Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Hi-Ho Hi-Ho.....a miners life in Bisbee, AZ

On Saturday we drove about 30 minutes to the neighboring town of Bisbee.  Bisbee really is a neat little town.  Founded in the mid-late 1800s it was a booming mining town and the surrounding hills yielded gold, copper, silver, lead, and zinc.  By the 1970s all the mines had closed and as the mining employees left a new era began for Bisbee as free spirited artists moved in.  So what you've got now is a small mountain community with century old architecture, cool vibe, and crazy, funky, artwork everywhere.  nice!

So our main agenda was to take a tour of one of the original copper mines. The Queen Mine.  


Let's be honest.  Garrett and I were pretty excited about this tour because they dressed you up in a hard hat, head lamp, and bright yellow slicker.  And then {!} you hop on a little train and ride the rails deep, DEEP, into the mine.  When we told the kiddos that morning we were going to dress up like miners and take a little train ride, they were pretty excited too!



Gavin was definitely the youngest miner that day and he looked pretty darn cute!



All aboard! 





{While we were in the mine it was obvisouly dark and I took a few photos using my flash but I really didn't want to be the annoying snap-happy lady in the back disturbing everyone else's experience with my continuous flash so I opted to ditch it.  Therefore, most of the photos are a bit dark and fuzzy.  But I think you can still get the idea of what it was like in there :) }





Our tour guide was a retired mine employee from a near by mine.



An OLD elevator... 



 Heading back out to the daylight...




 This is a little video from the train ride.  


The kiddos did great!  We were a little nervous they would have a freak-out moment once we traveled into the cold dark hole in the wall of the mountain...but, nope, they had a blast! 


Afterwards we had some AH-mazing Mexican food for lunch!  We ordered the tableside made guacamole...


and Kayla straight up ate it with a fork!


Then it was time to explore the town...










So much fun!!  Bisbee.  A very cool little town.  We'll definitely be visiting it again!


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