4th of July Weekend

It cooled down about 10 degrees over the long weekend so we decided to take a trip to the Golden Spike National Monument at the north end of the Great Salt Lake. I can only imagine how miserable those rail road workers must have been working in this desert heat as the raced to lay the transcontinental track.

We arrived just in time to see both engine replicas brought together as they appeared for the photo session commemorating the rail road's completion.

Not quite ready to return home, we decided to take the short 1 1/2 mile hike along the old rail road bed to see some of the obstacles the 'graders' faced in this part of their effort. The two companies actually 'graded' parallel beds (they got paid for miles built) for 250 miles before Congress decided where the west and east would come together at Promontory Point. Here is the 'Big Fill' that the west bound crews built next to the wooden trestle that the east bound crews built. When all was said and done the 'Big Fill' route was selected as the safer route and the trestle was left to deteriorate.

If you look closely you can see where the crews drilled into the rock and placed dynamite to blow up the rock as they worked to build this cut for the track.