Christian Liden has nurtured a dream since 8th grade: to one day create an engagement ring for his future wife out of materials he himself mined. It was this dream that propelled him to Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park where he discovered a 2.20 carat yellow diamond—especially precious. Liden, 26, made the 2,000-mile trip from Poulsbo, Washington, with a friend. They arrived on May 7, armed with mining equipment they had built themselves, and spent an hour wet sifting for diamonds before retiring for the night. Liden made his remarkable discovery on day 3 of the trip. “I saw it shining as soon as I turned the screen over and immediately knew it was a diamond,” Liden explained in an Arkansas State Parks news release. “I was shaking so bad, I asked my buddy to grab it out of the gravel for me!” The park’s Diamond Discovery Center confirmed that the gem …