Hill Aerospace Museum & The Golden Spike

The kids had a two-days off school last week (teacher in-service days) and we planned a trip to the Timpanogas Caves NM south of Salt Lake City. We knew that you had to purchase tickets so a ranger can guide you through the caves, but what we didn’t factor in is that local schools take field trips to the caves this time of year so tickets are snatched up well in advance leaving only a few for the public and none for a family of four at a single time. So, our trip plans changed and we ended up taking a day trip (in lew of an overnighter) to the Hill Aerospace Museum and Golden Spike NHS.

Hill Aerospace Museum seems to be one of those ‘hidden’ gems. It’s free, though they encourage a $1/person donation, and it is massive. There are two huge hangers crammed full of planes, as well as an outdoor area with ‘jumbo’ planes, including the C-123 Provider below that was featured in, The Living Daylights (it’s a Bond film)

I love the the kids are now big enough that they are starting to have an interest in beyond just looking at stuff. I think we read every description on the planes outside and many of the indoor ones. They also sat an watched a few of the educational videos. So far the only thing that seems to stick with them is the ‘flying banana’ helicopter (H-21 Workhorse) and the toilet logo on the B-29 Superfortress (dropped atomic bombs) , but hey….it’s a start.

The biggest plane was the Douglas C-124C Globemaster with a wingspan of 174ft 1inch and enough cargo space to carry a semi (or Uncle Cory’s Dump truck – in Jack terms). Please note the building behind the plane for scale.

Once we walked poor Emilie’s legs off at the Air Museum, which she let us know in no uncertain terms, we headed off to the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Promentory, Utah. For a quick lesson this is the location where the Union Pacific and California Pacific railroads met and transcontinental railroad was completed. It was late in the day by the time we arrived, but as fate would have it we got there at the perfect time to see them put the Steam Engines away. Both the CPRR Jupiter and the UPRR No. 119 are beautifully recreated steam engines and replicas of the two original trains that “met in the middle.”

All the hissing from the steam engines made the kids a little leery, especially since the pressure release valve would go off with no warning. Even I jumped a few times. Still, the desire to see the trains was too great and the hung in there. Once the trains were parked in their sheds we watched a video on building the tracks across the country and then hit the road for home.

It was a long day, but a good day…..even if this was ‘Plan B.’ Plus it freed us up to work on our Chicken Coop project for the rest of the weekend (that’s another post entirely).