Chapter 12: Train Don’t Run Out of Wichita—Lessin’ You’re a Hog or a Cattle. People Train Runs Out of Stubbville.
Sadly, it was time to move on from Utah.
But not before we had more cinnamon rolls. That was job number one, so we headed for the breakfast room as soon as everyone was up and ready. I don’t know if it was the fact that we were up early, or that we were preoccupied with thoughts of either the long drive ahead of us or cinnamon rolls, but it pains me to admit that at this moment, we let our guard down.
All of us, that is, except for one lone hero.
It was simple, really. We’d become lazy and complacent. All of these modern amenities had hidden the simple truth: we were in the Wild West. Anything and everything out here is a danger.
And so we strolled down that hotel hallway, laughing, joking, looking forward to warm gooey icing, not a worry in the world…
Suddenly, the door to our right opened. Before any of us could even make a move, it was clear—we were being ambushed!
We froze, caught completely unawares, certain that death would come raining down upon us at any moment. This was the end. I could feel it in my gut. Or it might have been gas.
Just as it seemed our family vacation would go plunging into the abyss…
Baby Drew stepped forward. Quick as a flash of lightning, he raised his hands, index fingers blazing.
“
Pchew! Pchew! Pchew!” he shouted. And just like that, the threat was no more.
I’d like to point out that I taught him that.
So yes, Baby Drew ambushed total strangers in the hotel. Thankfully, they were the good-humored sort of people and played along with him once they figured out what in the heck he was doing.
We departed the hotel without further incident. Well, except for a total mystery. Somehow, six extra cinnamon rolls found their way into our van. By the time we discovered them, we had traveled too far to turn back. So we were forced to eat them.
We took the main road north out of Moab and confirmed that it was definitely a more boring drive than the back road we’d taken into town. And then we settled in for a long drive north.
Not much happened. Let’s fast-forward to lunchtime.
Wait, we did see a train. So we had that going for us, which is nice.
Ok, so we made it to the southern outskirts of Salt Lake City around noon. As you can guess, by now we were all sick of PB&J sandwiches after having had them every day for almost a week. Julie and I know we need to break up the lunch menu periodically, so we try and do that on the long-driving days. It gives us an excuse to stop and break up the drive as well. Careful, meticulous research had uncovered a promising lunch location very close to the highway, and soon we were navigating the exit ramp to find an
In ‘N Out Burger.
We’d tried this chain for the first time last summer in Phoenix, and figured since we don’t have them on the East Coast, we might as well take advantage of the opportunity to eat there again. Our verdict remains the same: decent burgers, especially considering that they are fast food. Lousy french fries.
Moving on, we made contact with a friend from Delaware who had moved to Salt Lake City a couple of years ago. We managed to meet her and her kids at a mall north of the city and spend a few minutes catching up. Before long, we were back on the road again. We kept trying to catch a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake, but we were just a little bit too far away to be able to see it through the city.
It wasn’t until we left the highway and drove west, north of the lake, that we could see much of it at all. And the view still wasn’t great, but you could at least see a lake. You could also see the salt deposits on the dry ground.
At this point, you might be asking yourself, “Self, why would they leave the highway? There’s nothing in northern Utah.” And you’d almost be right. The fact is, there is
nearly nothing in northern Utah. It’s an utterly barren wasteland. But right in the middle of that barren wasteland is Promontory, Utah.
Not impressed? Ok, let me explain.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up: this is the location of
Golden Spike National Historic Site.
Like I said, I look for ways to break up the long drives. And I also mentioned that I’m a completist when it comes to touring, and especially when it comes to obtaining National Park passport stamps. So given that we were driving 8 hours that day, going 30 miles out of our way didn’t seem like too much to ask.
Golden Spike NHS commemorates the location where two railroad companies, Union Pacific (building from the east) and Central Pacific (building from the west), met and completed the
First Transcontinental Railroad. The meeting location was marked with a golden railroad spike, the last spike driven to complete construction. The railroad was finished in 1869 after six years of work.
The park itself is fairly small. There’s a visitor center and railroad tracks in the back where demonstrations are held. There’s also a self-guided auto tour you can take of various points of interest in the area.
When I was a kid, my parents had taken me here, and we did the self-guided auto tour. Trust me when I say this: to enjoy that auto tour, you need to REALLY be interested in the inner workings and politics of railroad companies in the 1860’s. As a kid, I wasn’t all that interested. Truth be told, I wasn’t all that interested as an adult, either. But anyway, we drove from point to point in my youth, and at the appropriate locations my parents would read from the guide about whatever was supposed to have taken place there, or what worker conditions were like, etc. It was obvious that my brother and I weren’t paying attention and my parents were getting more and more frustrated with us. So they yelled a bit at us and we quieted down. The auto tour continued without incident, until we got close to the end. My parents were reading some incredibly vital statistic about the price of iron ore in 1868 when they turned around and saw me in the back seat placing Nilla Wafers over my eyes inside my glasses.
You know those moments as a parent when you have to make a righteous show of anger or force due to principle, but deep down inside you’re trying not to bust a gut? It was like that.
So, I told you that story just to explain a) that we didn’t bother taking the auto tour, and b) that we took a couple of commemorative photos here just for my parents.
Ahem. Moving on.
This was the record for construction at the time.
This is a replica of the golden railroad spike. The real one is housed in a museum at Stanford University in California.
We watched the short film in the visitor center and then went out back to see the locomotives. As disinterested as I was in the inner workings of railroad companies, trains themselves are fascinating. I believe there’s something in the Y chromosome that makes boys (and men) inexorably drawn to trains for life.
I was still a little tired from all of that hiking the day before, so I took advantage of a quiet spot to rest.
We got a brief up-close look at the locomotives before they announced that they were going to be moving the trains back into the yard to close out the day (it was around 4:30 p.m. or so).
So we moved back to the visitor center and watched the trains go from there.
Somebody was fascinated. See what I mean? It’s there from birth, I’m convinced! Here Drew is waving goodbye to the engineers.
With that, we decided to get back on the road. On the way out, the rangers asked our kids what they thought. David in particular gave the park a rave review. This isn’t surprising—he’s always loved trains too. In fact, he’s the biggest fan of the Disney World monorail that I know, and insists we ride it whenever we’re at the parks. I have to admit, he doesn’t have to work very hard to convince me.
Anyway, the park ranger gave Dave a fist-bump. He also asked us what we thought, and we gave him a polite thumbs-up. Then he kept pressing and pressing for more, until I finally told him it was the finest Golden Spike site I’d ever seen.
We had to cut him a break. We could see the lonely ranger’s quarters from the parking lot, just a single-story ranch surrounded by wilderness. Julie and I wondered who you had to tick off at the Department of the Interior to get that assignment. But all in all, it was a worthy distraction, if only to watch my boys react to the trains.
A little while later, we had a new state!
We spent the evening in Blackfoot, Idaho. I have a friend who lives there and we spent the evening having a cookout with his family in their backyard. It was a great, quiet relaxing time with good people.
I won’t go into detail there, but I do want to point out that we had an unexpected issue with my Priceline room-finding method in Blackfoot. We’d gotten a room at the Super 8 motel for around $60 or so. Obviously, I was happy to save money wherever I could. And even though the Super 8 is bare-bones, that’s all we really need. I just want a clean bed and clean bathroom for the night, and if you have a free breakfast, even better. This checked all of the boxes.
I checked into the motel and took a bag up to the room.
The room only had one queen-size bed. I didn’t think we could fit all six of us on it without someone’s hand ending up between two pillows.
So I went back to the front desk. Luckily, they had an empty room with two beds, and we were able to move there. As it turned out, I hadn’t read the fine print on my reservation. It had said, “room will be assigned at check-in” instead of confirming that there would be 2 beds, which I’m usually good about noticing. I’d missed it here and it nearly caught us. But warning bells started going off in my head—I’d reserved a room at another Super 8 for the following evening.
Well, no sense in worrying about it now.
Coming Up Next: Just your average Idaho lava field.
Glad they fixed it for you!
OTE="Captain_Oblivious, post: 54691544, member: 217344"]Wow...it appears I was visiting hallowed ground, then. Did this same TA go on to fight forest fires in Oregon?[/QUOTE]
