Day 208

We started the day doing the laundry.  While Ellen did that I worked to change the door lock.  I didn't do it yesterday because it looked like it was going to rain (it didn't).  When I took the old lock apart I found that there were a couple of loose screws in it.  I tightened then up and the lock worked fine again.

Once the laundry was done the first order of business was to take the door lock back.  The guy charged us a restocking fee, but at least we got most of our money back.

Then we went to Promontory Point.  It's about 30 miles from the campground.  The good news is that most of this is an isolated Utah highway, so I did 75 mph.

When we got there they had a bunch (76) of kids on a field trip.  Apparently a lot of parents attended too in their own vehicles.  The rangers were practicing for a reenactment they will do on the 9th (May 9th, 1869 was when the spike was driven).  That meant we got to see them move the engines several time.  Unfortunately I forgot to bring a camera.

After the show, the kids mobbed the gift shop.  I still managed to buy three cool books.  One is a picture book of current steam engines, one is a history of steam engines (with pictures), and the third is a collection of first person accounts of 19th century railroading.  Two of the books were on sale.

After we left we went to drive the railroad.  Unfortunately so did the school bus and the contingent of parents' vehicles.  After a few hundred yards they stopped at a point of interest and totally blocked the way.  So I turned around and went back.  We stopped and ran the dog until the kids had left.

Lucy had a great time.  It was chukar country and she knew it.  She started hunting until I threw the bumper for her.  She did a whole lot of retrieves.

Then we hit the road again.  BTW they don't allow trailers on it any more.  We stopped at the "Chinese Arch" again and I took a picture of Ellen 10 years after I took the last one.  When we got to the end the kids and parents were jamming up the hiking trail.  So I went to examine the bottom of the two fills at the end of the road.  They both have amazing hand built stone "culverts" at the bottom.  They were built without mortar.  Very cool.

I would have liked to walk the "big cut" trail and see the trestle, but they kids were out there and Ellen was hungry.  So we left just before the kids got back.  We stopped at a little hamburger stand on the way back.  They had great food, and wasn't expensive.

When we got back we just surfed and watched TV.  Lucy is a very tired doggy.