May 29th: PROMONTORY POINT & SALT FLATS, UTAH to LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA

May 29th:

We got up early this morning and drove 30 minutes to Promontory National memorial park and arrived right when it opened.   It felt great to be on time for once!  Too bad it’s the end of the trip and we finally are on time!  Ha!  I know we’ve been on time a few places but it feels like we’ve been running behind the whole trip.  Good for us!

Because we were on time, we had time to stroll through the museum and gift shop before the working replicas of Jupiter and No. 119 arrived.  And of course we had the kids do their last Junior Ranger book of the trip.  We cheered them on while we told them to make the most of this last opportunity to do the Junior Ranger program.  They now have a collection of 19 Junior Ranger badges as keepsakes of what they learned at all the National Parks. 

This last National Park is all about the “Golden Spike,” which is what tied the east and the west together. 

Railroads began operating in the 1830’s and by the beginning of the Civil War, America’s eastern states were linked by 31,000 miles of rail, more than in all of Europe.  Unfortunately all of this network was in the east and didn’t reach beyond the Missouri River.  Many Northern, Midwestern and Southern senators fought for a railroad that would bring many benefits of trade, shorten western journeys, and help the army control American Indians resisting white settlements.  In California, Theodore Judah, a young engineer, had his own plan for a transcontinental railroad.  By 1862 Judah had surveyed a route over the Sierra Nevada’s and persuaded wealthy Sacramento merchants, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker, and Mark Hopkins – “The big Four” - to form the Central Pacific Railroad.  That same year Congress authorized Central Pacific to build a railroad eastward from Sacramento and in the same act chartered the Union Pacific Railroad in New York with each railroad receiving $16,000 to $48,000 per mile, depending the difficulty of the terrain.    The Central Pacific broke ground in January of 1863 and the Union Pacific that December, but neither one made any headway because the country’s attention was on the Civil War, and little track was laid until labor and supplies were freed at the end of the war.
 

Central Pacific crews were challenged with rugged Sierra Nevada range immediately, while the Union Pacific built on easier terrain starting in Omaha, Nebraska.   Getting supplies to both railroads was a nightmare, especially for the Central Pacific, which had to ship every rail, spike, and locomotive 15,000 miles around the Cape Horn.  Although, both pushed ahead faster than anyone had expected laying 2-5 miles of track a day on flat land.  The Union Pacific hired many unemployed immigrants – Irish, German, and Italian, and Civil War veterans from both sides, ex-slaves, and even Indians.  The Central Pacific hired several thousand Chinese because the rush for gold and the silver boom had drained California’s labor pool. 

By mid-1868 Central Pacific crews had crossed the Sierra and laid 200 miles of track and the Union Pacific had laid 700 miles over the plains.    Surveyors worked hundreds of miles ahead, while scrapers, and graders prepared about 20 miles of bed at a time, cutting ledges, blasting hills, and filling all ravines.  Workers 5-20 miles ahead dug tunnels and built high wooden trestles – the Central Pacific blasted 15 tunnels through Sierra granite using dangerous nitroglycerine.  As the two railroads traveled closer to meeting they raced to gain more miles and claim more land subsidies. Congress finally declared the meeting place to be Promontory Point, Utah, and On May 10^th, 1869, two locomotive – Central Pacific’s Jupiter and Union Pacific’s No. 119 – pulled up to the one-rail gap left in the track.  After a golden spike was symbolically tapped, a final spike was driven to connect the railroads.  Central Pacific had laid 690 miles of track, and Union Pacific 1,086, crossing 1,776 miles of desert, rivers and mountains to bind together East and West.  Engraved on the Golden Spike is “May God continue the unity of our Country as this Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the World.”  That’s awesome!  The Golden Spike is now displayed at Stanford University in their museum. 

At 10:00am we stood outside the museum, next to the railroad tracks, to wait for the Union Pacific’s replica, the No. 119, to arrive.  Far away we heard the noise and steam of the engine, and the toot of the whistle, as it slowly came towards us.  It was fascinating and such a treat

At noon we got back on the road towards California.  We had to drive back through Salt Lake City to connect with the 80 freeway west– the 80 that travels through Tahoe and Sacramento to highway 12.  We will travel on this road all the way home through 3 states.  The 80 extends all the way across the northern part of the USA just like the 10 freeway in the southern US.  As we drove along we came to the famous Booneville Salt Flats of Utah right off the 80 and we pulled over to walk on it.  It was absolutely amazing.  When you look into the horizon the glare makes it look like it goes on forever and mixed with the white it can seem like water. 

We still had 6 more hours of driving through ugly Nevada, on to beautiful Lake Tahoe.  It felt like the longest drive ever . . . nothing to see and we are all ready to get home.  We worked for hours with the kids on their books and finishing all the fun facts about each state.  They worked diligently and finished them all – they were very proud!   We still have a huge amount of work to do on their books but we accomplished an enormous amount on the trip.  Hopefully it will be something that they remember forever.

We arrived at Sweet Briar in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe at 1 am.  The parking lot had cars spread out but there was a nice small corner to park the RV in but it was extremely difficult and took us about a half hour.    But Shelley and I can do anything now after driving the RV all the way across the country and parking it in many different places.  After parking I finally stepped out of the RV and felt a huge sigh or relief . . . “We’re home!”  Tahoe is like a second home to me and there is nothing like the smell of Tahoe . . . the fresh crisp air, the pine trees, the stars . . . it’s so incredibly beautiful   It made me feel incredibly thankful that I live here and that we actually made it home to California!!