Road Report: Diamond Daze

I now realize there's a good reason why diamonds are so expensive.

It's not just because the little jewels shine so brightly. It's not just because a diamond is so hard that nothing can cut it except another diamond.

It's also because diamonds are darn hard to find.

This might seem already obvious or a commonplace to you. In my case, I had to drive to a locale outside the little burg of Murfreesboro, Arkansas. At Crater of Diamonds State Park I found out firsthand about the rarity of diamonds as we were welcomed into the only place in the world where the public is invited to mine for diamonds.

More, you are told you can keep as many diamonds as you wish. That's right, folks, free diamonds! Just pay the $7 entry fee, rent or bring your own tools, and get to work.

Riches await you.

Maybe.

Since 1979, over 28,000 diamonds have been found in the crater by people just like you and me. Some were found as recently as a few days before our arrival. In a few cases, the diamonds were large, large enough to earn them their own name and a marker out in the crater noting the location of the find. Like the Star of Arkansas and the Uncle Sam diamonds.

Does that sound enticing or not? We set to work.

What I Learned About Diamond Mining
At the visitor center a park ranger gave us a live demonstration of the basics of what we were getting ourselves into. Exhibits and videos provided further information.




Legendary diamond finder James Archer
in his ever present yellow waterproof pants.

I soon realized that with our mild foray into diamond digging we were unlikely to become very adept at identifying the best digging spots and gravel with the highest potential to yield diamonds, In other words, there was no comparison between us and the Crater of Diamond's own legend, Mr. James Archer.

James rated his own display at the visitor's center. He spent decades at the crater, even into his retirement years, and he found over 7,000 diamonds.

James was famous not just for his finds, but for his friendliness and willingness to help others dig. James died out in the crater doing his favorite thing. Digging for diamonds. He was 78 years old.

As we stood in line to rent equipment I was armed with further information: most diamonds are extremely small and not that impressive looking. Some are yellow or brown. All of them look like little pieces of polished glass. The samples we saw in the display case in the visitors' center had been about the size of fingernail clippings.

What we were searching for...

Even though we were told diamonds had been found by children looking down at the dirt and seeing something sparkling in it, the usual method of prospecting involves digging up dirt and then sifting through it. There are two methods of sifting: dry and wet. In either case we had to take our two sifter screens (one coarse, one fine) and shake the dirt through it and then inspect what was left behind.

Right away I knew I favored the wet method. The wet method would lead us to the washing troughs at the edge of the crater. The troughs were covered by metal roofs. We could find our treasure in the shade.

Hotter Than
We began by filling a bucket with dirt from the crater. "Crater" is perhaps too dramatic of a word. The mining area was a plowed field consisting of rough dirt clods and gravel. The sun was burning down. A park ranger broadcast heat stroke warnings over a loudspeaker. Apparently if we felt dizzy or nauseated and it wasn't from the sight of a diamond the size of a hen's egg, we should seek immediate medical attention.




The diamond crater.



Sifting.

After filling it up with shovelfuls of pre-sifted dirt, I lugged our heavy bucket to the washing area and began working at the trough.



At the washing station...


A half hour later I had...a few flecks of quartz, hardly any bigger than a pepper flake.

A Dazzling Finale?
It soon became pretty obvious to me. For a person to find a diamond he or she had to be either very, very lucky or sift a lot of dirt. It really was akin to finding a needle in the proverbial haystack. Sure, you might find the needle the first time you thrust your hand into the hay. More likely you would have to search the entire haystack over and over, ad infinitum. In the meantime, someone else who is either luckier or tries harder than you, may find the needle first.



Hmm. I'm not seeing any diamonds here...just dirt!


By the end of the afternoon it had occurred to me that mining for gems and precious metals is perhaps a bit like seeking love. Yes,it can be frustrating on the bleakest days when we're surrounded by a hot, blasted barren field, seemingly bereft of possibilities. Still, it's the hope of having success that leads most of us to become what Mr. Neil Young once described in song as being a "miner for a heart of gold." We keep on digging.

If we can just find that rare, lasting, durable love to end all loves, all of the sweat and dirt clinging to us will wash away and our labors will be justified.

You can walk onto the field and hope to get lucky in an hour or you can be like James Archer and keep on digging six days a week, year after year. Pure tenacity in service of that hidden, valuable thing.

I think it's the James Archers of this world who have it figured out. - V.W.

Road Report: Where There's Hope

We weren't on what the locals call a "Bill-grimage." A Bill-grimage? It's a portmanteau word that has come into play to describe tourists who are ardent fans of William Jefferson Clinton and his two-term presidency from 1992-2000.

As has been noted here before, this is not a blog where political notes are sounded or aired. What can one expect from a guy who is trying to avoid the news? So I'll just say that there were things I surely admired about Bill Clinton's presidency and others that disappointed me and leave it at that.

The real reason we were in Hope, Arkansas, was because it was more or less on the way to where we were going.The fact is that if I happened to be passing by, I'd probably stop off at the home of any U.S. President. From George Washington to Barack Obama, and the William Harrisons and Grover Clevelands in between, all of them have been interesting people.

Often the distance between each of these men's beginnings and where they ended up--as the leader of one of the most influential and powerful nations in history--says a multitude about what makes America a very interesting political and social experiment. "Can anyone grow up to be president?" as we Americans like to claim?

Sometimes it appears so.

You can feel it standing in the fatigued single block of low, stone and brick buildings that constitute downtown Hope, Arkansas.

A U.S. president was born and raised here? A town whose most prominent feature is the railroad station?

It's not hard to imagine that little Billy Clinton heard those passing trains. They rattled and chanted, "Let me take you away from here!"

And it had a magical effect on another man as well. Like little Billy, Mike Huckabee, another Hope resident, moved on to the governor's mansion in Little Rock and his own presidential aspirations. Clinton and Huckabee both from this tick on a mangy dog of a town? What are the odds of that?

I learned about such wonders at the train station museum devoted to Hope, Bill Clinton and watermelons.

Since I wasn't on a Bill-grimage I found myself particularly  interested in the watermelons. They grow them BIG in Hope.

Still, Bill Clilnton's presence couldn't be escaped.

Excuse the ex-president's stiff demeanor.
He's made of cardboard.

The very friendly African-American woman who was in charge of the place said President Clinton was last in Hope this past April 19th. She pointed proudly out the window. "He was walking right on the street right there!"

LOTS of whipped cream!

I wondered if former President Clinton dined at Tailgater's Cafe on the corner. It's a new establishment in Hope and they serve burgers and hotdogs and some seriously fat fries. We tried it out for lunch. The chocolate shakes were particularly noteworthy.

Another feature of this cafe is that they assign your order the name of a famous person and give you a ticket with that name on it. We got "Jack Nicholson." I was kind of disappointed. I wanted someone younger. Maybe "Leonardo Dicapprio." Still, it was better than the alternatives. "Justin Beiber?" Please. Not on an empty stomach.

Health food, Arkansas style...

Of course, Bill Clinton had heart surgery a few years ago, lost a lot of weight, and reformed his famous burger eating diet. Standing in Hope, though, one could see how he'd had been led down the wrong culinary path at an early age. This was standard-issue Heart Cloggage, Heartland, America.

I actually would have liked to have spent more time in Hope. Not for the sake of Bill, but because the town has one other claim to fame.

Here they build Klipsch speakers. These highly regarded (by some) music reproducing devices contain the famous Klipsch horn. The horn (as opposed to cone design) is said by most audiophiles to be outdated and an inaccurate way of producing musical highs. They object that a horn sounds too bright.

I once owned some Klipsch RF-1 speakers. At the time they produced the finest sounds I'd ever heard in my living room. They were especially good at pounding out the drums on rock albums like The Who's Tommy. What I appreciated, too, was that these 48" tall beasts, each weighing 50 lbs., were made in the USA. In Hope, Arkansas.

Klipsch speakers with their distinctive copper
colored speaker cones, horn speaker
at the top...and made in Hope, Arkansas

Short on time, we didn't visit the Klipsch factory, but I noted a pair of Klipschs hanging from the ceiling of the Tailgater's Cafe. I left thinking of giant watermelons, rock 'n' roll, and a burger loving boy who grew up to be president. Mama, please check my temperature. I may have a slight case of patriotism... - V.W.

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Road Report: Texarkana, the City that Lays It On the LIne

Foreground: Texas. Background: Arkansas

I'd never been to Texarkana. Wait. Which Texarkana am I talking about? Because there are two.

There's Texarkana, Texas.

There's Texarkana, Arkanasas.

Both are cities with populations between 30,000 and 40,000 people.

And they are separated by an invisible line. But invisibility is not an impediment to appreciating civic distinctions. City fathers long ago sought to make the invisible visible. They built a building and put up a sign.

All you have to do is drive downtown and you'll see the impressive combination Courthouse and Post Office built of stone. One half of this building is in Texas. One half is in Arkansas.

Naturally this has any passerby thinking to himself or herself "Photo-op!"

A person can stand here with a foot in each state.

This is what we did. But that wasn't all there was to it.

At that moment I felt very odd vibrations pass through my body. I reached out and touched the metal longitude/latitude sign. It seemed to be pulsing with electromagnetic energy...

Consider this: On the Arkansas side of the line I was sensing Hope, Arkansas which lies less than a hour down the highway. President William Jefferson Clinton was born there.

On the Texas side of the line I felt faint vibrations of President George W. Bush, born somewhat distantly in Midland, Texas.

Both men from these border states grew up and avoided the major danger to their health and welfare, the Vietnam War. Both were criticized for it, yet both men ended up living for 8 years at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Did these two men from either side of the line have anything else in common? Well, each of them was likable in person with down-home, relatable personalities. Other than that, though.

Two sides of the line.

The yin and the yang.

Maybe this is why I felt so strange standing there doing my awkward straddle.

And it wasn't just political.

I felt other contraries.

Good and bad.


Light and darkness.


Merciful and pitiless.


Love and hate.

I don't like lines. I find it difficult to detect them. I'll think I'm standing in one place and discover that I'm just a few metaphorical inches removed. That slight shift is enough that I'm actually occupying another territory altogether.

For example, I think I have the smartest idea since that touchstone for my parents, sliced bread! No,turns out  my idea only feels original because it's so dumb  it's never even occurred to anyone before I came along.

Or I think there's a passionate angel whispering in my ear, but it's some devil of unalloyed selfishness.

But don't let this brief philosophical digression mislead anyone. I wasn't trying to discover whether Texas or Arkansas is the better state and then jump to that side of the line. A few minutes later we drove into Arkansas. After all, this is America. If all the red, white and blue flags I kept seeing flying in front of homes and businesses could have spoken words to go with their snapping in the wind, they might have intoned, "It's all good." Isn't that how one wants to feel about one's country?

What I worried about post-Texarkana wasn't the state of the nation, but the state of me. What I'd remembered back there in front of the Courthouse/Post Office is that there's always a line going through the middle of me. It can be a bit disturbing to carry the image futher--to start to visualize the little journeys I make back and forth across that line.

Thoughtful me, thoughtless me.

Gentle me, violent me.

Creative me, mediocre me.

Energetic me, slothful me.

Good me, bad me.

Maybe that's what impelled me a ways down the highway to throw the steering wheel to the right. We took the exit. We were headed to a place called "Hope." - V.W.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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Hotel Hazards

Here we are on the road and I woke up this morning and had a realization. I can't completely relax during this vacation.

Not until we get to our Sunday night destination and stop staying in overnight lodgings. You see, hotels and motels are a problem for the Van Winkles of the world.

I opened up my room door this morning and this is what I saw.

A USA Today at my feet. USA Todays up and down the hall way. A veritable USA Today news minefield.

I tiptoed around these visual temptations and made it safely to the elevator without glimpsing a headline.

Then the breakfast room assaulted me. Of course, there's an HD screen  blaring the morning news, weather, and road reports.

I was able to grab my much needed coffee and get out like a soldier who had wandered into no-man's land and somehow made it back to his trench without any bullets hitting him.

I did see the weather report numbers, which is all right since that's the kind of news that's personal and unavoidable. Also, because it didn't tell me anything I didn't know.

Straight 100+-degree F. days for the next five days. Absurd!

But the good news is that we're driving north today. We should start to see daily highs "only" in the mid-90s.

Is there a lesson or a moral in all this? Only that I haven't been on vacation in a while and a good feeling is starting to come back. It's one of shedding my known life and daily routine.

Now someone else is making the morning pot of coffee. Someone else is going to make our beds. Someone else is going to cook dinner every time we decide to eat out.

It's nice too that I don't have a bunch of clothing choices, only what's in my bag. No office to go to. Reading email? Let's just call that "optional."

And there's a different view outside each morning.

Sunrise over the hotel parking lot. Not Eden, but not the same old same old either...

The effect of being on vacation is that a little more of who I normally am falls off each hour as the wheels of the car keep rolling and my familiar world becomes just an accumulation of miles behind me.

Sometimes it's good not to be "me," even if for a while longer I can't get around the fact that I still have to be "Van Winkle." - V.W.


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Van Winkle Plans a Vacation

It's that time of the year. Many Americans are hitting the open road for their family vacations. Here at The Van Winkle Project, we're about to do the same.

Planning phase.

America is such a large country with so many roads and sights to see that it invites this kind of diversion. All you need is a car, money for gas, and a hotel or campground to stay at when the end of the driving day comes.

I grew up in a family in which the parents had a vehicle especially well suited for the road trip: a station wagon.

By the time it was over we would have owned two Ford wagons, each with all that luxurious space behind the passenger seat for three small boys to spread out in. And unlike a mini-van, which was yet to be invented, a station wagon rode just like a car.

Cruisin' and smooth!

We made 18-hour drives between Wyoming and Oklahoma. We drove to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park.

Trusty vacation road machine: Our 1957 Ford Country Sedan...

After we moved to Alaska long road trips would cease by necessity. Places in Alaska tended to be connected by airplane, not asphalt. Motivated by the lure of salmon to catch, though, we still made plenty of 100-200 mile day trips in the last of those Ford station wagons, the one we boys called "the Golden Pig." We hauled our aluminum boat on the rooftop.

How We Did It

Preparations for road trips in those days were fairly simple. My dad bought a case of motor oil because the 427 engine in the '57 wagon had a leak in the valve cover and we had to pull over every couple of hours and add a quart. He got some maps at the gas station.


Part of the vacation "goodie box." Disgusting,

metallic tasting store-brand soft drinks.

Cheaper than Coke or Pepsi, our parents considered it

a "bargain."

 As for our mom, she prepared the "goodie box" which contained chips, cookies, and soft drinks.

And, of course, she packed our suitcases, standard hinged affairs with snap locks.

We loaded up and we hit the highway.


Our second car, the famous "Golden Pig" which
took us on trips in Alaska.


There was very little in the way of radio stations to listen to. We had no battery-powered devices to help us out. If we had a breakdown, we would have to stand at the side of the road and look pathetic because there was no such thing yet as a cell phone.

But we had a good time.

In the back seat, my brothers and I squished together in a fraternal way we were long used to. We read books, dozed.

I used to stare at the blur of landscape and try to hear symphonies in my head. Time's passage was a slow, aching bruise, but I think somehow we were better able to bear boredom in those days. Having very little to do seemed closer to the daily norm than something exceptional and unbearable.

Gotta Get Away

So there's this family reunion we're heading to in Branson, Missouri, a place I will not write about at this time, even though there's much that could be said about it as a tourist destination.

The reunion begins this Sunday.

For a variety of reasons we're going to make our way north slowly,  never driving more than 300 miles at a time over the next four days.

For entertainment on the road we have:

• Sirius satellite radio*
• Great Courses lectures on CDs
• Music CDs
• Music stored on an iPhone
• MP3 player
• Books

*NB: The Van Winkle Project travels with me, so there will be no news or sports programming allowed to reach our ears.

Where will we stay? In the old days my dad hardly ever planned for such eventualities. It would have meant the difficulty of digging up the information about a hotel in another state, then making an expensive long distance phone call to get a room reservation. 

So we looked for a hotel when the time came, usually an hour after the sun dropped below the horizon and we started seeing the highway courtesy of our headlights.

Vacation research question: Will this Comfort Inn
really be comfortable?

But I don't like to subject us to chance and roaches.

Last week I spent hours reseraching lodging on-line and read guest reviews. Then I booked us rooms for each night. Even eating options have been noted.

Of course, one could just hop in the car and see what happens. Which seems to me a major difference between 21st Century road travel and the 20th Century's version of the same.

These days we have way more choices about how to approach our adventure.

Will we be like Columbus who sailed off with nothing more firm in his mind than that surely he would eventually reach India (about which he was completely wrong). Alternatively, will our road trip be more like a NASA moonshot with every possible contingency planned for?

Or perhaps something in-between?

I suspect many readers can testify that their best road trip moments have happened after a wrong turn. Or unexpected weather. Or an encounter with a stranger.

Mystery should be part of the lure of leaving home, too. Let's close the travel guide for a moment, fold up the maps, and just wonder. America's a big country. What is out there that I can't even imagine? - V.W.

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