Road Trip: Southwest

Day 11: Friday, May 02, 2025 - Four Corners NM, and Mesa Verde NP, CO

Day's statistics:
Weather: mid 70s
Steps: Steve 10,670; Linda 7,220
Travel: 138 miles

Breakfast was light. Really light. And served in the small lobby where check-in takes place.
Linda had toast with peanut butter, and I had cereal.
There was a restaurant across the parking lot, but why bother. This was better than nothing.
We returned to the room, finished getting ready, and headed out.

Blanding was a stop / stay-over of convenience rather than anything else. Yesterday was a full day, though we didn't do all that much driving at one time, it added up with three and a half hours amongst the major stops we made, but not including the driving within the parks themselves. Today was going to be a five-hour plus driving day, not including destination parking.
Our first landmark today was not a National Park, but rather a National Monument (NM).
In between Blanding and Mesa Verde NP was the Four Corners NM. This wasn't something we had to see, but rather something we wanted to see that we were essentially passing right by anyway. But on the other hand, it is the ONLY location in the US where four states meet. It's as quirky as the geographical center of the contiguous United State, or the geographical center of all the United State that we visited last year.
The route was not terribly interesting - from a topography perspective. Certainly not when compared to the previous couple of days...

Turn right!

Unbeknownst at the time (no, I didn't look at the map that closely beforehand), the road does not go straight to the monument. No. First, it leaves Utah and enters Colorado (zoom, there goes the small "Welcome to Colorado" sign). Then it leaves Colorado and enters New Mexico. The entrance to the monument is actually in New Mexico.

After paying the meager entrance fee - the monument is actually on an Native American Reservation so it is NOT covered by the National Park Pass - we drove to the monument and its marker, and wound up parking in Arizona!.
So before 9:00 in the morning, we had driven in four different states. Did you ever do that?!!?
There is a brass marker imbedded in concrete, state markers further out, state and Native American flag even further out, all surrounded by booths with hand crafts and some food for sale.
Each state had a raised platform that was accessible by a ramp.
There was a queue of about five people, including us, waiting to take their photos. Someone before us tried sitting in a way so they were in all four states at once. And after our photo, there was a couple that used their [assumedly] iWatch and their phone to time a photo so they could get one while they were actually jumping.
We took our obligatory selfie while "just" standing in four states at once (well... at least one of us was...), a few other photos, then headed out.






Near the entrance booth, there was an office. I ran in to get our NM stamp.
There was no one in there when I arrived. I heard a voice over an intercom of some sort saying something about "someone in the office". A couple minutes later a woman appeared. She asked what I wanted, I mentioned the stamp, and she hurriedly got it ready verifying the date. She was about to stamp in one spot and I suggested another. Had she said "This stamp is too big for that space", I would have asked her to use the space she was originally going to use. But she didn't so I didn't, and here we are.
I cleaned this up a bit for readability.

We headed out and onto our next destination.
Not far away was the state line. The "Welcome to Colorado" sign was across the street from the "Welcome to New Mexico" sign (pictured above).

The Google® machine indicated it was less than an hour from Four Coners to Mesa Verde NP.
There were a few interesting formations along the way.



Rather than go straight to the NP, we decided to visit another National Monument, this time it was Yucca House.
This was located at a spot that was remote. Drive off the paved highway to a paved road. Then turn right onto an unpaved road that passed through a farm - literally, so much so that we had to wait for cows to get off the road and out of the way. Then we parked in what almost seemed like a resident's driveway.

Before Mesa Verde, we stopped in Cortez to pick up a Subway® foot long to have a picnic in the park.

After picking up lunch, we completed the journey to Mesa Verde NP.

Pretty much across the street from the entrance sign, a little bit into a field, was a small solar array. Whether this was for the benefit of a resident, farm, or the park itself, we don't know.

Out in front, and a little away from the VC was a sculpture, here from two angles, and a close up of the figure toward the top.



In addition to the sculpture was a thank you note to the Native Americans, and a spectacular view of the mountains.


We headed inside the VC.


We went inside and acquired our stamp - the 9^th NP stamp on this trip.

Serendipitously, I also discovered that there was a stamp for the Yucca House NM available here too!

We also picked up a map to decide where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. (yes, I copy-pasted this text.)
After we left the VC, we proceeded through the entrance booth - a rarity as usually the VC is inside the boundry of the park. We saw the mountains from a little higher perspective.

And we continued on.

First we stopped at the Mancos Valley Overlook. Normally I would havev tried to piece these together, but because they were at different angles, it would not have had a weird staggered, offset appearance. So I left them individual.



Then there was the tunnel - though not as long as the one in Zion. Or was that Bryce Canyon?



The next overlook was at Montezuma Valley.

There were some more views on the way to our next stop.



Our climb continued and eventually we arrived at the Park Point Overlook, Fire Lookout station.
After parking, we saw some more views. And one of us chose to hike the paved trail all the way up to the top of the mountain for some great views.



A landscape pan of this park, including a quick video walkaround at the Fire Lookout, is included in this video

We left the fire tower area and continued on, over ten miles deep into the park as there were a few sights in the beginning, then a bunch at the far end.
This first sight looks like there was a fire here.


This section of the park was a driving look that had a series of stops to make, especially like Arches. However, instead of arches, we were visiting centuries old pueblos and other structures - they were on display in enclosures of some sort. We wound up seeing a number of the same people at a number of the stops because, well, it didn't take that long to visit a sight, and we were generally all driving in the same direction.
The first of these stops was the Pit House.




The next stop was the Navajo Canyon view.

The park is known for it's cliff dwellings, such as this one we saw from above, called Square Tower House.




If only there was a way to see more of the detail... oh wait! Zoom lens!


This was looking back at the overlook from the where the car was parked.

There were a serious of stops included in Mesa Top Sites, that included dwellings





















Then came the Sun Point Pueblo.





The park had views of more cliff dwellings, these located in Cliff Canyon.

This was called Square Tower House Overlook.
I have to admit that my mind has a problem processing that these are full size structures, and not smaller models.
There were a series of structures in a couple different alcoves in the cliffs, including Oak Tree House, Fire Temple, and New Fire House.








The last stop on the loop was the Sun Temple, which was on the other side of a branch of Cliff Canyon.
Before and while circling Sun Temple, we saw: the viewpoint over there where we were, a view down Cliff Canyon, and another cliff dwelling that should / may be called Cliff House.


There were some square holes that showed a little of the inside of the temple, but the best view of it came from climbing the two rocks at the back of the temple and being able to somewhat see inside.








A bit further down was the Cliff Palace View with a view of... Cliff Palace.



Next was House of Many Windows.




This is still Cliff Canyon, but from the other side.


The last cliff dwelling we saw was Hemenway House.




There was a last pueblo to visit, Balcony House, but it required a reservation which we didn't have.


But we did get a bit of a view Soda Canyon.

On the way out of the park we passed this sign. My brain processed what it said, I did a uturn, then another uturn, and got a picture of it. This should be put up elsewhere.

Our next overnight was going to be in a town called Pagosa Springs, CO.
Keeping with our three to four hour driving limit, this random town was pretty much in between Mesa Verde and the city we were going to visit next, Sante Fe, NM.
The drive to Pagosa Springs was over two hours away.
Based on the lack of pictures taken during this stretch, I can only imagine that we must have thought that the scenery is no big deal.
Right around 5:30 we arrived at our dinner destination: Shanty's Taco Shop.


We ordered and then sat at the table and waited for our order to be called.
Linda had the taco salad, and I had the enchilada & burrito combo.


The salsas on the side were really hot. And the portions were actaully too big - we probably could have done with me having one or the other, and sharing Linda's taco salad. But the food was good and REALLY reasonably priced.

After arriving and checking in, we made our way to our room.

After relaxing, some wine, taking care of the luggage, and watching a little TV, we brushed and went to bed.

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