“Watch where you put that spike“ or “why is there a fountain in the middle of the street?”

We left Bryce Canyon for a series of one night stops to get us to Oregon and California. Next stop was the Golden Spike Campground in Brigham< UT. I assume they have that name because of their proximity to where the final or golden spike was hammered to connect and complete the transcontinental railroad which was started January 8, 1863 and finished May 8, 1869. There were actually 4 spikes the first being a gold cast spike from David Hewes friend of the Central Pacific RR President Leland Stanford using his own 17.5 carat gold. No one had thought to do it so he had it done. A second silver spike from Nevada and barely made it to Promontory Point in time for the ceremony. A third spike made of gold and silver from Arizona’s governor. And a fourth spike made of gold made by Frederick Marriott owner of the San Francisco News Letter. The four spikes were pounded into a ceremonial polished RR tie made of California Laurelwood that had 4 holes drilled for the ceremonial and softer metal ceremonial ties. A silver plated maul was used to drive the spikes.

After the spikes were driven the RR tie and spikes were removed and a regular pine tie and 3 iron spikes were driven in. The fourth and final spike was wired transcontinental telegraph line so the nation could hear the blows as it was driven in.

The Transcontinental Railroad was an amazing engineering feat accomplished with quite a story with good and bad parts as to land taken and lives lost but connected the East with the West and made commerce and travel time immensely faster than by wagon train and stage Coach. Too much to go into here but fascinating.

The information above is from the National Park Service website which goes into more detail as to the engravings on the spikes etc.

But I digress. In my last blog installment I mentioned that there was an interesting turn of events to come. When we were about two hours out from the RV Park we received a text saying that there was a water main break so no water in the park BUT there was a free water source 10 minutes from the park. I don’t like the unknown when pulling the trailer but with Jo’s help we navigated to the water supply and after a small bath for my feet managed to fill our fresh water tank we usually leave empty to avoid another 300# of water weight we dont need at our full hookup camp sites that supply fresh water, power and sewer at the campsite. With only 30 or so gallons we had to be sparing with water use and because I hadn’t sterilized the fresh water tank in a while had to get water from Walmart to drink, feed Mocha and make coffee. Things could be worse at least we had a safe spot for the one night.

Like many of the commercial campgrounds we typically stay in a fair number of the sites are occupied by workers in the area for a few months and families and seniors either seasonally to get away in the summer or permanently due to housing costs versus the cost of an RV and long term rental price which is much cheaper. This one had about 3 rows of ten sites with two rows permanent or semi permanent campers and one row of 10 for transient campers like us. We hadn’t been there more than 10 minutes when a man and a woman stopped by with cases of sealed vegetable trays they were giving away from an open house they had. What a nice gesture and delicious add to our meal that night. People have been super friendly this trip no matter their bumper sticker. Oh and they have DoorDash even in Brigham City Utah and we had Chines food that wasn’t bad delivered to or campsite trying to not make a lot of dishes to wash.

We packed up the next AM with me realizing I didn’t have a water hose to rinse the sewer pipe since no water duh. CAUTION THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS DETAILS OF THE SEWER PROCESS. So our trailer has a 30 gallon black tank (not sure why they don’t call it a brown or yellow tank) and a 40 gallon grey water tank bot hooked to one sewer hose with a release valve for each. My process is to don surgical gloves and empty the Black water tank then via a rinse port I normally hook a garden hose to, I rinse the black tank via a sprayer inside the tank. I rinse and empty at least three times then fill with a small amount of clean water to have water sloshing around in the black tank while traveling. The best step is to release the shower and sink soapy water which rinses the sewer hose followed by a garden hose spray into the hose with fresh water before capping off the hose and storing in its bumper outside compartment. Not as gross as it sounds and almost second nature now. If there isn’t a sewer hookup at the site like in many state campgrounds you need to go to a dump station usually on the premise and do what I described above but with a line of other campers waiting for you to finish so they can do it and leave. No pressure.

We headed out the next AM after a Walmart quick stop for bottled water (a way to avoid altitude sickness is to acclimate at increasing altitudes and drink LOTS of water). The Walmart had a beautiful backdrop.

Westward Ho next stop Idaho.