We woke up to the sound of rain on our roof and in the trees outside and it has continued steadily all day. So for our Monday adventure I decided we'd brave the outdoors just a little and visit Bingham Canyon Mine. This was formerly called Kennecott Copper Mine. The drive was a little intense with bizarrely foggy/cloudy conditions and it took a full hour to get there which surprised me since the mine is just in the southwest corner of Salt Lake valley and we're in the Northeast. Who knew the valley was so huge? Luckily I have 3 boy-boys and the mine did not disappoint one bit. Even Miles kept saying "wooooowwww". More to copy the other boys but cute none the less. You get to drive through part of the open pit mine and then there's a Visitor Center and an overlook of the main pit.
This tire is off of one of the "haul trucks" that we refered to as monster trucks. They're basically huge dump trucks and they're so big that the driver has to climb a set of 20 stairs to just get into the cab. Trust me we know since Ethan made sure to count them all. If you want a true perspective, look at how small the kids are next to the tire, then look at the last picture and see how small the monster truck is next to the mine behind it. Crazy!
The Visitor Center was really neat but of course the boys prefered being outside in the rain watching the action. You drive through this part which was very impressive.
And then you come around the curve to this... they've literally carved out the mountain. It's 3/4 of a mile deep!
The boys were fascinated by these trucks so we watched them getting filled by large diggers and then driving up and down and around all the roads and finally to where they dump car size boulders into a machine that crushes them to the size of basketballs. Ethan was most impressed by the fact we read that just one of these trucks could hold 6 humpback whales. He kept repeating this to me in an astonished voice and as we drove away he finally asked me- "mom, why do they put whales in the trucks?"
So who really knows what they learned from our little adventure but they loved it! Did you know that the mine is so big you can see it from space?
The Visitor Center was really neat but of course the boys prefered being outside in the rain watching the action. You drive through this part which was very impressive. 
And then you come around the curve to this... they've literally carved out the mountain. It's 3/4 of a mile deep! 
The boys were fascinated by these trucks so we watched them getting filled by large diggers and then driving up and down and around all the roads and finally to where they dump car size boulders into a machine that crushes them to the size of basketballs. Ethan was most impressed by the fact we read that just one of these trucks could hold 6 humpback whales. He kept repeating this to me in an astonished voice and as we drove away he finally asked me- "mom, why do they put whales in the trucks?" 
So who really knows what they learned from our little adventure but they loved it! Did you know that the mine is so big you can see it from space? 
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