At the Utah border we headed south towards Salt Lake City. We quickly tired of the straight, paved road and found an alternate 70 mile dirt road south towards the shore of the Great Salt Lake. We picked up more dust, saw many Pronghorn Antelope, and acres and acres of farmland carved out of the scrub brush. We are still amazed, while driving through this barren landscape, that people traversed it walking behind covered wagons and ox carts.
The dirt ended at a paved intersection with quite a few cars heading west. The little sign said Promontory. We shrugged our shoulders and joined in. We quickly came to a small National Historic Park visitor center with 2 steam locomotives belching smoke, nose to nose. We pulled out our National Park Pass and ventured inside.
It turns out Promontory was where the Golden Spike was driven to join the Central Pacific Railroad coming from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad coming from the east on May 10th, 1869.
What a great oops!
