Utah's Golden Spike National Monument

On our trip to Utah we spent a Saturday with Papa Meyer(my Dad). We decided to go site seeing. What better place than Utah's Golden Spike National Monument. Which is located at Promontory Summit, 32 miles Northwest of Brigham City. Here is a picture of what our drive was like. What I miss the most about Utah is the mountains. Still snow on the tops and its May, go figure.

There was a lot of baby crops growing in the fields along the way. This type of farming is called "dry farming". Notice any irrigation or sprinklers? 

Out here they rely on God to water the crops. 

After driving way out in B.F.E. we made our destination. 

Turner and I posing like tourist do:) 

The joining of the rails was signified by the driving of the ceremonial Golden Spike. 

The first Transcontinental Railroad where the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Met on May 10th 1869. 

The meeting of "Jupiter" Central Pacific steam engine on the left. Union Pacific "No.119"on the right.

Fully operational replicas of the originals that were built in 1868.

Marshall's favorite out of the two is "Jupiter" of coarse because it is his favorite color.

Papa asked the engineer questions about "Jupiter's" engine.  

We learned that both are steam locomotives made by two different companies the only major difference is one is ran on wood, and the other on coal. The "Jupiter" ran on wood. 

"No. 119" ran on coal as you can see the engineer shows. 

Each locomotive  held enough water to run the steam engine for thirty miles at a time. This is why you will find  small towns every thirty miles across the heartlands of America.  

Due to reasons like the Civil War and the California Gold Rush, most labor was done by Chinese and Irish immigrants.

The average speed of track building was one mile per day. While trying to reach Ogden Utah first, the Central Pacific set a monumental record of 10 miles of track laid in one day!

The original sign

Another adventure to put in the record book. I had a great time spending the day with the family. Remembering passed times going there as a kid, and making new memories for my kids to remember when they get older. 

oops lets try it again. Its hard sometimes to get Turner to look at the camera

And Turner developed a taste for rocks...