Missiles and Whistles

May 6, 2011

Missiles and Whistles

We wanted to be at the Golden Spike National Historic Site early enough to see the 10:00 am locomotive moving into position.  We first stopped at the ATK (Thiokol) Rocket Park.  Lots of technical stuff I don’t understand since I’m NOT a rocket scientist, but very interesting, with a fairly large display of the missiles and rockets they manufacture. Barney is the rocket scientist and understood a lot more than the rest of us.  The 149 foot long reusable solid rocket motor was very impressive - not only the size, but the fact that the spent boosters parachute to the Atlantic Ocean. They are recovered from the water, and then sent to Florida where they are disassembled, returned to the ATK Thiokol plant in Utah, and refurbished for use on future space shuttle flights.

Booster rocket for space shuttle

The Rocket Park

With our normal penchant for being in on the action, we arrived at the Golden Spike just before 10, in time to hear them announce the usual schedule for the locomotives.  THEN they also announced that we just happened to be there on the day they were rehearsing for the May 10 anniversary celebration, so we got to see the whole re-enactment process of both the Central Pacific Jupiter and the Union Pacific 119 locomotives moving into position, with all the bells and whistles, and bells and whistles, and bells and whistles. If we had come on this trip any earlier in the year, we would have missed all of this because the trains don’t start running until May 1.

Fred & Wilma, Betty & Barney

And then they meet!

Five star and 11 on the 1 to 10 scale were some of our ratings for the Golden Spike visit.

Continuing on through massive construction on I15, we stopped at Timpanogos Cave in hopes of getting another stamp in our books. They don’t open until late May. You would think that since that is the case, the entrance station would have the stamp available (they do have the attendant to take your money to get into the attraction). Oh, well, that will be another trip.

Proceeded on down highway 6 through Price to Green River where we splurged and stopped at Subway for dinner.

After trying and failing to find a campsite in Moab, we back tracked to the rest stop at the highway. We’ll chisel out more on the rock pad tomorrow.