Deep Inside a Copper Mine

Deep Inside a Copper Mine

The Queen Mine Tour parking lot sat virtually empty at 1: 30 pm on a hot March day. Mom, Sam, and I were going on a tour of the old Bisbee, Arizona, copper mine at 2 PM. My favorite blue sweatshirt was tied around my waist. Mom said the mine was like Grandma's house in Tennessee. Not too cold, but not warm. That translated into cool for me. On the tour, I learned that the mine stays at about 47 degrees Fahrenheit. Actually, that is downright cold to me.

I imagined walking through the front door of the Queen Mine Tour building and seeing a humongous gaping hole in a rock wall. Instead, I saw counters and shelves of gear on my right-yellow rain slickers, hardhats, and belt-looking things with lamps. There was an old fireplace spewing heat even though it was hot as the dickens outside. The room even smelled like Grandma's house. Mom was more right than she thought.

What I didn't realize was that the rain slickers were for us. We had to put them on before going into the mine. I hated the whole idea of putting on a heavy vinyl coat that hardly let you breathe. First, I put on my sweatshirt, then the yellow slicker. It was stiff and made crackly sounds as I shoved my arms through the clammy holes.

I immediately felt a weight around my waist as the tour guide placed a battery pack around me. He showed me how to clip a lamp to my rain slicker; then, I heard it snap closed. The best part was that I got to wear a hardhat. It almost made the yucky, stiff feeling of the slicker worth the trip.

We walked through the building and out the back door to the outside. The sunlight hurt my eyes and made me see stars. My sweatshirt and slicker weighed more than I thought they would. We climbed on board what the tour guide called a man-car. All of the sudden this was getting to be fun. Everyone had to straddle these padded benches in the center of each car like we were riding on the back of one long horse. The guide started up the engine, which sounded like a big lawn mower, and the man-car chugged toward the mine.