We slept in this morning and didn’t get on the road until 8:30. The weather is unseasonably cool and temperature was in the 60’s when we left Fillmore. We have reservations tonight in Idaho Falls which is around 5 ½ hours so we left time for a stop at the Golden Spike National Monument thanks to a recommendation from Bob and Barb Heaps. The Central Pacific Railroad, starting in Sacramento, laid 690 miles of track and the Union Pacific Railroad, starting in Omaha laid 1086 miles of track for a total of 1776 miles of track. All of this building was financed by the US government from an act of Congress passed in 1862. As the two companies neared each other in Utah, they raced to grade and claim more land subsidies, both pushing so far that they passed each other and for over 200 miles competing graders advanced in opposite directions on parallel grades. Congress finally declared a meeting place to be at Promontory Summit where on May 10, 1869, Central Pacific’s Jupiter and Union Pacific’s No. 119 pulled up to the one rail gap left on the track. After a golden spike was symbolically tapped, a final iron spike was driven to connect the railroads joining the East to the West and changing America forever. We were lucky to be there at the right time to witness a reenactment of the event with exact replicas.
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