Good to hear from you!

I'm in Arkansas, by choice, but only for a little while, because there are diamonds.

Yay! She lives!

I boycott diamonds, Jonathan. Although I've always wanted to visit Arkansas's diamond mine.

NewBoss Anais is in Arkansas this weekend as well, visiting family for the holidays. It occurs to me that one way to make yourself happy to go back to work is to spend your vacation something ghastly!

I do, in fact, live, Dail. (And no bail money needed yet!)

I didn't need things to explode, but I did expect at some point to find at least one character or situation interesting. Or funny. Or something.

Zzzzzzzz.

People stand around and make snarky remarks to each other. What's not to like?

Isn't that what most Oscar Wilde is, anyway?

I'm not big on diamonds myself (nor is Woody), but there's a funny thrill involved in digging for them yourself. Even knowing how unlikely it is, and how small most of them are, it's still pretty engrossing. Plus there's lot of other interesting stones you can find -- mostly we got Jasper, with a little volcanic ash and sandstone for color.

The park with the diamond mine also has a swim park (mostly kid-oriented, with sprayers and slides, and shallow), and I'm sure we're not the first (or even the first that day) to dig in the morning, have lunch at the cafe, and then go for a cooling swim.

The area is also a massive Quartz Crystal center, and there's a lot of rock stores on the roads, especially in the Ouachita forest. We had a great time at one in Mt. Ida, and the guy told us the secret to actually finding diamonds (take a bunch of rock home, dry it, and examine it under black light). That was, of course, after we'd done the digging, but if we ever go back....

Which is precisely what I like about Oscar Wilde. :)

The diamond trip sounds like it was a blast. I've been to the Ozarks dozens of time, of course, but never done that. If I find myself there again someday, I'm going to mine diamonds!