Four Corners and more rocks....

SKA B-Q at SKA Brewery, Durango

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde

Cliff Palace from across the canyon

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah

Four Corners

Petrified logs----still more rocks!

Sitting at the KOA in Holbrook, AZ. Half moon playing hid and seek behind the first clouds we have seen on this trip. Not packed in here as we have been at previous RV parks. Kind of nice not looking into windows of someone's Monarch coach parked 15 ft away. Had a fine Italian meal at Mesa Italian Restaurant. Who would have guessed. Fractured hip waiting to happen as I watch grandpaw play with 14 yr old granddaughter on merry-go-round in the playground near by. 

We toured the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest today. I'm getting tired of rocks!! Even the trees here are rocks! The mesa are rocks on rocks. There's balancing rocks, canyons of carved rocks, piles of eroded rocks, structures of building rocks. And ironically, all of these rocks that have been etched, changed and moved over time by the action of climate, pressures, people, and even rearrangement of land masses are now being enjoyed by a multitude of tourists because they have been so well preserved by the local dry environment and conservation of people......

I had thoughts of excessively long philosophical discussion about rocks and the future of the world as we know it but was interrupted by a fellow camper from Milwaukee who is a dune buggy enthusiast who has been to Winchester Bay in Oregon and is now on his way to Coral Reef Park to ride the dunes, who's wife is a nurse (2nd nurse in 2 days), who doesn't want to vote for either candidate, who doesn't understand some folks at these RV parks who won't even come out of their rigs to visit, and who is getting tired of the rain and cold in the north and want's to move to the desert. Now I've lost my philosophical mojo.....

Oh yea.......we made it to Four Corners, our metaphorical destination. Forty years ago when I was last there, it was simply a marker in the middle of the desert with arrows denoting the four states. Now, the Navaho whose land it is on, have built an impressive monument surrounded by stone (more rocks!) covered stalls from where they sell jewlery, beads, pottery and sand paintings. The monument it's self is impressive with, of course the obliglorory brass benchmark at the intersection of Arizonia, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico but also has engraved state names in the surrounding concrete and state flags around the peripherie. Four raised platforms allows good vantage point to take pictures of friends and family as they pose in various  stances attempting to stand or lie in four states at once. The things we tourists will do at the cost of $3 each! We picnicked lunch as we stared off into the distant desert of Arizonia, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.