MillerTime: I Dig Dirt! Yes I do!

Howdy from Salt Lake City, Utah! I have been here on a business trip visiting The Kennicott Rio Tinto Open Pit Copper Mine which is a lubricants customer of Phillips 66. We provide a majority of the lubricants for their huge mining equipment.

View driving up to the mine. Sorry no pics from inside the mine. Not allowed.

Here are some shots from the web. It is just spectacular.

Yesterday we visited the shop to see how oil maintenance is performed on their giant haul trucks and other equipment. The trucks are the size of a house. Each wheel is 12 feet tall! See the following picture as an example.

Today after morning meetings, my college Justine and I each got to go on a ride in a haul truck as they go about their routines at the mine. Way cool! Each truck seats the driver and one other person. My host driver was Kyle. I spent three hours with him as we went about his routine. What a rush as you climb two flights of stairs to get to the cab! When I joined him, he was already carrying a full load (350 tons of rock). We drove to the top of the move to dump. Then drove down to their main electric shovel to get filled with ore. You think the trucks are big then you drive up to a shovel and just...WOW! Once loaded (took 6 shovel scoops), we drive to dump the load at the ore crusher. Then went down to the lower mine to get a fill from one of their giant hydraulic shovels. The whole tour took 3 hours, but went by so fast. Ultra fascinating! Definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

After ore meetings and s quick stop at one of our marketer/distributor facilities in town, we ate at a fantastic Mexican restaurant called The Red Iguana.

I guess it is famous and has been featured on the food network. The food was fabulous!

This evening we did a bit of sightseeing downtown and saw the Utah state Capitol. What a beautiful city and area. I would love to come back on vacation!