managed to get a decent fire started by dinnertime, and he ate while he enjoyed warming his feet... it really wasn’t that cold, but when you’re 12 and you get permission to play with fire, you’re gonna enjoy it!
He did learn a little lesson by grabbing the metal door when he went to put on his second log. “OW! MOOOOM! Why didn’t you TELL me?!” He had a little blister on his left forefinger, nothing disabling but enough to remind him to be careful... what we call “extreme homeschooling.” He was otherwise very proud of himself, and by the time we were ready for bed, it was dying down (and the rain was getting heavier).
He wasn’t wounded enough to forego another chapter of Snicket, and he read aloud as I got the baby cleaned up and ready for bed. Lincoln actually fell asleep while Clay read, and after that I decided to take advantage of the campground’s spa and sauna.
It was dark and quiet, which was a little odd... the campground was full, so I thought I’d see folks chatting around some campfires, comparing travel notes and RV repair guys and such, maybe enjoying the hot tub too. But nobody was out. All I could see was these hulking RVs with thick white umbilicals snaking out to scattered satellite dishes. I was alone in there the entire time... wish I’d just ditched the bathing suit. The chemicals were sort of strong, but the sauna was heavenly... I think I’ll go back tonight.
The rain started in earnest by the time I got into bed, and kept up all night. Linc was wakeful again (what is UP with that?) and Clayton very kindly took him for an hour or so in the morning so I could have some uninterrupted sleep (oh, I just remembered... while I was dressing him, he kept saying “boot-a-boo-boo!” which is his first play on words. Sometimes he kicks at you, saying “bootaboot,” until you tickle him, then he says “enough boot!” This variation just had half a boot to it... and he was referring to some boo-boo salve he was holding). They played in the van and around the cabin... the rain had gone back to a drizzle again and it was actually quite warm, just wet.
At 9:30, I finally dragged myself out of the sack and we staggered out to find some hot food. I asked about a local greasy spoon and was directed to “Kierre’s Kountry Kitchen” in the middle of an industrial park. It really was just a door in a warehouse:
But once you got in, they plied you with good strong trucker’s coffee, fantastic buttermilk biscuits (we got the last two!), and solid griddle fare. Linc swiped all my bacon and OJ, but barely touched his pancakes today.
Clay was called a girl again by the waitress. I really don’t see it, but then again I’m his mom. He’s been mistaken for a girl more often than not all along this entire trip, and it’s getting funny. He won’t consider cutting his hair, so I guess he’s just gonna have to get used to it.
After carbo-loading, we decided to track down the Aerospace Museum that was listed on one of our brochures. After much debate and wandering, it was finally found... only for us to discover that it was closed on Mondays. Grr. We were right by the airport, so we watched a few Fed-Ex planes take off for Linc’s amusement, then headed back to a children’s Discovery Museum we’d seen earlier. Little Rock’s has been building up the river area as a tourist attraction, along with the Clinton Presidential Library. It’s got a really nice outdoor amphitheater, a convention center, a fairly generic kid’s museum (it seemed new, but a LOT of the displays were broken or out of service), and tons of bars... I imagine there’s a fairly lively nightlife in the area, but today it was just wet and empty.
The kids looked around the museum a while (there was a nice smaller kids’ area that Linc got to run around it, a cool origami exhibit, the same Grossology exhibit that was in KC a few months back, and some info on the local forests, which I’d been curious about).
While we were there, I got a call from my sister in New York. Her dog had died suddenly... another horrible blow for her this year. It sounds like poor Drew dog wasn’t in much pain or fear, but still... poor Ken and Amanda. Clay and I cried and said goodbye to Drew, and decided we’d had enough museum for the day.
Here's a picture of Drewski from my trip to New York in the spring of 2005. He was great with Linc on that trip (Linc didn't do much then, really, except make a few funny noises and smells) and again on our trip this spring. He let Linc do anything to him, and chased the balls Linc threw for him over and over. Clay loved Drew, too... Drew kept him company the week after Linc was born. He was a very patient, good-natured, sweetheart of a dog, and we'll miss him.
After a burrito lunch around 2pm, we visited the Clinton Presidential Library.
There were some fountains out front that spilled over their walls... just right for a 2-year-old to lean into and get soaked. Argh. We never made it in the doors.
Back at the van, I’m stripping him down and he’s poopy to boot. No change of clothes in the diaperbag.... must’ve used them already and forgotten to replace them. I just stripped him down and tucked him in the carseat with my sweater around him. I drove around aimlessly for a bit and he conked out finally...
As we were meandering, we came across the state capitol building, and Clay snapped a photo:
The rain has been dripping steadily all day, and back at the campground, we found the little creekbed about 8” full of water! Clay thought that was very cool, and wanted to go wading. I’m using the rest of the baby’s nap to type this up... still no internet but we’ll try again later.
We’ll do the Aerospace Museum first thing tomorrow, then it’s off to Memphis, this time fo’ shure!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Awww...
Date: 2006-10-17 12:57 am (UTC)