Late last night, I picked up Sarah from the Amtrak station. I love train stations, so this was great. I got there early and watched the trains roll by. Even took a few pictures, I know that’s hard to believe.

Sarah has been planning on seeing something called The Spiral Jetty for a very long time now. It’s just north of Salt Lake City, so when I was planning my trip, we planned to meet up and see it. Lucky for me it’s about 8 miles away from the Golden Spike Railroad National Park place.

We stopped first at the Golden Spike and I was really amazed at how nicely it’s been preserved. We visited the museum and I saw a ton of books I wanted to buy and even saw a crappy little movie about the transcontinental railroad, after which I felt that I didn’t know much more about it than I had before (which wasn’t much to begin with).

The place had the two trains that were there when the golden spike was driven in 1869 rebuilt and they look amazing. We poked around them for a bit (in the rain) and decided that it was now time to head to the Jetty.

The road was 16 miles of mostly dirt and rock. Much of it would have been better done in a four wheel drive, but we handled it pretty well, though we had to walk the last 1/2 mile or so.

But at the end of the walk, it paid off. There it was!

I was pretty impressed and Sarah was ecstatic.

The weather was windy, cold and a bit rainy, so unfortunately we couldn’t hang around Mr. Jetty as long as we would have liked.

However, on the way back, we got the chance, thanks to the Park Service, to drive on an 8 mile stretch of the original Central Pacific railroad grade. This was wonderful. It really gives you a feel for exactly what the train would see. And even though the road we came in on parallels it, it’s a much different feel.

I realize I’m summarizing much more than usual, but I’m no longer traveling alone, so I can’t write 2,500 word entries. Sorry about that. Think of it as a bit of a break.

Anyway, we were able to follow another four miles of the grade one the way out of the park. this was really nice, it went around a lovely bend and we were able to see Chinaman’s Arch – a natural limestone arch created by the lake that used to be here.

We then decided to start heading for Albuquerque, so grabbed a quick bite to eat at Long Life Vegi House and then fled south with the destination being Richfield. It was far enough away from SLC to get a jump on tomorrow and close enough to a bunch of cool stuff, so we’ve got choices on what to do when we wake up.

Albuquerque won’t happen tomorrow, but the next day. Tomorrow is for driving around, meandering our way to ABQ. We’ll see what there is to see!

Here are my pics.
And here are Sarah’s pics.

Miles today: 400
Total car miles: 400