She spent years hoping to find a diamond for her engagement ring. She found one in an Arkansas park

Some people search for “the one” before they get married. For Micherre Fox, hers appeared at her feet – a glimmering diamond in the rough.

About two years ago, the 31-year-old New Yorker decided she wanted to find her own diamond for her engagement ring.

“I was willing to go anywhere in the world to make that happen,” Fox said, but her research pointed to a destination in the US: Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.

After completing graduate school, and backed by a supportive partner who agreed to wait for the perfect stone, Fox told Arkansas State Parks, she set off on July 8 to try her hand at the only place in the world where the public can dig for – and keep – diamonds.

After three weeks of near-daily digging in the summer heat, the longshot quest paid off in dazzling fashi