Golden Spike National Historic Site, UT

We are working our way south and finally making it to a site we've seen the signs for a few times before. As a kid I remember the story of the building of the first transcontinental railroad and the

Site of Promontory and the meeting
of the tracks

Site of the last tie and golden spike

driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory. I remember being impressed by the story so this was one of those places that I had to stop at this time through the area.

Golden Spike National Historic Site brings to life the amazing accomplishment of building a railroad across country without aid of modern equipment. Using picks, shovels, hand carts, horse drawn scrapers, black powder and a workforce of over 10,000 men they built the 1,776 mile railroad. Ok, that summary is why it was so fascinating to me. There is a small exhibit room and a great film at the visitor center that should make it fascinating to anyone.

At this historic site you don't see the original ties, tracks and spikes. They were reclaimed/recycled for the war effort. However, you do see original railroad grades across the Promontory Mountains. You can actually drive on part of the grade to get a bit of an appreciation of what can be done by hand. It doesn't match the effort of blasting 15 tunnels across the Sierra Nevada Mountains where they made progress at only inches per day, but at least we get to see some of the work that was done.

A low cut along the
East Auto Tour loop

A low cut along the
East Auto Tour loop. Piles of rock
dug out.

A section along the East Auto
Tour loop. On the original grade.

Southeast Oregon and Southern Idaho

Oregon Trail ruts near
Oregon Trail Interpretive
Center

We had a short stay in Baker City, OR to go to the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. This facility is a combined BLM and NPS site and is outstanding. We've been to a number of Oregon Trail sites and they usually have information pertinent to that particular area. This one covers the journey from end-to-end and is very well done. There are Oregon Trail ruts that you can see with a bit of a walk.

We briefly checked out historic Baker City. We made a stop at the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center and got a map of the historic buildings and drove around. We tried looking inside the historic

Gold Nuggets

Geiser Hotel but were stopped at the door saying guests only. We went into the US Bank to see their display of gold nuggets found in the area. That was pretty cool.

We moved on to Boise, ID to tour the Idaho State Capitol and visit a friend. The Capitol is very nicely done inside with white marble everywhere. It doesn't have any glitzy wow factor but it has a clean, inviting feel. A very nice building to make a small state, population-wise, proud.

Idaho State Capito 

 

We left Boise heading to the Twin Falls area. We stopped at the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument Visitor Center on our way. This park service site protects fossil beds as well as Oregon Trail ruts. There were no archaeological digs going on so we just enjoyed the displays and film at the visitor center. I wouldn't go way out of my way for this site but the drive on Hwy 30, which is called the Thousand Springs Scenic Byway, rather than on I-84 is a nice drive so you can "make it" on your way.

 

The Hagerman Horse

 

From our Twin Falls base we made a day trip up to Craters of the Moon National Monument. This is part of a very large area of lava and was given it's name because people thought it looked like the moon as viewed through a telescope. Lava is prominent for over a hundred miles in each direction.  The visitor center is small but has the important geological information a visitor needs to know. There are some really neat lava flow formations at the North Crater Flow stop of the 7 mile crater loop road. 

Cinder mound and lava flow at
Craters of the Moon NM

Lava flow at Craters of the Moon NM

We made another stop at the Minidoka National Historic Site near Jerome, ID. This was the site of a World War II Japanese Internment Camp. Basically nothing remains from that time except a few foundations but there is a path with a lot of interpretive signs. There is also a small visitor center so all of this gives a good understanding of the whole story including several photographs.

We were also able to get a look at the Snake River Gorge at Twin Falls. I was surprised to see roads to the bottom and all kinds of activity down there from golf courses to speed boats zooming up the river. 

Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, ID

Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, ID

Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, ID

Idaho State Capitol Rotunda

Idaho State Capitol Senate Chamber

Cool lava flow at Craters of the Moon NM

View from top of Inferno Cone at
Craters of the Moon NM

View from top of Inferno Cone at 
Craters of the Moon NM

Southeast Washington

After the last post we went back to the Tacoma area for another month of family time. After granddaughter birthday parties completed it was time to start meandering back toward Arizona. Our first stop was in the Washington tri-cities for some RV repairs and to see some sites.

We visited Sacajawea State Park at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. This park has a small, but very good, interpretive center with information on the history of the area with the most famous historical event being the Lewis & Clark Expedition camping on the site.

We next went to the small Manhattan Project National Historical Park visitor center and learned that you can only go to the park sites via tours and they were booked for days. We missed out on that. If you want to do one of the free tours, call well ahead of time to reserve. We next learned that the Hanford Reach National Monument doesn't have a visitor center or anything so that didn't turn into a real visit either.

We did have a good day trip to the Whitman Mission National Historical Site near Walla Walla. They have a small visitor center with an excellent 20 minute film and a nice walk outside around the mission site and along a short restored section of the Oregon Trail. We also drove into Walla Walla and walked around the old downtown which is clean and vibrant. We then drove around a section of town with nice old homes and stopped at Pioneer Park with has a really nice aviary with a lot of exotic birds. Very nice city.