Like yesterday, I missed some of the segments on the Today show about “Where in the World is Matt Lauer”. Sigh. I like to sleep too much, I’m afraid. I did see most of the second half of it though.
Today – Matt traveled to the Panama Canal. Matt went up into the control booth (gate house) and turned some dials and levers and opened the gates for a cruise ship (the Coral Princess with about 1,900 passengers on board) to begin its trek through the canal. He talked about the history of the canal, how many ships go through, how long it takes, and surprising to me – the cost. I had never thought about the ships having to pay, and the price is pretty steep! I believe for this cruise ship alone (don’t quote me, my memory is terrible), the price was about $265,000 dollars. I watched the video blog on the Today show website (today.msnbc.com) and the administrator of the Panama Canal Authority said that they generated over 1.2 billion dollars in revenue last year. So, it is very much a business. They also did a segment on the history – the locks and canal were built by the US Army Corps of Engineers and lots of people lost their lives due to accidents and things like yellow fever. President Carter agreed in the 70’s to turn over the management of the canal to the country of Panama, and this was done at the end of the century, December 31, 1999. The country of Panama and the Panama Canal Authority now run the canal.
It was very interesting, and you can go check out the video blog on the Today show website, or you can go here and read more about the locks, canal, lakes, and history at Wikipedia. Lots of good information here.
The clue for tomorrow’s stop – to quote Matt “The gold flowed here for a second time, after a bust in the Rocky Mountains”. Anyone got any ideas? 🙂
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