For most Americans, Memorial Day weekend means cookouts, Frisbees in the park, and perhaps an amusement park or two. As the official kickoff to the summer season, it is packed to the gills with family, friends, food, and fireworks. And while the rest of the country is munching on hot dogs and, if need be, paying respect to military veterans, the Cales are immersed in salt. No, not the kind sprinkled on holiday fare, but rather the unprocessed variety found deep under the ground. It surrounds us, from ceiling to floor, and while we could sneak a lick or two if the mood was right, we are encouraged not to, given the unavoidable fact that yes, a miner just might have taken a leak on the very spot where your tongue now resides. We are in the Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, and while that sounds like no sane way to spend a day off, such a visit is right in our wheelhouse. You see, we’re fond of the odd and the bizarre, and by all accounts, so are a great deal of Kansans. The place is packed; so packed, in fact, that reservations are strongly encouraged. It seems that we just can’t get enough of that wonderful sodium chloride.
It sounds sick and twisted in the telling, but visiting the Salt Museum has been a dream of ours for at least a year. Well, dream might be pushing credibility just a bit, but no fewer than three road trips had been planned with the salt palace as a centerpiece. Maybe we’re fixated on the idea that in America, we’re apt to celebrate just about anything short of mass murder, but more than likely, we search out any activity that requires us to put on a silly hard hat. Yes, the Underground Salt Museum is exactly the sort of place where, against all common sense, visitors are treated to a “safety video”, which describes alleged dangers that haven’t actually existed for decades. No one’s going to perish after a run-in with salt, but keep your arms and legs inside the train. Salt does not emit anything even remotely lethal, but please, strap on your breathing apparatus just in case the walls ooze with carbon monoxide. This is not, we’ll all admit, a coal mine, but there’s something exciting about pretending that within moments, all of us might rush the elevator in a panic as death taps our shoulders from behind. Fully frightened for no reason whatsoever, we head to the double-deck hoist for our journey into the nether regions of the Kansas prairie.
After a pitch-black descent (650 feet down, to be exact), we tumble forth with child-like glee, anxious for our two hour salt experience. Much of the tour is self-guided, with panels and videos describing the mining process. At first glance, the long caverns appear mysterious and full of fright, but one soon realizes that nothing bad could ever happen in a place housing a gift shop. This is salt, not the last stand of the zombie apocalypse. The area in question was once a Permian Sea, bringing us to the point where salt was plentiful and just begging to be mined. The best part of the early sections was the “blast zone”, where visitors get a sense of all the drilling, cutting, and blasting required to get the good stuff out of the earth. According to the video, “250 tons of rock salt are secured for every 40 feet of wall blasted.” Crushers reduce the rubble to a manageable size, and, since 1983, conveyor belts have brought everything to the surface for refining, kiln drying, storage, and ultimately, transport. Sure, everything appears to be sheer company propaganda in service of Carey Salt, but ask yourself – what have they to gain by convincing the public that salt is a good thing? As this is far from a dangerous form of mining, one can assume that no one is covering up the death and decay brought forth by the American salt lobby. And this is industrial salt we’re talking about here – none of what you see before you will make it to your kitchen table.
If you’re feeling generous and wish to spend $18 apiece, you can experience both the train (Salt Mine Express) and Dark Ride, even though they’re both covering largely the same ground. Sure, the Dark Ride is more spontaneous in that the tram isn’t tied to a track, but if you have to sacrifice one for the sake of savings, well, this isn’t Sophie’s Choice we’re talking about. I preferred the Dark Ride, as the commentary came from a live human being, and she had all the personality the train’s recorded chatter lacked. In fact, the train’s audio was downright obnoxious, with a narrator so desperate for unearned laughs that he paused to allow the din to die to a dull roar. Needless to say, our group was painfully silent. Each experience fleshed out the life of a miner, and how everything brought down to the mine must stay in the mine, as it’s always more expensive to bring it up than simply leave it be. As such, visitors can see numerous pieces of old equipment, including cars that ran on electricity, given the understandable avoidance of gas-powered engines in a closed, ventilation-free environment. Above all, though, we learned about human waste and how it will remain forever locked tight; away, even, from prying eyes and the hot Kansas sun.
For us film buffs, there’s the added attraction of seeing thousands of boxes of film canisters and memorabilia in a special “preservation hall”. The moisture-free environment is ideal for protecting film stock, and among the riches are original reels of Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. There’s also a newspaper from the day after Lincoln’s assassination, as well as company records that wouldn’t thrill even the heartiest HR manager. Less understandable, though, is the inclusion of that hideous snowman prop from Jack Frost, a film so vile it manages to convince us that someone like Kelly Preston deserves better. And when the warehouse actually contains lost footage from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the unhealthy focus on crap like Men in Black II makes me wonder how inclusive an idea like preservation has to be. I mean, would the world grieve if the last known copy of Batman & Robin eroded away into dust? There’s plenty of room down here, so I guess the more the merrier. What they didn’t find room for, however, is a decent magnet for the obsessed tourist. What they had on hand looked home-made, and no, not in a good way. I’m not sure I would have accepted one had they been included with the price of admission. And as tempting as the “Got Salt?” t-shirts were, I settled for some free salt crystals, given away at the end of the Dark Ride like we were the Willy Wonka kids set loose in the candy factory.
So while the Underground Salt Museum is hardly Carlsbad Caverns, there’s something to be said for learning about process. Not enough of what we do explores the nature of work in America, and too often we take for granted something as deceptively simple as salt. Where it lies, how we get it, and what it takes to turn it from raw mineral to edible condiment. Or what we throw on the roads to melt away ice and snow. And it must be working, as this site was recently named one of the “8 Wonders of Kansas.” Makes you wonder what it beat out.
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