Day 10 (Four Corners and Mesa Verde)

Day 10
July 1, 2006
Sightseeing at Four Corners and Mesa Verde National Park

After a few quick bowls of cereal in the trailer, we headed out toward Four Corners, where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado all meet—the only place in the United States where four states meet like this.

Once again we were fooled by the distances in the west. On a map it looked like we would be tooling around in the very southwestern corner of Colorado, but by the time we returned to Durango, we had driven another 250 miles! It’s hard for east coast folks to get their minds around how big and empty America really is.

Four Corners was all grown up compared to how it looked when Frank was 10. Long ago it was a dusty concrete marker in the middle of a sun-drenched, nowhere. Now it’s a dusty concrete marker surrounded by what might be best described as a flea market. Perhaps the biggest change is a $3 per person admission fee charged by the Navajo Tribe on whose reservation Four Corners sits.

We waited in a short line in the very hot sun while other people had their pictures taken and then we took our turn. Elliot and Emily played an impromptu game of Twister, placing one hand and one foot in each state for a photo. We then asked a stranger to snap a photo of all four of us.

We then drove back toward Durango, stopping in Cortez to eat a picnic lunch in the City’s park. We have discovered that every town of any size in this part of the country seems to have a grassy, treed park with picnic tables near its center. Many were established or improved with state grants under the “Outdoor Colorado” initiative.

We then drove to Mesa Verde National Park. If Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park was empty, this one was full! Mesa Verde is known for ancestral pueblos which were built on top of several mesas as well as under sandstone overhangs just below the mesas’ tops. Puebloans, known for their remarkable building techniques, were also highly skilled potters and basket makers. The last time we were at Mesa Verde—16 years ago—the people who built the cliff dwellings were labeled by park personnel “Anasazi,” an Indian term meaning “ancient ones.” We were amused to learn that since then the term has become somewhat politically incorrect, if not anthropologically inaccurate, and these people are now termed “Ancestral Puebloans.”

We had forgotten that it is a 20 mile drive from the park’s entrance to the first site of interest (more windshield time for us!) On the way up to the top of the mesa and the parking areas for the cliff dwellings, we saw the devastation that is still evident from a massive, 22,000 acre wild fire that ravaged the park in 2000. This fire was caused by lightning, as were two small brush fires that started in the park today and were quickly doused by Forest Service fire fighters.

The sites we saw were well worth the effort to reach them. We first stopped at the park’s museum and watched a 25 minute documentary on the peoples who populated this area beginning about 2,000 years ago up until about 800 years ago. What was most surprising to us was that the southwest Colorado population in that period, 30,000, was larger than the present day population in the same area. Upon exiting the museum, we were surprised to be offered a piece of birthday cake by a couple of rangers until they explained that Mesa Verde National Park was 100 years old on June 29, and that the free cake was part of the centennial party.

We next walked down a paved path to a cliff dwelling named Spruce Tree House where we were allowed to climb down a ladder into a kiva. Kivas were round, underground rooms used ceremonially by the ancient ones.

Today most of the cliff dwellings are not open to visitors unless you buy a tour ticket and are accompanied by a ranger. We joined a guided tour of Balcony House, one site where access is controlled. This is the same tour that Frank took with his father and brothers 32 years ago. We had to climb up several ladders and crawl through two tight passages. What an interesting experience! The kids loved it because it was active and exciting. We shot lots of video and still photos. It would have been nice to spend more time at Mesa Verde. Perhaps next time…

We drove back to the campground, showered and went to town to meet for dinner our new friends, Paul and Sherri, a fire lieutenant and paramedic couple from Chicago whom we met in Colorado Springs, their 6-year-old daughter, Jessica, and family friend, Caitlin, at Carver’s, a local micro brewery/restaurant on Main Avenue. It was a great meal and fun was had by all.

We slept soundly inside our sleeping bags with almost all of the flaps zipped up. There was a brief, light rain at about 4 AM that didn’t really amount to much but did provide us with the unique sound that rain on a pop-up trailer’s roof makes. A sound that brings back many memories of camping on rainy nights.