Time for a report on Billy’s wild weekend adventure! Well, my cell phone started working when I was about an hour away from Salt Lake City. Apparently the Sprint network in the whole state of Utah had a problem for over 12 hours. Awesome. I think my contract runs out here in a few months, I may let that happen and shop around.
I made it up to Layton and met up with Bill Sr. We went to Marie Calendar’s for lunch, that was some tasty food! Before our food arrived, I called up Pete, our hang glide instructor. He had just landed from a tandem flight, during which the wind was a little uncooperative, which led to getting crossed up on the landing and ultimately breaking part of his glider. Nothing serious, but to fly he needed to repair the wing, and he had no spare parts on hand. So we couldn’t fly, blast!
After a little moping, we decided that the copper mine might be fun to go ogle. After finding directions online, we headed out. It took almost an hour to get there from Layton, but it was only $5 to get in. We went way up the hill, then down into the pit, where the visitor’s center is nestled. We watched the little intro video, got blown away by the massiveness of the numbers and stats, then went out and just stared at the whole thing for over an hour. We didn’t even realize how long we’d been there, the place is mind blowing. The most impressive thing to me was that the trucks can carry a load of just over a half million pounds! And each truck is a little bigger than the condo I live in.
Now it was time to meet up with my kid sister, go eat dinner, and go rock. We went to Lonestar Steakhouse, and it was wonderful. I had the sweet bourbon salmon with a sweet potato, it was delectable. Off to The Depot to see Les. The Two Gallants were the opening show. Just two scronny white kids that could rock with a very original style. The guitar player/lead singer played a Les Paul guitar and played it well. It sounded like there was a bass guitar hidden on stage somewhere. They started off with at least 5 minutes of jamming that sounded kind of distant, which reminded me of other music I’ve heard, and my sister nailed it on the head. She mentioned that they kind of sounded like Explosions in the Sky. Then the guitar player started belting out vocals and totally surprised me at how he sounded. His voice kind of made me think of a higher, raspier John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The drummer had about as much energy as a hyperactive 3 year old with ADD who had just topped off a box of sugar cubes and washed it down with a cappuccino. They were quite entertaining.
Then Les Claypool came out with his bass guitar, Gabby La La (who I’d seen with him on his Bucket of Bernie Brains tour) on the sitar, the drummer of Cake in the back, and 2 guys I was unfamiliar with, one on baritone sax, and a utility guy in the back on xylophones and other various percussion instruments. It was an awesome show that I’d describe as power funk/jazz. No traditional lead guitar was ever on stage during that part of the show. Just a bass guitar and sitar were the closest, although the sax player had some awesome riffs that rivaled many a guitar riff.
The only downside to the show was “the lovers.” A grimy couple had apparently gotten all hopped up on ecstasy (however it’s spelled, the drug) and couldn’t get off of each other. Somehow they ended up migrating over to where we were comfortably watching the show, and stayed there for probably an hour. I’m tall enough to just look right over their heads and block them from my view, but my Dad and Sister had to witness their every move. We could have moved, but the place was crowded and we figured we couldn’t get a better view.
All in all it was a great weekend. Here are a couple pics from the mine:
A shot of the main hole of the mine. It’s the largest excavation site in the world. You can see it from space!
Here’s a great perspective shot. This shows the size of the load trucks, a water truck, a normal pickup, and a bus. Click on either of these pics for more of the mine.
