2nd Grade Field Trip to The Dump

The dump!!  Mimi has been so excited to go on this fieldtrip.  I think she might have thought that it would be a little more hands on, or maybe I'm wrong, and she was just excited!  We headed out to the Trans Jordan landfill on the far west side of the valley, and stayed in the bus the whole time.  I totally understand they can't have children running around where there is gross garbage and tons of huge trucks and diggers and smashers...I was just surprised that we stayed on the bus!

They have these enormous cells they dig out of the earth, and garbage trucks come all day, drive down the big ramp, and dump their loads.  WE got to drive down the ramp and see the big machines pushing garbage to mash it down, and push it to the sides to make room for more.

The cells are lined with heavy duty hazardous waste type plastic to prevent leaching into the surrounding soil.  On the far end of the cell there's a giant...I guess you could call it a trough...where the garbage liquid seeps into and gathers.  It's all pretty gross, and frankly I'm glad we aren't here in the dead of summer, and I'm glad we were able to go into a fairly new cell.  I can only imagine what this place smells like!!

These huge machines push the dumped garbage up against what's already there.

They have huge spiky wheels and just plow right into it.

After we finished up at the dump we went to a park in Copperton that I think has been around for 30 years+.  I had the strangest sense of deja vu while we were there, and I'm almost certain I had been there as a child.  Perhaps on a field trip to the copper mine, or something like that.  But the little town of Copperton and the park were almost eerily familiar to me.

We sat and ate lunch on the grass.

And the kids played!  For actually a really long time.  Somehow they planned probably 45 extra minutes into the fieldtrip that we just didn't need, so there was much sitting around.  I know I could be more outgoing and join in the mommy conversations, but they seem so clique-y, and I've never really connected with any of them.  I'm not sure what's to blame there.  So I sat and enjoyed the weather.

It was fun to hang out with the Meems!!