Day 24

Day 24 – Wednesday – July 14, 2010

0640 Time to get up. Shower and get dressed then head over to the office to get some coffee and bring back breakfast for the kids. Not much there to choose from – end up with a blueberry bagel and some bread and butter.

0730 Wake up the kids.

0755 Leaving the hotel. Stop to take a picture of Buddy in front of the Buddy's Ranch House Café. The camera lens is fogging up in the hot humid air.

0808 Arrive at the Diamond Mine. Current temperatures is 76 degrees but I'm not sure what the heat index is. Ryan asks why it is so hot so early in the morning. Welcome to the South!

0920 Leaving the mine. We are hot, sweaty, dirty, and defeated. All we found were some orange and red rocks. Very nice orange and red rocks mind you. But no diamonds.

My question to the kids as we left (now that we have seen a gold mine and a diamond mine)… Would you like to have lived as a prospector during the gold and silver rush times?

Felisa – No!

Bella – Blech!

Ryan – Wouldn't be too happy

1028 Arkadelphia, AR. Gas, $2.58/gallon

1031 Sonic

1048 "Pigs!" says the sign in the corner of the field… We see what appear to be horses but no pigs. Do the pigs look different in Arkansas than they do everywhere else?

1050 Stop at McD's to get some food for Felisa (she doesn't care for Sonic too much) and to use the bathroom (Sonic didn't have one).

12:25 p.m. I'm tired today. I think it takes me about 3 weeks of road tripping to get to this point – tired and more ready to go home, less interested in stopping to see things along the way.

12:32 p.m. They are out mowing along the highway today. There is a lot of trash out here!

12:35 p.m. A lot of trucks on the road today.

12:47 p.m. Louisiana Purchase State Park. Sounds interesting. Maybe on a future visit…

12:48 p.m. Jo fell off the window. It's been a week since that last happened.

1:02 p.m. Trying to count the number of cars versus the number of trucks. This is actually very difficult to do without a sheet of paper to make tick marks or another person to split up the categories. As best as I can tell, there are about 60% semi-trucks and 40% passenger cars. It seems like there are more trucks than that per car but maybe that's just because they are so big and slow.

1:48 p.m. Mississippi River and Tennessee!

2:21 p.m. Arrive at the Ruthlings' house.

The kids are all very happy to be here. They get to play together a little before Merryn goes to her piano lesson. After piano, the kids all hit the pool for a couple hours. Then dinner, cookies for dessert, and TV time. Darcy and I watched the summer season premier of Psych and the kids played Mario 4.

10:00 p.m. Bedtime. I am so tired…