COPPER MINE

This was my day to take a tour of a working copper mine. As you go toward Green Valley there are the lovely Santa Rita Mountains on one side of the road and, on the other, miles of fort-like piles of whitish gray treeless dirt flattened at the top. This is the used-up dug-up left-over part of a mine, called - I now know - 'the tailings', and knowing its name does not make it more attractive. In future days and years these tailings will be planted with trees and eventually become a bird sanctuary. But for now it is not.

To take the copper mine tour you go to Pima Mine Road, advertised as "only a 20 minute drive south of downtown Tucson". There is a big tower sticking up out of the desert saying "mine tours" and you follow the road in. There is a visitor center with a film about uses of copper and some copper displays and, of course, souvenirs.

I paid the senior rate and got on a dusty little bus with several other people. The drive to the area being mined is 6 miles long. The bus goes up and down hills, the whole time being within the walls of tailings. You cannot see the outside world and nor can it see you. This mine world is the entire world.

At the end of the 6 miles I stood outside the bus and looked down down all the way down at the mine and its huge and heavy equipment. There were heaps and piles of grey and tan and white sandy and dusty and gravelly material all around.

I felt myself to be within a Julia Spencer-Fleming mystery, having to find my way back down 6 miles to the main road with dirt caving in around me. I had only 1/2 bottle of water with me and it was already warm! Help!

I enjoyed the tour and learned new words like "slurry". This sounds like a strawberry milkshake but is not.

But the highlight of the tour - I got to see wild horses, 3 beautiful dark brown little horses grazing in the desert wilds.