Day 136 - FOUR State Day Baby

Author - Grant
From – Durango, Colorado
To – Mexican Hat, Utah
Via – Four Corners (the state intersection of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona)
Miles Driven – 165 plus 120-ish on sightseeing detours mainly on unmarked, bumpy gravel tracks.
Amount Of Front Bumper Remaining – I’m too afraid to look but something between none and half at a guess.

Today's Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157615641688093/

After an early morning swim to get full value for money from the hotel (on an unrelated subject, if anyone can think of anything clever to do with 136 mini-soap bars, drop me a line) we loaded up Bridget for what was to turn out to be easily her most gruelling day of the trip. 285 miles isn’t a particularly long distance for her but the terrain was pretty nasty for almost half of it and sometime near the end I had to promise her a full wash and wax (the equivalent of a weekend in Paris for Grand Caravans) just to spur her on to the finish. Of course I won’t follow through with the promise as she’ll do something in the mean-time to purposefully annoy me which will make me question whether or not I got married to early, Wait a minute, what was I talking about?

Just a few miles outside of Durango and we had left behind the rolling snow and pine covered hills and entered the vast, burnt orange plains that confirmed we were heading in the right direction. We, scratch that, I get pretty excited about hitting new states so when a glance at the map confirmed that today our journey would take us through a whopping four different states left me almost frothing with excitement. The marshmallows on the whipped cream on the hot chocolate was that, thanks to the geometrically random assignation of state border lines, all four states converge at one point. Because this is the only place in the US where this happens, they have cleverly named it Four Corners, stuck up a monument, invited local tribes to set up stalls selling various degrees of tat and (here’s the genius bit) charge punters a criminal $3 per person to see. Still, it’s well worth a look and despite Kate’s Twister antics, Molly takes the prize for looking most natural and nonplussed whilst having a limb in each state. In fact, Molly enjoyed the foray significantly more than either of her adoptive parents as she managed to wolf down the lion’s share of the powdered sugar coated Fry Bread (supposedly a Native Indian traditional bread but its resemblance to an unrisen donut and hence its appeal to modern day Americans makes me doubt it despite my complete lack of knowledge on the subject) which the wind fortuitously threw directly onto her ginger pelt. As a result, she farted like a trouper for the remaining 6 hours in the car but her fur has a lasting sweetness that makes for a perfect 2am snack.

Our destination was a place called Mexican Hat which is named after the rock formation that, funnily enough, resembles a sombrero…sort of. There’s a lot of this poetic license with the naming of the buttes (rock outcrops) and whilst some that we saw on our drive around the Valley of The Gods later that afternoon looked spookily like their names (the Rooster and the Lady In The Bath are great examples), some just look like big jutty rocks (the battleship, for example). Still, it’s all an incredible sight nevertheless and the shear scale of these structures are mind-blowing. It’s almost impossible to guess how far away some of the bigger structures are as you drive towards them as they can seem within walking distance but are actually 10 miles away. And the quiet is eerie as noises don’t echo because, at times, there’s sod all for the sound to bounce off. Our photos clearly don’t do it justice but hopefully they’ll give you an idea of the expanse and beauty of this unique place.

I’ve jumped ahead of myself by talking about the Valley of The Gods which was the last thing we saw that day and was preceded by both The Gooseneck and the Natural Bridges National Monument. The former was described to us as a “mini Grand Canyon” and is the result of the San Juan river cutting a deep gorge into the sandstone landscape over the past 600 million years, give or take and ice age or two. The result is a 1000 foot deep canyon that is mindblowingly beautiful. Apparently it’s only about a tenth the depth of the Grand Canyon which we’re due to see in a few days but, at the moment, it’s probably the most impressive thing I have seen on this trip excluding my own reflection in a full length mirror. Kate put it nicely by commenting that “you don’t get that in Hornchurch”. But the flip of that argument is that there isn’t a decent kebab shop in Mexican Hat so, you know, swings and roundabouts.

45 miles further down the road was the Natural Bridges National Monument which is accessible via a crazy, 3 mile, near vertical climb up a cliff on a single lane gravel road that had Kate clinging onto the door handle like it contained a parachute. Given the severity of the drive, the bridges were going to have to be bloody impressive and luckily they were. The park is a 9 mile loop road that takes you close to three natural bridges and there are hiking options to visit the base of each of them but luckily the pooch was with us and she wasn’t allowed down, sparing us from probably lung and heart failure. There were also dwellings belonging to the Anasazi who inhabited these parts at the same time that Jesus was on his Water to Wine Tour. Which leads me nicely into my Jesus conspiracy theory but this is not the time or the place and I don’t want to insult the readers with my atheist rants.

Dinner choices are limited in Mexican Hat. There’s Swinging Steak or…well, you can go hungry. Swinging Steak it is then. Now, like the culinarily naive chap I am, I just thought that it was a catchy name for the restaurant but it turns out it’s a cooking style. To create your own, follow these simple instructions. 1) Get a big pit and chuck some wood in. 2) Light the wood. 3) Adapt a child’s swing by replacing the plastic seat with a flame retardant grill. 4) Place the swing over the fire. 5) Chuck on various meats. 6) Set the swing in motion to ensure that the flames only lick the meat every second or so. 7) Eat said meat once cooked through. The result is some juicy, smoky meat although best not to replicate the Mexican Hat Swinging Steak accompaniments of lifeless chopped salad and tasteless, unseasoned pinto beans. The garlic Texas Toast, however, was probably the nicest thing on the plate. Wash that all down with a Polygamy Porter (a nice Mormon pun) and retire to bed early because there is absolutely sod all else to do in town.

Tomorrow we’re heading deeper into Monument Valley for more rock formation spotting.