What to do when maps & GPS fail you....

Just keep driving!

That was the lesson I leaned this week on our trip to visit the Kennecott mine in South Jordan.

I tend to panic, hyperventilate and just generally freak out.

but being the grownup with a teenage driver I really don't want to pass on my bad habits so I tried to be calmer and found that calm works much much better than

FREAKING OUT

So it all started when...

My friend Heather and I decided to take advantage of Kennecott's advertised "visit us free in July" deal.

There is usually a small fee per car. I always look over at that mine when I drive to Salt Lake and think "I'd like to go there someday"
With my friend on board and the word "FREE" involved...
Those were 2 very good reason to get out of the hot house and take the kids somewhere interesting and educational even...

We decided we wanted to go early. They open at 8. We said "lets leave at 7:30!" Then we were both silent as we contemplated getting our respective households ready by 7:30 and somebody mumbled "maybe we could leave at 8:00" There was a quick agreement. That extra half an hour made everything much less daunting....

Heather didn't think we'd be there longer than about an hour & 1/2 or so after perusing their website. I didn't pack any food for the kids which is unusual for me. I did get water bottles filled for everyone.

We set off with Carly at the wheel trying to add more time to her driving log.

The map on the website told us to take the 10600 South exit To Bangerter Hwy. Heather's hubby told her she could just take the Bangerter exit but since neither of us are very familiar with the Salt Lake area and we couldn't get Kennecott mine or the address given on their website to show up on the GPS unit we had...

we decided we'd rather follow the map exactly then to take Bangerter and try to figure out how to coordinate that with what we could see on the map provided on the Kennecott website. How could we go wrong with a map provided by the Kennecott website we thought....

Well.... Let me tell you.
You can go very very wrong.

First, because of construction, my car missed the 10600 S exit. It was labeled with an exit # and not the name. Heather was behind us and made it so Carly and I headed up and took the next exit which was 9000 S. I thought we could do a quick turnaround and get back on the freeway. Nope. No quick turnaround. It just kept heading west.
Oh Crap! Those of you who know me well know that I have absolutely no internal compass. If there is a wrong turn to be made, I will make it.
I called Heather. She said "I think if you keep heading West you'll run into Bangerter Hwy and we can meet up from there." I started breathing more normally and had Carly pull into a side street so we could switch me to the driver's seat, because when you're lost and you're trying to give directions to a teenage driver and make quick decisions like "oh...um..go straight... NO.. TURN HERE!!!!!" it doesn't work so well. I called Mark and he agreed that we'd run into Bangerter Hwy if we kept heading West and then I felt really calm. He has a very strong internal compass & lots of experience driving in SLC.

We found Bangerter and found 11400 S which was the next street we were supposed to turn on. The map told us it would make a little jog and turn into 11800 S. That little jog on the map turned into a whole development called "Daybreak". There were roads, houses, parks, lakes, businesses, roundabouts with 6 exits. Where to go? what to do?

We drove around looking for 11800 S, taking the roundabout, calling Heather, trying to meet up with Heather. We finally found each other after both going through roundabout after roundabout. She had to stop the car for her daughter to puke in a parking lot and Rachel was looking a little green too.

We finally found 11800 S and started heading towards the mine. Then 11800 S ended but it did not end in HWY 111 as our map indicated it would. We pulled off to the side of the road, her daughter puked again, the kids started exploring the weeds on the side of the road and stretching their legs while we discussed what to do. We could see the mine so we turned left and kept going.

After heading on that street for a while (I can't remember what it said at the turning point) We noticed that the signs said we were on 11800 S again. Does that make any sense??? Well this time when 11800 S ended it did intersect with Hwy 111.

At that point we finally knew where we were on the map and the mine was just down the street a ways.

It was a little stressful but the air was cool, the kids were quiet and hey! now we have a great story to tell so all's well that ends well.

The biggest problem we had was now it was 10:00 am and we were just arriving at the mine and I was starting to hear "I'm hungry" and "dont' you have any food" To which the answer was "No" and "No"

I crumbled and bought one $1 package of starbursts and split that between them. 2 little squares of fruit flavored taffy and everybody was happy. Not bad.

We did see some house-sized trucks carrying rock and ore

And who doesn't want a picture in front of a giant tire?

That's something worth driving for!

The open pit mine

It was a good think I loaded my purse with loose change so we could all get a closer look

And who....

doesn't want to stand in a giant ore carrying bucket

or get their hand caught in a giant drill bit?

The visitor's center is fairly interesting but not amazing. The microscopes were cool. They had a very informative 16 minute movie about their whole mine process that was fascinating and informative. I felt like I learned a lot. The visitors center's displays just seemed to repeat the information in the film for the most part but overall I think it was interesting and worth a morning's drive.

Including letting the kids check out the gift shop we were there only about an hour and a half as Heather predicted. I was glad we got there early because as we left we could see the parking lot was twice as full as when we arrived.