And I geeked out so hard.
We set our alarms for 5:30am to make the hour trek out of the most beautiful of BFEs to the Twin Creek Crystal Mine.
When I say BFE, I mean the closest Dollar General to us is over a half hour away.
Josh did his usual morning routine consisting of drinking multiple cups of coffee, snorting his sinus drainage down at max volume and melting into the couch while trying to hold his phone in the sky to find service for a half an hour. Meanwhile, I’m feeling the rage build as I’m racing to beat the clock. I leave grumpy and annoyed. I’m a woman who is usually at least 15 minutes early. He’s a man that’s at least 15 minutes late.
The grumpiness only multiplies when we realize that we’ve plugged an incorrect address in our GPS and are now smack dab in the middle of a mountain trailer court 45 minutes away from our intended destination. There was another heat advisory today so we were trying desperately to outrun the climbing UV index to get an early start. The near death experience (or so it felt like - this may be exaggerated for content) on Crystal Vista put some much needed common sense into our excitement for crystal digging.
We finally find the mine and take the ol’ trusty Acadia up the side of the mountain. The road isn’t the greatest. The pot holes would make I-65 blush. There is also little signage and no cell service to ensure that you’re on the right gravel road out of many. It took a lot of self control for me to not lose my shit multiple times.
After a few Hail Marys we make it up the hill and travel into the mine. We are the first to arrive for the day, even after our setbacks. I am thrilled at this point and all of the gravel road rage subsides.
But the early bird does not get the worm in this story.
Here’s a little something you need to know if you make it this direction. Bring cash. Have cash. Swim in cash. Do not rely on your debit card - especially if you travel 20 miles up a hill only for the rudest (this one not exaggerated for content) woman at the check in to tell you she doesn’t have minutes for her phone and therefore cannot accept your debit card.
And y’all know how I handle super, super rude people.
I’ll spare the details but I’m sure if Josh posts anything about the day he’ll reference some award winning Amanda one liners.
After the colorful comments, witty word lashings and ‘am I a Karen?’ self questioning, we go back down the mountain to the closest ATM which is 30 minutes away.
We finally make it back up the mountain for a second time with cash in hand. Josh refuses to let me go to the check in station because I could not play nice so he gets us all checked in. We secure a spot in the shade and get to digging.
The shaded area isn’t near as rich in minerals as the sun exposed areas but I’m not genetically made up like my naturally tan skinned husband. If I am not in the shade I will leave blister juice on your home furnishings and I do not want to do that to my sweet Ray and Karen.
After a lot of hard digging and scraping we find at least 1/4 of a 5 gallon bucket of clear crystals with the most insane points and lots of little crystal clusters.
During our dig we had a family sit next to us in our shaded area. It’s a mother and her 15 kids. Again, not exaggerated for content. Many of the children ventured off into other parts of the large mine. The two kids that stayed in our area were sweet as pie. The youngest, Joe, was probably 9 or 10. He reminded me so much of my Reedman. I kept secretly throwing super nice crystals his direction so he could “find” them.
I’ll stop here before the next part to remind you that not everything is as it appears. I mean we all know that (except for Josh’s Aunt Mary - ope). Hell, my house more often than not looks like it needs condemned with laundry piles I hate getting to but I’ll hide them for a banging interior picture.
The mother quickly added to my salty summer attitude when she demanded the kids shovel in 100 degree sun so she could sit and bark orders, gaslight them literally the entire time and be super narcissistic. They have a website and they were recording their YouTube videos on how happy they are “taking their kids back from the pits of hell in schools”.
I can personally tell you the mother is an absolute fraud. I was appalled at her slave driving antics. At one point I was ready to haul poor overheated Joe off of the mountain but his mother kept feeding him the “you’re a quitter if you stop”, “we have to do this for our YouTube channel” verbiage. Never mind the fact he was bright red, hardly able to even hold the shovel and profusely sweating. He kept repeating over and over he wanted to go home; at one time getting overly emotional trying to tell her how hot he was. Broke my heart.
The kicker? They had the same last name as us.
Edit: And yes, there were colorful comments there too. I think I was nearly thrown out of that mine twice.
Anyway.
Tomorrow we are braving the heat again to make it to Fischer Mountain to try our hand at this mining claim. I can’t wait to see what we uncover. Crystal mining itself is such a neat experience.
Let’s just hope we’re early and that I wake up on the right side of the mountain before we go
On the top of the Ouachita Mountains, in an active crystal mine, Josh and I got to experience digging for our own crystals today.
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