Saturday, October 2, 2010

Four corners

A friendly rider on the way out of Farmington.

Wanda took some time to feed the pidgeons before we left Motel 6 in Farmington NM heading west initially for Shiprock, a town named after the rock formation that leaps abruptly out of the surrounding plain.

From there we continued west into Arizona and the tiny trading post town of Teec Nos Pos where we stopped for a drink. Here was evidence in someone's small back yard that some people grew their own vegetables in the desert. There was corn (now dry), melons etc.
There were also some long horned sheep in a pen.
As most of the landscape looks like this, it is a remarkable effort.
A few miles north from there we reached the Four Corners - the point where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arisona meet. This is the only place in the US where four states meet together, and so it has a unique mystique that attracts tourists like moths to a candle.
We posed for the obligatory photo with a hand and foot in each state, making sure not to have our buns pointing skyward at the same time, as some undignified visitors do.






There we met Werner and Heike who came from Switzerland, hired a Harley, and are touring for two months.They own a BMW back home, and offered to swap their Harley fo my BMW. The road from there continued into Colorado. We stopped at Cortez, the first major town and had lunch at the 'Once Upon a Sandwhich' cafe on the main street. It was very busy. When we emerged to get on our bike there was a parade approaching - something to do with a homecoming for the local football team - and the police were stopping traffic from using the main street, so we high-tailed it down a side street and east towards Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde is the site of the largest cliff dwellings in the US. Our National Park pass meant we could visit th park without paying the entry fee applicable to casual visitors. The cliff dwellings were 20 miles from the entrance along a road that would justify the entry fee just to ride it, even if there were nothing at the end. It twisted and wound itself up onto the mesa in a series of torturous bends. Just when we thought we could go no higher the road started upwards again. The views were breathtaking.

We stopped at the visitor centre and booked a guided tour of the largest site, called Cliff Palace. Unfortunately we arrived too late to take any other tours of other sites. (Traveller's tip: if visiting Mesa Verde, allow at least a full day)

The Cliff Palace is magnificent, but the tour (which took up a whole hour) was mainly listening to commentary. When we did descend into the canyon to visit the ruins, we were only allowed to walk past them, and not through them as we did earlier at the Gila cliff dwellings.

We left the site fairly late, and had a 40 minute ride out of the park before turning east towards Durango, 36 miles away, our destination for the night. It became cooler as we ascended out of the desert into a pine forest. By the time we arrived there and found a motel it was almost dark.
Durango is an exciting town on a Friday night. There are cars, people and bright lights everywhere.
We walked two blocks to the nearest source of food - 'Munchies'. The decor and fittings were designed for the friendly teenagers that came in and out. The pizza was pretty damn good and bigger than we could eat.

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