This weekend we went to see Big Brutus.  Big Brutus is a huge coal mining machine that you can find near the eastern Kansas town of West Mineral.  Big Brutus is huge and is featured on the RoadsideAmerican.com website.  But first we stopped at the Manhattan Regional Airport so we could have some nifty wheels for our 520 mile round trip excursion.

We rented a Mustang Convertible so we could travel in style to our destination.  It was about 100 degrees outside, we had the music up as loud as it could go, the air conditioning up as high as it could go and THE TOP ROLLED DOWN!!!!

Big Brutus is the power shovel they used to strip the topsoil, called overburden, off of the ground to get at the coal underneath.  He is 16 stories high (this is the view from the top looking down), 11 (that's eleven) million pounds, scoops 150 tons per swipe, and cost 6.2 million dollars to build in 1962.  He was retired in 1973 due to a combination of environmental concerns and falling coal prices. In 1985 Big Brutus became an official roadside attraction with the opening of a museum. You aren't supposed to climb all the way to the top unless you are over the age of 13, but no one was watching and Judi deemed it 'safe enough' so we went all the way up.  Casey can overcome his fear of heights when there is serious fun involved!