Salt Mine

Today we visited an underground salt mine & museum (one of the "8 wonders of Kansas!").  We rode down an elevator 650 feet underground and took a tour of the mine, which is still in use today.

We all had to wear hard hats and strap an emergency breathing device over our shoulder in case there was a fire. Of course we didn't find that out until after we paid. But we were relieved to find out that in the 50 years since the breathing devices were made available not once had one been needed. Whew!

We even got to dig for our own salt rocks. Annette decided to take this puppy home.

(Just kidding...our tour guide just let her hold it for a picture.)

Isn't this cute? I couldn't resist. We're such tourists.

There is also a huge underground storage area, where items such as records, documents, data tapes, movie films, art & artifacts, and even movie memorabilia are stored.  The underground salt mine facility is supposedly "one of the largest and most secure storage facilities in the world".  All storage is protected from natural and manmade disasters because it's 650 feet under the earth's surface, and it's surrounded by a 400 foot thick rock salt "cocoon".  I never knew such things existed.  Amazing.

Here is one of the first computers ever built. Can you believe how far technology has come in 30 years???

It was a very interesting tour, and the kids got some salt water taffy for Grammy back in Vegas.

On the drive home Mr. Hamilton noticed his friend was just about to go up in his paraglider, so we pulled over to watch.

Mr. Hamilton treated everybody to dinner at Freddy's Frozen Custard -- yum! They don't have In-N-Out in Kansas, but this came very close. Their frozen custard sundaes are de-lish!