family fun

on tuesday (our family's saturday) we took an educational family fun trip to.... Kennecott Copper Mine! neither of us have been there before and we figured it would be fun to learn about the largest copper mine in America! which by the way you can see from space! here are some fun facts about the mine:

• Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine has produced more copper than any mine in history - about 18.1 million tons.
• The mine is 2-3/4 miles across at the top and 3/4 of a mile deep. You could stack two Sears Towers (now known as the Willis Building) on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.
• The mine is so big, it can be seen by the space shuttle astronauts as they pass over the United States.
• By 2015, the mine will be at least 500 feet deeper than it is now.
• If you stretched out all the roads in the open pit mine, you'd have 500 miles of roadway - enough to reach from Salt Lake City to Denver.

we thought there would be a little bit more that just a tiny room of artifacts and a 16 minute informational video but hey, it got us out of the house and we learned a lot.

the look out point is amazing. i am sure it is impossible to grasp just how large this mine is from the visitor's center location. i wish we could have drove down in it. the trucks they use to transport the rocks make semi's look like tic tacs.

we also got to watch and feel them blow up a couple of spots on the mountain. they fill the holes with 1000 lbs. of explosives! yah the whole mountain shook.

Leo had a great time and learned a lot as well. haha.

cheers to our first family educational outing.