Jason and I have been super busy getting our lives all settled down here in Arkansas.  Between working on the house and going biking all the time we haven’t had a lot of down time.  We’re even starting to make friends! However… we’re starting to get antsy.  We haven’t stayed in the same place for years now so it’s been weird always coming back to the house every day.  So… it’s time for a road trip! 🙂

I haven’t dug for rocks in ages and Arkansas is known for having lots of places to mine for quartz crystals so we loaded up the Jeep with all of our camping gear and headed south to the Ouachita mountains.  Our first stop was at Crystal Vista hiking area outside Mt. Ida.  The crystal vista is a short but steep and unpleasant hike up a mountain to sift through the tailings of an old quartz mining area.  We didn’t really know what to expect but slowly figured out where and how to find the beautiful clear quartz crystals.  It was a long drive and starting to get late, so we headed back down the hill so we could get to our campsite before it got dark.

We were headed towards the crystal recreation area campsite that got great reviews online but, in true Jason fashion, we saw a random trail off the side of the road and went down that instead. LOL.  As usual it turned out to be a great idea and we happened on this random, flat cleared area that was the perfect place to stop for the night.  No one will find us here!  We were also using this trip as a test run for the Jeep and our new camping setup.  So we fiddled with parking the Jeep level, setting up the new roof top tent, and cooking our first meal. (it was hot dogs… lets not make this harder than it needs to be).

So fun fact: it gets dark FAST in the woods.  We sat around in our chairs for a bit and then I got paranoid and retreated to the imagined safety of the tent.  One thing I love about this brand tent over the ones we’ve had in the past is that the canvas blocks most of the light so it’s very dark inside.  The mattress was reasonably comfortable (we’re definitely replacing it though) and we slept fairly comfortably.  To make our lives easier Jason just boiled some water for our instant oatmeal breakfast in paper bowls and we were on our way fairly early to get back up to crystal vista to spend the day digging in the sticky red clay.

We dug until the early afternoon and then both of us realized how hard it is to dig for rocks while sitting in the dirt.  We were both exhausted with aching hands and knees and completely filthy.  Our bucket was nowhere near full but we decided to call it a day and head out to Hot Springs to get a hotel for the night because we both really wanted a shower!

After a hot dinner overlooking the lake and hot showers at the hotel, Jason and I slept awesome!