MN Museum of Mining [ Tuesday ]

Tuesday morning we drove up to Chisholm, MN.

The Minnesota Museum of Mining is here, and we heard there was a few BIG, real boy toys to climb on...and there sure was! There was also ALOT of historical information that was quite interesting.

There was a mock mine shaft that we went down into, it was noticeably cooler and had some really cool gear that we tried out. It looked like a tough job to be a miner.

The museum part was so interesting. How they used to go to and from school...in a giant wooden bus sled drawn by horses. An old school room, the way a doctor would do house calls, how two men would saw huge logs in order to mill them, a barber shop set up...just a few of the things we learned about.

Then we went outside to check out the original equipment that was used to mine.

We were able to closely check them all out.

Christian "driving" the huge steam shovel.

A couple of the crew members.

The biggest dump truck I have ever seen in real life in the background.

We look so tiny up there!

I can't even imagine how they actually drove this thing!!

One of these dump truck tires, cost $18,000 (and that was in 2006)!

The sign says it is the largest drag line bucket of its kind.

On the way back to the cabin, we stopped at a park to have a picnic in Hibbing. It just so happened the United Way volunteers were handing out free lunches to kids. They insisted we should take one for each of the kids, and so we did. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was perfect for us!!

And bonus, there was this awesome playground!