Dec 28 ---
We slept through the night witout incident, no tornadoes but a lot of wind and rain. Up early to reports, on the telly, that major storm and tornado warnings issued during the night would expire but 8:00am CST. We made a decision to delay our departure until after that time. The forecast called for high winds but no weather. High winds meant twixt 30-40 mph gusts.

When i said telly i meant our digital antenna television. In Traverse City at our house we can receive 3 channels. in Marion we picked up 5 channels and in Memphis we had 10. One channel had vintage movies, Hopalong Cassidy played a bad guy to rid the town of evil characters in a film from the '40s. Three channels had religious programming, of course, what did i expect on Sunday? The rest delivered an assortment of paid programming and news. Hence the weather in the morning. At least the weather man did not talk down to the viewers.  He gave the information about the storms coming without comment. Quite refreshing.
After the main round of bad weather cleared we headed for Archadelphia, Ar. The town where my mother and father got married. Actually, we headed for Crater of Diamonds State Park outside of Murfreesboro, AR. Archadelphia stood at an interchange of our trip to the park. We intended to pay for our trip by finding diamonds at the park and selling them for much money. That and winning the Powerball lotto will make me rich. So far Deb and I will fund this trip out of our own pockets.
We encountered major head wins on our drive to The park. We average 65mph as a middle ground to speed and gas costs. Our mileage peaks at 65mph. Faster, we get to our place sooner but at a cost of gas. Slower and we never reach our destination and don't save much in gas. so on the road i drove and found the predicted headwinds. I would drive straight down the road then the crosswind of (?)30mph would hit on my left front blowing me sideways until i steered into it and stabilized just in time for it to stop blowing and i had to adjust all over again. A grueling task for 4 hours. Our mile dropped from about 10mpg to 8 due to headwinds!
I believe the Army sent my father to Archadelphia and my mother followed. The town has a small almost dead downtown and K-Mart outside of town. Go figure K-Mart has headquarters in Arkansas. I did take a picture of the Town Hall, place where my parents may have gotten their license and tied the knot. I know no more. I am such a softie!
On to the diamond mind and riches!!! We arrived at the state park and got our camp site.Then we went to the open pit and began our search. One can find diamonds in three areas of the world. South Africa, Russia and Arkansas, possibly more if you check Google. You need and ancient, ancient volcano that exploded and got covered and eroded out.

In the cone that descends into the earth you may find diamonds. Diamonds found in these locations have the same quality and value. So when Deb or I find the big score we will buy drinks for all. Don't hold your breath!

Cold, wet,  back aching and tired we retired from the diamond field. At he camp site we found no digital channels and resorted to reading for the night. Next stop the Louisiana coast and 70 degrees!!!!!