While we were staying in the Branson, MO area we had a couple of bad storms.  Two night in a row we had major thunderstorms and lots of rain, and on the second night we had a hail warning and a tornado watch.

But, about 10p.m. it was the rain and the flooding of the river our RV park was alongside that got us.  We got a call from the manager that the river was rising fast and we needed to evacuate.  We jumped up and got the rig secured, unplugged and hooked up to the truck in record time.

It was barely fast enough!  When I raised the leveling bars and picked up the little pads I put them on, I had to fish them out of the water.  We got out easily although we were both soaking wet.

We could see all our neighbors except one packing up.  The folks were were next door to us weren’t at home, and we don’t know if their RV flooded.  I hope not!

We went to a Lowe’s that was close by along with several of our neighbors.  In five years of full-time RVing this is the first time we’ve spent the night in a parking lot without water and electricity! We talked to several of our neighbors in the Lowe’s parking lot the next morning and found that one neighbor in 9G had flooding into his RV by the time he was able to get out and damage to his control panel.  We were in 7G and you can see from the picture below how far up the water would have risen for our site to be underwater.

The next morning we hooked up and headed to our next stop (that’s when we were planning to leave anyway) so we didn’t go back to the RV park.  I sure hope everyone got out ok!

We stayed in Vicksburg MS for one night while travelling from Picayune to Arkansas. When we checked in we were told that due to flooding of the Mississippi River and a water main break that was under the flooded area there would be no water, for possibly 5 days!

We did have water for a couple of hours from a nearby water tower so we filled up all our bottles and pitchers and pots. It was enough to wash a few dishes and flush the toilet and drink, but not enough for showers the next morning.

I do feel bad for all the residents of Vicksburg though, and I hope they managed ok with the combination of floodwaters and no water in the taps.

Here’s an article about what was happening in Vicksburg: click here

We visited Arkansas and stopped at the only diamond mine in the U.S. – Crater of Diamonds in Murfreesboro, AR.  It’s located on a state park and anyone can rent a shovel and screen and dig for diamonds!  You get to keep any that you find.

It’s a volcano crater actually.  It’s fairly level and gets plowed periodically to turn over the earth for the diggers. When we were there lots of other people were there as well, some with rented equipment like we had, some with wheelbarrows and equipment they owned.

It’s fairly easy – you can either walk around and look at the rocks and dirt laying on the ground…surprisingly some of the largest diamonds were found that way!  Or you can dig in the dry dirt, sifting the dirt through the screen.  Or you can take a bucket of dirt to a washing station where you submerge a screen-full at a time into a trough of water to get rid of the fine dirt and also wash dirt from the stones, and then sift through the wet dirt.

We worked at it for a few hours but didn’t find any diamonds, just some quartz, mica, and other stuff.  Just a few months a kid walking around found a 7-carat diamond!

Anyway, we had fun.  Here are some pictures: