Since one of my bucket list items is to visit all the national parks in Utah (all 18 of them!) with Matt, I figured we’d best get a move on with the ones closest to us first.
I knew that the Golden Spike Monument was west of Brigham City, so I figured it was pretty close—maybe about a 35-minute drive from Logan.
Yeah right.
The monument is out in the middle of nowhere, and it was easily an hour and ten minutes from Logan, which made us a little more pressed for time than we would have liked to be. Both Matt and I had been to the monument when we were significantly younger, so we had forgotten a lot. (And when we had both gone before during the summer, the trains were outside on the tracks and provided a backdrop for a little live skit they put on; since we went at the close of the winter season, we got taken back into the workshop where they work on polishing up and repairing the trains, which was pretty cool.)
Facts you need to know:
-The Golden Spike Monument is the place where the final railroad tie was laid that connected the East and West coast by train. It was a monumental feat born from the sweat and lives of thousands of workers (many of them Chinese and Irish immigrants), and with the technology available at the time, the feat has been called the equivalent of man walking on the moon.
-Cost to get in: $5.00 per vehicle
-Things To Do:
*see the short skit re-enacting the historic event (May – October)
*watch the 20-minute historical documentary
*take a guided tour of the train repair workshop (November – April)
*check out the gift shop
*walk around the small museum featuring artifacts and interesting details about the time period
*watch the steam train demonstration (May – October)
Another thing you need to know:
If you look closely into the picture below, you’ll see Matt and me reflected in the brass.
Word.
And that’s about it, really—visiting the park was a fun little day trip, and the hour and a half we had before closing time was plenty of time to see all there was to be seen. If you visit during the summer, you’ll want to plan your visit around when they do tours because the people who worked there and the tour guides were my favorite part.
What national parks have you been to in Utah? Which one should we visit next?