Day 2 of our road trip was one of the longest days....almost 9 hours of driving! We had a few fun stops planned for this day so we knew we needed to get up and get going pretty early. We got up at 6am and were out the door by 7am. We weren't even at the Airbnb for 12 hours since we didn't get there until after dinner.
Our first stop was one that got thrown in last minute. Christina told us all about Shoshone Falls. It sounded amazing so I knew we had to stop.
It was a gorgeous, but a little bit of a chilly morning! Since we had just had one of the crazily, hottest summers ever the water was barely trickling. It's still beautiful, but I can only imagine what it looks like when it's full on running!
There was barely anyone there which is the best part about taking a road trip when school is in session. I love homeschooling!
The rock is beautiful and the deep green color of the water so pretty!
We had to drive over the canyon on a bridge to get to the falls and there happened to be a base jumper that jumped right when we drove by. He scared me to death....I thought he was committing suicide!
This was only about 1.5 hours away from Nampa so it wasn't early enough for lunch. The kids did want to explore so we did for a little while.
We wandered over to the area above the falls and found this great dock we could walk on.
It made a rectangle shape around the whole swimming area.
It's was basically a LEGO system for docks. It was quite fun!
Just up from the swimming are was a play structure so the kids played on that while Michael and I watched them having fun!
Our next stop was about 2.5 hours away in Corinne, UT. It seriously felt like we were driving out into no mans land. Michael even asked me if I was sure this was the way. An interesting part of the journey was driving by all these underground bunkers that were surrounded by barded wire fences, but there were no signs telling you what it was for. Also if you looked it up on Google it only showed the roads and nothing else....no building and no information. By the time we had driven miles probably at least 10 miles down the road we finally saw an entrance with a sign that said Northrup Grumman...it's was a weapons testing facility! Crazy!!!
Right near the sign for NG we turned down a gravel road and started heading back to the Golden Spike National Historical Park.
Michael and I have watched Hell on Wheels which is a show all about the Transcontinental Railroad. It's a bit of a rough show, but it's quite historically accurate and absolutely amazing what was accomplished in regards to connecting both sides of our great nation via the rail lines.
Another thing that was fun about us taking a road trip in September 2021 was that Zeke was official a 4th grader! That meant that we got a National Park Pass for free! If you have a 4th grader you can just go online and get your National Park Pass for free too.
We just happened to arrive at the perfect time. We got to sit in and watch a fun little video about the railroad and right after that was a live demonstration of the two railroads....Central Pacific and the Union Pacific coming together with actual historic trains!
These don't even look really! They are amazing! We got front row seats to the show! This was the engine for the Central Pacific it's called the Juniper.
This is Engine 119 from the Union Pacific.
Because these are steam trains we had to sit back pretty far so we wouldn't get burned by the steam that comes out the sides. Everyone had to stay back behind those barrels that are right in front of us.
It was a gorgeous day in fact it was quite hot!
This ranger had all sorts of interesting things to tell us about the events leading up to the railroads being united. Like how the Union Pacific leader Thomas Durrant hadn't paid his workers and they knew if they connected the railroad he never would so they kidnapped him and he finally paid up! Or how at the event where the railroads connected no one thought to bring an American flag, but there happened to be a Veteran in the crowd that had an outdated flag with 2 less stars on it than it should have had at that time. I love interesting stories like that.
The Central Pacific train backed way up and then blew its whistle...thankfully the Ranger gave us a warning so we could cover our ears....it was SO loud!
Amazing!
This was so much fun and so incredibly interesting!
Back when these trains were running it was more about moving people not primarily stuff, but now our trains are used primarily for move stuff and not people!
The Union Pacific train went way back and did the same thing. It actually went onto a side rail line and then backed up. This was my favorite part because when it backed up and made that quintessential train sounds...chugga chugga chugga chugga.....it was so fun!
After we were finished with the show we looked around the gift shop a bit and then went out on the grass and made ourselves lunch. It was a great, educational spot to stop at!
On to our next stop for the night!
Utah had never been a state that I'd desired to go to before, but boy has that changed. Utah is gorgeous!!! Around ever bend there are more beautiful rock formations to see. Also from a driving perspective Utah has got it down with their signs. We drove on quite a few two lane roads and they would have signs that would say...Passing lane in 1.2 miles. It was so nice to know when they were coming up so you wouldn't sit there thinking you were going to either have to pass this big truck and trailer or be stuck driving behind him forever. Bravo Utah!
I mean gorgeous right!!!
So much beauty!
Our stop for the night was in Moab, Ut. We got in late since it was such a long drive so we went right to the restaurant to eat dinner. We chose to eat at a Mexican restaurant. It wasn't amazing, but it was good food. After that we got back in the van to go to our second Airbnb. This one said not to follow GPS to get to there so I had printed out instructions. I was looking at those and GPS and they were the same. The problem was it was pitch black outside. The GPS was telling us to turn, but it honestly looked like it was telling us to just drive off the road. We had to make a U-turn and the drive slowly until we finally saw the turn. There was no lights at all, the street sign had been so badly bleached by the sun and wind you could barely read it, plus there was a pothole that could swallow a VW bug. Michael actually said...this looks like a street you get murdered on. That wasn't helpful with the kids by the way!
Anyways we drove down the street...avoiding the pot hole and then it opened up to this nicely graveled and lit area filled with identical single-wide trailers.
Here's what it looked like in the day time! Ours was trailer #5.
Here's what the main area of the trailer looked like. It was nice!
The kitchen was a walk through but open with the little eat in table. The door on the right is to the master bedroom.
On the other side of the house was a hallway that led to the two other bedrooms. In this house Ella and Zeke got the bunkbeds.
The older boys slept in the room at the end of the hall. There was a bathroom between the two rooms.
Here was the master bedroom. It really was nice and had everything we needed!
We stayed here for 2 nights. The first night was a bit of a mess though. At the Mexican restaurant Ella ordered grilled cheese, but she really only ate chips. In the middle of the night we got woken up by her saying she had puked. She never ate any dye so I don't know if it was from being the van for so long or eating something that didn't agree with her, but she puked. All over her covers and the floor. Of course being an Airbnb there is no maid and no front desk employee we can contact. I took her covers and sheets and thankfully they had laundry soap so I was able to toss everything in the washing machine. I did send a message to the host to ask them if they could bring some cleaning supplies or have someone stop by the next day to clean it, but I never got any sort of response at all. Michael used the only thing they had under the kitchen sink...glass cleaner! He made due and it worked pretty....it got the smell out which was the worse part. Unfortunately, Zeke was so freaked out from being ripped out of a deep sleep by Ella puking he was terrified to sleep with her and he ended up sleeping on the floor in the hallway. Like I said....it was a mess!
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