Day-cation

The 119: The engine doing the
re-enactment for the day

During our winter break we decided to take a little day-cation.  Sometimes we find we live so close to some really neat activities yet get consumed with daily life and never experience what is in our own backyard.  So, off to Utah for the day!  Our first stop, especially for our train crazy boys, was Promontory Point.  It's where the continental railroad was completed in May 1869.  And truly, it is out in the middle of no where!  The National Park is officially closed during the winter but they open up for one week after Christmas which gave us the chance to see what this place was all about.  We made sure we got there at a time when the trains were running so we were able to see a (partial) re-enactment of the trains coming and meeting for the first time.  I say partial because during the winter, they only have one train out.....the kids didn't mind the historical inaccuracy and neither did we.  It was really interesting seeing all the work that went into building our nations railway system.  There was absolutely no crowd for the morning show so we pretty much got to be on the train as much as we wanted.  It was a real steamy and the boys (and girl too!) loved seeing the coal being shovelled into the coal box and the fire burning to create the steam.  The people dress like the characters they are portraying which adds to the authenticity of the event (and I swear they were even missing some teeth and re-enacting the dental care of the 1800's---these dudes are diehards!) The weather was absolutely gorgeous too!  Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful December day!



My Little Train Engineer



W

 We criss-crossed across the Utah countryside to make an afternoon sleigh ride through and elk feeding area set up by the BLM.  But, because we are having a no snow kind of winter, it ended up being a horse drawn wagon ride.  It was still fun and we were able to see the elk up close.  The people at the Ranch said there were considerably less elk this year due to warmer temps and lack of snow. 

See the ground???  Muddy yuck. 

At the end of the day, the kids were tired and we had all had a fun day. Think we will try again next year for a sleigh ride just because it sounds cool.  Gotta love a good day-cation!