Big Trucks

Colby loves cars and trucks. Cuyler brought us all up to the open pit copper mine near Salt Lake last week so Colby could see some really big trucks. Colbs was indeed wide-eyed very excited. We watched some of the hugest dump trucks hauling loads of rocks and he was saying "big trucks" over and over.

Here is some info we learned while we were at the visitor center there:

• Kennecott Utah Copper 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 2 Sears Towers on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine.
  
• The mine is so big it can be seen by astronauts in space.


• The largest electric shovel can scoop up 98 tons of material in a single bite.(~50 cars)


• To make all the pennies, nickels, dimes & quarters in 1999, the US Mint used about 36,000 tons of copper. That amount of refined copper would take 41 days to produce at Kennecott Utah Copper.

In front of a dump truck tire.


There are three dump trucks in a row here drving up the hill and then you can see a fourth one down a bit further. Behind that fourth one is a white truck right at the corner. That white truck is a normal sized vehicle. These dump trucks were MONSTERS!



A 'tired' Colby. Ha ha.


There was a museum too with tons of model trucks.



It was a fun trip!