Bruneau Sand Dunes is also known for its, get this, sand dunes.
We decided we weren’t in a big time squunch this morning so we got the girls up and moving around then, eying those awesome dunes in the background, decided to climb those suckers.
Of course, Grace caught a really cool dragonfly. She just has lightning fast hands!
Caroline and Grace were both doing great climbing the dune until Grace started freaking out that the wind was blowing the sand like needles into her legs. And the wind was totally cranking. I wish I had had an anemometer, but the wind was certainly enough to knock over our tent and bend 3 of our poles. Seriously. It had been hard to sleep with it ripping at the tent, too.
Caroline, wearing pants, stuck it out and ran all the way to the end and back. She really had a blast.
Brad, wearing fur, also had no problem with the wind. Of course, I was wearing pants since it was below 80 degrees, so I was fine.
After packing up our bent tent and listening to Brad curse up a storm because of course the wind was all our fault somehow (he got over it pretty quickly) the open road beckoned and Salt Lake City was our goal.
Of course, being us, it’s totally about the journey and not only the destinations; we pulled off in Utah to check out the Golden Spike.
The Golden Spike was the ceremonial railroad spike driven when the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific train tracks met.The Union Pacific had started from the west coast, the Central started from Independence, Missouri. With the help of the Chinese laborers, the Union Pacific rail was about two years ahead of schedule by the time they reached the Sierra Nevadas.
The Central Pacific train, above, burned coal (although it could burn wood, too). The Union Pacific burned wood since it was more readily available than coal.
The blue was the Union Pacific train, the brown was Central Pacific. They put on a neat show at the center and even had the trains running and whistling. I believe the road signs before Golden Spike seemed to indicate that there weren’t any facilities, but that was a lie. The visitor center was great and had nice bathrooms, displays and even a couple movies.
We saw these beautiful birds on the way back to the main highway to Salt Lake City.
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