Speaking of our beautiful country, I hope you enjoyed the pics of Mesa Verde yesterday. I posted some of the best (as I always do) in their full resolution on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/131457232@N02/. Today we went and found even more of it to share with you.
It was cold for us Floridians this morning. Way into the 30s, but the Airstream kept us snug. It was a pancake-breakfast-for-two morning inside. Shortly after breakfast we said "let's go" and within 30 minutes we were rolling out of Mesa Verde. On the way out I had to stop for one more pic, this one looking north to Mt. Wilson (CO), San Juan Peak and other high points in the San Juan National Forest (where Sasquatch may, or may not, live).
Then, back to US 160 and headed West. We passed through Cortez which offered a view of rural, southern Colorado life. We saw a particular variety of Rocky Mountain poverty there that we had not seen in the slightly larger and more touristy towns we had passed through in the past few days. This wasn't eastern poverty. This was "dusty trailer park where every third residence was a 40 year old 20 foot travel trailer on cinder blocks" poverty. Not the stuff John Denver captured. Maybe Woody Guthrie. Perhaps as a sign of things to come, shortly off the main drag on a hill overlooking town was a new building. Not fancy. Probably a pre-fab steel structure, but neat and painted. It was the cannabis store and organic growing facility.
On we pressed with a singular purpose leaving just a bit more dust in the air of Cortez. We were drawn to that most singular point in the US - the four corners! Only in one place in our country do four states come together at a place the size of an atom. It was about an hour from Mesa Verde to the four corners (or it is The Four Corners? I'm not sure) and the day was clear, beautiful and warming slowly toward the mid 60s.
The four corners is on Navajo land. That means, of course, there is a fee to get in. That's not a shot at the Navajos... if it was on land owned by the Pilgrims one of those black hatted fellows would have stood at a meeting and said "Mr. Standish, do ye not think it prudent that we assess a tariff of one pence for each visitor who enters our land?" As a retired man-of-commerce myself, I think the profit motive is a force that propels us forward. So we paid the $5 a head and in we went. That seemed a bit pricy, but when we considered what the Navajo and Native Americans in general have gained from their relationship with the rest of the country versus what it's cost them, we figured that our $10 wasn't the point where the scales tipped in their favor and we were obligated to say “Wait a minute. I think that debt's been settled”.
After paying our entrance fee (at a building, by the way, that was a plywood shack painted bright red) area near the actual point of intersection is a strange mix. There was an old travel trailer (next stop, Cortez!) with the side cut out through which a woman was selling fry bread (I can only guess) on a dirt parking lot, there were porta-johns and cars stirring up dust as they came or left. Not auspicious treatment for America's singularity. Then two things became obvious: The point itself was removed from the entrance and was a modern structure, and there was a Navajo Nation infrastructure project across the parking lot in which countless $5 entrance fees were being turned into modern bathrooms. The building looked like it had been designed by a child of Georgia O'Keefe and Frank Lloyd Wright. This November I'm voting for the candidate who promises to make a Navajo the next Secretary of Transportation. I like it when my contributions actually deliver improved infrastructure I can see and use.
As one approaches "the point" the structure that surrounds it comes into focus. It is four straight, separate buildings which form walls when viewed by a person entering but are actually rows of vendor stalls facing the point. They form a square with the corners missing. Each of the four rests fully in its own state New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. All stalls were staffed with what appeared to be Native Americans. Again, I'm liking the Navajo way... The new infrastructure leads to permanent jobs. Several of them were selling blankets. I bet they wish they still had the ones the US Army gave their ancestors so they could sell them back. In the four corners are entrance points to the innermost sanctum. I entered through the AZ/NM portal - not out of allegiance to the southern twins of the four states, but because it was closest to the "RV and Bus" parking area. With a dramatic reverence usually reserved for religious shrines, the ground slopes slowly toward the metal marker designating the point. There are benches set "theater-in-the-round" style with walkways between the rows to allow any visitor direct access to the point. I didn't understand the benches. Do people sit there in shifts watching to make sure the point doesn't move? Do new agers sit in contemplation of the deep meaning of the point? I can't tell you. Today two bus loads of school kids were eating sack lunches there. Kind of makes a mockery of the point I thought. Anyway, why am I yammering on about the point, the point, the point? Let me just show you a pic (remember, this is a panorama. In real life these two rows of vendor stalls are perpendicular, even though they look parallel in this shot):
And here is a pic of the point itself which is being desecrated by some joker mooning it:
From there we continued into Arizona. The landscape changed steadily. It was clearly getting dryer, the ground was getting redder, the vegetation went from "low" to “sparse” to "sporadic", the terrain went from flat to sharp cliffs to smooth hills to the decaying cores of ancient volcanos sticking up here and there. Here are some scenes from along the way. Taken from a moving vehicle (there were no pull offs from US160 in Arizona for any of these spectacular sites).
A volcano core:
A butte
And a rock within a row of rocks that looks to me precisely like the roof of the Sydney Opera House:
We arrived at the Navajo National Monument about 2:00. This was the first time this trip... actually the first time ever... that we went to a campground without a reservation (that's not a pun on Navajo... this park doesn't allow visitors to save a camping spot in advance). Today: no reservations, no problem. The place is almost empty. Maybe 10% of the spots are occupied. We are in the highest camp spot by elevation. It's one of the few here that has side by side parking so I could unhitch and fit. Most spots are for tent camping and have room for one Prius. We are so isolated that if we wanted to become naturist Airstreamers (I don't think "naturist"and "streamers" belong in the same phrase but I couldn't improve on that) this would be the place to do it. I'll give you a few minutes to shake that image. Here we are in "Camp Silver Cliche'" with Navajo Mountain on Lake Powell in the distance.
Note that we;re picking up a little of every place we've visited in 3 weeks and 3,100 miles to date. Here is some of the vegetation in the immediate area we are camping:
I mentioned above a first for us, but it's also the first night we are off the grid on this trip, the first time we're running on solar only without generators and definitely the most remote and isolated we've been on this trip (except for the feeling that we were the only sane people in Louisiana). Given that isolation it's also the first time I put shells in the magazine of the Remington (none go in the chamber unless we actually hear the zombies coming).
So, tomorrow we hang here. Good day to go slow. There are some excellent ruins here (no, not Mrs. C' and me. we may be runs, but our days of excellence may be in the past) this park highlights the family and social life of the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and other tribes of the region. It location was chosen because of the Keat Seal runs which are similar to the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and others. The tours have not started for the season yet so the best we will do are pics like we had from Mesa Verde.
Ok, Campers. I'm turning in.
SC'
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