Notable Industry / Market

Berkeley Pit Copper Mine - Butte, Montana, USA - most expensive EPA Superfund site
The copper kings were once the richest men in the world supposedly.

The mining town of Butte. It's seen better days.
Notice the hillside has been leveled.

The entrance

The small building on the "water" front gives you an idea of how big this hole is.

I'll also say - you won't get very far if you try to swim.

 

Eagle Butte Coal Mine - Gilette, Wyoming - 6th largest strip coal mine in the US producing 24 million tons of coal in 2003
(#1 is 80 mln tons, #20 – 7.8 mln tons) US EIA Ranking.

Much of Wyoming consists of beautiful scenery.

Coal trains up to 100 cars long. I stopped and counted!

Why visit a coal mine? I have a thing for industry....

$38,000 tire

The Eagle Butte mine.

A closer look.  Yeah. Big.

 

Celestial Seasonings tea plant (Boulder, CO,USA) - 2-3 million tea bags / day. Hard to imagine.
Sorry, no pictures of the inside. Cameras not allowed. The sign post says Sleepytime Drive. Very fragrant inside, especially the peppermint storage room.
They import bulk tea leaves from 50+ countries if I recall correctly. That would be a good international job.

 

Tea plantations of Sri Lanka, #1 tea exporter in the world , also home to the original Lipton tea plantation
I felt like I had seen almost a complete loop, the tea leaf mixing in Boulder, Colorado, and the source of where some of it is grown in Sri Lanka.

Tea leaf pickers. Looks like hard physical work,
but they do it a place that felt almost heaven like.

One of the most memorable smiles of the entire trip
 

 

The cool tea plantation highlands

One of the many tea factories in the area
 

Plucking - Withering - Rolling - Fermentation
Drying - Sorting - Tea Tasting - Packaging

     

Toyota’s largest auto factory in the US at Georgetown, Kentucky – 500,000 cars/year
Sorry no pictures of the inside. Cameras not allowed. Incredible process. Previously, I've toured Boeing and Airbus production plants, but seeing
a large ultra-modern auto plant stamping out cars from rolled steel was mind boggling

Map of Toyota's US facilities

The first Camry out of Kentucky!

Not an exciting photograph.  
Outside the plant.
 

Since all these photos are boring, I give you this one from Japan.
I call this one FREE SNOOPY.
Little arcades (And Pachinko Parlors) like this are all over Japan.

 

Tsukiji Fish Market (Tokyo, Japan) – #1 fish market in the world
I also visited the Sydney Fish Market, #2, and needless to say, it was a far cry to Tsukiji.  
I won't even show the photos here. Tsukiji happens 6 days a week I believe.

A single fish can sell for over US$100,000 depending on quality

The volume of seafood is incredible.

The bluefin tuna after auction, ready to be cut up.

Hard to see in this picture, but those are puffer fish I believe.

Yes, the world's oceans are being overfished.

Scooping frozen bluefin tuna from the auction floor.

Ready to be transported, or are these fresh arrivals for tomorrow's auction?

Speechless.

 

AMARC - David - Monthan Airforce Base - World’s largest aircraft graveyard and likely assemblage of airplanes
We could not get off the tour bus to take photos, so all of these are from behind a moving window.

F-4 Phantoms

F-18A Hornets

Large transport / bombers

F-16s

 

Qatar Natural Gas fields
Qatar sits on one of the world's largest natural gas fields.
The wealth from gas has vaulted the per capita ranking of its citizens into the top tier.

After driving across the entire Eastern half of the country
I saw this Palm tree plantation

My rental car. Not much to see. Glad I had A/C.

What can I say. Not that interesting. The action/money is underneath.

You you can see all the fuel tanks in the distance

This may be a chemical plant producing plastic pellets from natural gas.
 

This road is by the palm plantation. No driving off into the sunset here.
Straight into the Gulf! A very odd end of the world type feeling here.

 

Spindletop – where oil was first discovered in Texas

No oil derricks left at Spindletop. The oil has been sucked out.

Nobody else here....

Recreation of oil exchange and town

Photos of raging fires and the oil derricks in the early 1900s. Check the website link above for better pictures.

Boring photos from Spindletop, so I'll post these from a mall in Qatar.
For women who wear the niqab, any color is available, as long as it's black.
Though, not an interesting photo if you've traveled the Middle East!

Here's the interesting thing, these same women wear beautiful colored dresses underneath. You can catch a glimpse of them by looking at the feet.
 

 

 

Stockyards City (Oklahoma City, OK) – 1.25 million cattle auctioned/year - largest cattle auction in world.
You eat beef from US? It probably went through here.

Inside the auction house

A bull which doesn't want to go inside the auction house

Ditto

Animal vs man/machine. Animal loses.

Auction house in the distance accessed by catwalk

If I had got here earlier all these pens would have been filled