Road Trip, ctd. - Day 6

Monday, July 16, 2006 - Day 6
Telluride to 4 corners to Monument Valley to Mesa - 505 miles

On Sunday night, after dinner, we sat in a hottub beneath a zillion stars in the clear, cool, Colorado night sky. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Monday morning, after breakfast and a brief tour of incredibly beautiful Telluride, including a gondola ride, we were off again, to the 4 corners and Monument Valley and Moab, Utah, before heading back to Mesa.

There’s just one place in the United States where 4 states come together at one point, and that place, located on Navajo Nation land, is called The 4 Corners Monument, or just "the 4 corners" for short. A and I took our firstborn, Alexandra, there when she was a baby, in 1977, and sat her tiny, diaper-clad bottom on all 4 states: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado & Utah.

For what it’s worth, the site, established by the US government in 1868, was a site of intersection in the 17th century, too, although the 4 groups represented at that time were not states but peoples: the Spanish, Apaches, Utes and Navajos of the region.


It was Arizon hot in that part of the country, and when we skirted through Arizona and stopped, so I could take a pic of my shadow, the heat was formidable.







From the 4 corners, we drove Hwy 160 west and south, to Kayenta, NM, and on to Monument Valley. If you haven’t been to Monument Valley, you need to go, preferably at sunset, when the shadows loom long, making the red buttes even redder.
Monument Valley is stunning, and it's easy to see why it's been the setting for more Westerns than any other site in the US. Happily, it still looks almost exactly as it did in 1938, when John Wayne and John Ford went there to film Stagecoach.

From Monument Valley, we drove on Hwys 163 and 191 to Moab, Utah. On the way, I spotted this amazing rock:

























In Moab, we had a bad dinner but a decent beer (Polygamy Porter) at Eddie McStiff's. A & I were both disappointed that on this trip, there was no time to spend exploring either Arches or Canyonlands National Parks. Nevertheless, as we drove out of Moab, on Hwy 128, we saw a spectacular sunset above the canyon walls before driving back to Mesa.