Geology Field Trip

Just got back last night from a conference in Austin for science and math teachers.  It was great fun, but SO glad to be home with my boys!  While at this conference, I was signed up for got to go on a geology field trip to a clay quarry in Elgin.  This is the site of the Acme Brick company.  It was 100+ degrees with 5000% humidity and this was mid afternoon.  We had to wear long pants, closed toe shoes and hard hats the ENTIRE time.  You should already be sweating thinking about this.  This is quite possibly the hottest I've ever been.  As many of you know, I'm not a naturey, outdoor-go-hiking type of person.  My idea of roughing it is Motel 6.  But I put my big girl panties on and tried to make the best of it.  I was going with my great friend Jo Anne, so we'd have fun no matter what.

We got to walk, climb, hike...whatever you call it in two clay pits.  We actually found petrified wood which was completely cool!  We could take away any samples of anything we wanted.  Yes, my bag was empty.  :)

After losing 15 pounds in sweat, we toured the brick plant and got to see how they make bricks.  This was actually really interesting, but it was hard to concentrate after being outside for 4 hours.  This plant makes 180,000 bricks a day!

We got to walk ON TOP of the kiln.  I was scared as scared could be!  Nothing like having an oven below you that is burning at close to 3,000 degrees!

And they had "peek holes" where you could see inside the kiln.

They had stacks of Texas Tech, UT and A&M bricks where we could take however many we wanted with us before we left.  I thought that was so nice, so I did get some cool things. 

I was super excited to be back on the bus and heading back to Austin.  It was a good experience, but that is probably the last time I'll be in Elgin, TX.  ;)