I Heart Trains

This weekend Seth and I decided to get out of the house and take a drive. Our first plan was to go to the Bear River Bird Refuge (or the Bird River Bear Refuge as Seth's Dad likes to say). We drove all the way out northwest until we got to a dirt road covered in snow and a sign that said the bird refuge was another 10 miles out. Had we been in the Xterra we might have tried it, but Blackie (the Pontiac Grandprix) said she wasn't up for getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere, so we came up with another plan.

After stopping to let out my Dr. Pepper, I dug the maps out of Blackie's trunk and we decided that we were in pretty close range to Golden Spike National Historic Site. For all you who don't know what that is, it's where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met way back in the day (1869).

We drove for a half hour or so way out west past Corinne (the town, not my sister) and finally came to a small visitor's center. After getting the low-down from the Alabaman (?) ranger lady at the front desk, we shuffled around the place reading all the plaques and looking at all the old railroad tools. We watched a short twenty minute video about how the white men (and some Chinese) came in and built this amazing railroad. They did ruin the Native American's land by killing all the buffalo and other game, but the railroad was pretty cool so that evened things out.

The two trains that met there on the ceremony day on May 10, 1869 were the Jupiter and the 119 steam locomotives. The originals were sold as scrap awhile back, but the ones at the site are exact replicas and are functional. They had the trains in storage for the winter, but we were able to go in the engine house and see them.

Seth hates trains...

But I love them!

So anyhow, we had a fun little trip. We were both starving by the time we got home but I made some tacos real fast so it was all good. Oh and then I gave Seth a Mohawk. He likes it.