That's a big hole in the ground...

If you look to the west from where we’re living, you’ll see a big part of the mountain torn up by the Kennecott Copper Mine… so naturally, I wanted to get a chance to go up and check it out.  They have a little visitor’s center up there, and from that point you can see the massive dump trucks going around and down into the massive pit to collect rocks filled with copper and other minerals.  The overall operation is pretty massive in about every aspect.  The hole is the largest open pit mine in the world, the trucks can carry over 300 tons of rock at a time, and the mine produces 25% of all US copper per year.  Sure, it’s just a big hole in the ground, but we’ve gone out of our way to see stranger things in these blog posts! 

There it is!  You can't appreciate how big it is in this picture, but you'll have to take our word for it.

 

 Adam was a fan of the real big trucks driving all around, and all the toy trucks they had on display in the visitor center.

And yes, that's a big tire.  They said these things cost about $20,000 each and only last 9 months!  Thankfully we don't drive a dump truck.  But overall, pretty cool stuff, and a good way to spend part of a day!