Thus begins my tales of adventure, enjoying the journey to Oregon and returning home.
Volume 1.0: Long Leg and Four Corners
As was once my traveling custom, I like to get a late start. I reverted to this fine old custom once again and arranged as it were, a pre-trip trip. The plan for day 1 was actually a plan for day 1/3; a journey of a mere 165 miles to Wichita Falls from Garland. A mid-afternoon departure from Garland would allow some last minute loading of supplies, battening down of computers and various issues at the office and then some yard work before I left my fields fallow for a fortnight. Of course final preparations took a bit more time than anticipated and the lighter traffic I was expecting on a get-away mid-afternoon Friday turned into heavy get-away traffic by 4:30 when we actually backed out of the driveway for points west. A road closure of indefinite time, only 60 miles out of Dallas, caused me to retrace my tracks and take a new route to Wichita Falls where we planned to fall in with my brother-in-law and his wife. We got to the Cook household by 8 PM and enjoyed dinner with Bill and Susan. Their gracious accommodations provided for a wide-open and immediate shot to head on down the highway the following morn, as it was going to be a very long drive of about 800 miles to our Utah destination the coming day.
I did have some flexibility in this our first and largest leg of our Journey; we could make the Great Goosenecks of the San Juan State Park in the SE corner of Utah, or we could cut north off of I-40 in the middle of New Mexico and make camp in southern Colorado. The calculation being that if we stopped in Colorado, we could definitely make a stop at Four Corners (nee National Monument, and now Navajo Tribal tourist attraction). Otherwise, if we shot for Utah, as originally planned, we may arrive at Four Corners too late to find an open gate. We had been disappointed by a closed gate there before.
Is getting to the Four Corners site important? In a word, Yes. It was 3 years hence when Grant was traveling with Sue and I, and I pointed out to Grant that there was a small metal disk that had a + sign etched in it that marked the one and only place in these United States where as many a four states were contiguous. Grant, showing a spark of adventure, said, "I think we should try and go there." Not wanting to suppress such adventurous notions, I "stepped on it" and drove fast over the two-lane highway winding through deep arroyos and hills of desert scrub brush, only to arrive at exactly 8:00 PM, just when the BLM ranger was closing the gate as we turned into the drive. He shrugged the universal sign of "Sorry, we're closed for the night. Nothing I can do muchacho." Would you believe we missed it by that much?
This time, I impatiently waited my turn at the last good fueling station in Gallup, NM for the final push into vacant country. We gained an hour as we crossed into New Mexico - that's a plus, as is the 75 MPH speed limit; so I watched the clock as we approached our northward turn to Ship Rock, NM off of I-40. We were making good time. Grant was feeling confident we would straddle all four states in a single stance that very evening. Meanwhile we were fighting a blustery headwind through Navajo Nation. As the road was at times momentarily obscured by clouds of sand and ochre dust, I asked Grant, "What do you think of this weather phenomena?" He replied it was sort of cool, as it made it look like we were on the Star Wars planet, Tatooine. Good thought.
With a zig onto small state highway in New Mexico and then a zag onto another small highway in Arizona, the clock on the dashboard read 6:50 (Mountain Time). This time we were not to be denied, right? On the verge of the Colorado state line, the clock was nearing 6:55 as we pulled up to the Four Corners erstwhile National Monument. Cars and campers were streaming out of the gate, but yes, the gate was still open. The BLM sign had been replaced by a somewhat crudely lettered sign indicating that the place was now run by the Navajo Tribe, and where the hours of operation once read "Open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM", there was now a new board nailed over the closing time, indicating they close at 7. Will they let us in with 5 minutes to go?
I rolled down my window as I approached the weather beaten toll booth just inside the gate, a tribal lady in the darkened interior turned to me and shouted, "OK. You can go in and take ONE PICTURE. Then we are CLOSED." We'll take it - and she did not even collect money from us. There were about 3 cars of stragglers still in the parking lot when we screeched to a halt. The young kids that had bounded out of those cars were hamming it up on the cross-hatched plate the designated the intersection of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
Volume 1.0: Long Leg and Four Corners
As was once my traveling custom, I like to get a late start. I reverted to this fine old custom once again and arranged as it were, a pre-trip trip. The plan for day 1 was actually a plan for day 1/3; a journey of a mere 165 miles to Wichita Falls from Garland. A mid-afternoon departure from Garland would allow some last minute loading of supplies, battening down of computers and various issues at the office and then some yard work before I left my fields fallow for a fortnight. Of course final preparations took a bit more time than anticipated and the lighter traffic I was expecting on a get-away mid-afternoon Friday turned into heavy get-away traffic by 4:30 when we actually backed out of the driveway for points west. A road closure of indefinite time, only 60 miles out of Dallas, caused me to retrace my tracks and take a new route to Wichita Falls where we planned to fall in with my brother-in-law and his wife. We got to the Cook household by 8 PM and enjoyed dinner with Bill and Susan. Their gracious accommodations provided for a wide-open and immediate shot to head on down the highway the following morn, as it was going to be a very long drive of about 800 miles to our Utah destination the coming day.
I did have some flexibility in this our first and largest leg of our Journey; we could make the Great Goosenecks of the San Juan State Park in the SE corner of Utah, or we could cut north off of I-40 in the middle of New Mexico and make camp in southern Colorado. The calculation being that if we stopped in Colorado, we could definitely make a stop at Four Corners (nee National Monument, and now Navajo Tribal tourist attraction). Otherwise, if we shot for Utah, as originally planned, we may arrive at Four Corners too late to find an open gate. We had been disappointed by a closed gate there before.
Is getting to the Four Corners site important? In a word, Yes. It was 3 years hence when Grant was traveling with Sue and I, and I pointed out to Grant that there was a small metal disk that had a + sign etched in it that marked the one and only place in these United States where as many a four states were contiguous. Grant, showing a spark of adventure, said, "I think we should try and go there." Not wanting to suppress such adventurous notions, I "stepped on it" and drove fast over the two-lane highway winding through deep arroyos and hills of desert scrub brush, only to arrive at exactly 8:00 PM, just when the BLM ranger was closing the gate as we turned into the drive. He shrugged the universal sign of "Sorry, we're closed for the night. Nothing I can do muchacho." Would you believe we missed it by that much?
This time, I impatiently waited my turn at the last good fueling station in Gallup, NM for the final push into vacant country. We gained an hour as we crossed into New Mexico - that's a plus, as is the 75 MPH speed limit; so I watched the clock as we approached our northward turn to Ship Rock, NM off of I-40. We were making good time. Grant was feeling confident we would straddle all four states in a single stance that very evening. Meanwhile we were fighting a blustery headwind through Navajo Nation. As the road was at times momentarily obscured by clouds of sand and ochre dust, I asked Grant, "What do you think of this weather phenomena?" He replied it was sort of cool, as it made it look like we were on the Star Wars planet, Tatooine. Good thought.
With a zig onto small state highway in New Mexico and then a zag onto another small highway in Arizona, the clock on the dashboard read 6:50 (Mountain Time). This time we were not to be denied, right? On the verge of the Colorado state line, the clock was nearing 6:55 as we pulled up to the Four Corners erstwhile National Monument. Cars and campers were streaming out of the gate, but yes, the gate was still open. The BLM sign had been replaced by a somewhat crudely lettered sign indicating that the place was now run by the Navajo Tribe, and where the hours of operation once read "Open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM", there was now a new board nailed over the closing time, indicating they close at 7. Will they let us in with 5 minutes to go?
I rolled down my window as I approached the weather beaten toll booth just inside the gate, a tribal lady in the darkened interior turned to me and shouted, "OK. You can go in and take ONE PICTURE. Then we are CLOSED." We'll take it - and she did not even collect money from us. There were about 3 cars of stragglers still in the parking lot when we screeched to a halt. The young kids that had bounded out of those cars were hamming it up on the cross-hatched plate the designated the intersection of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
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| Four Corners. Only place in the Us where four states are contiguously joined |
It would be rude and unseemly to knock those kids off the marker, but I could hear the hobnailed boots of the Navajo lady as each step she took crunched along the gravel walk. We were running out of time and after driving for 700-plus miles, I was not going to be denied. As the kiddos, unaware of time and protocol sashayed on and off the marker, I handed Grant my camera and said, "Quick, shoot me!" as I cut quickly onto the momentarily vacated marker.
In the fashion of the old Twister game, it was Left Hand: Arizona, Right Foot: Utah. Grant them moved toward the + spot as the lady announced, "We're closed!". But we made it, We hit our first mark, and perhaps the most difficult of this trip.
I find it an interesting twist (ironic?) that the Navajo construct their dwellings, hogans, always as a circular structure with the door on the east. I have heard that some Navajo find it discomforting to live and sleep in a structure with corners - yet here they have been given dominion over a place named "Four Corners". The epitome of a culture clash, the western foundation built upon cartesian coordinates and boundaries and demarkations, while the Navajo see the world as circular and moving and without lines.
I find it an interesting twist (ironic?) that the Navajo construct their dwellings, hogans, always as a circular structure with the door on the east. I have heard that some Navajo find it discomforting to live and sleep in a structure with corners - yet here they have been given dominion over a place named "Four Corners". The epitome of a culture clash, the western foundation built upon cartesian coordinates and boundaries and demarkations, while the Navajo see the world as circular and moving and without lines.
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| Left Hand - Arizona Right Foot - Utah A New Spin on the game of Twister |
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| Grant hip-checks small kids to get his turn at the Four Corners + Spot as time expires |
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| Families hamming and reclining in multiple states |
On this journey, we would traversed 8 states. But on this, our first day of travels, we covered four states at once -- how is that for efficiency?
Boo-yah!
Boo-yah!
With the sun low in the west, we hopped back into "The Q" (nickname for the Toyota 4Runner) and put on a few additional miles driving into the sunset for a night of camping in the Desert at The Great Goosenecks of the San Juan, Utah State Park.
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