Saturday 4th February – FOUR States in one day!

It was another cold one last night but this morning it was me who was struggling to find any energy.  Lucky our next tour was just up the road!  We invested in a National Parks Pass for $80 when we arrived at the Aztec ruins.  We should’ve got one right at the start of our trip but we will save money in no time with it.  It’s valid for a year and we have a map of all the parks we can now visit for free – yay!  It includes the majority of the California parks plus many more.

On to the Aztec ruins which aren’t actually Aztec ruins! Early Spanish explorers travelling from Mexico mistakenly used the term ‘Aztec’ for many of the ancient sites they encountered.  But the name stuck having also been popularised in literature.  It is more accurate to say that these ruins were built by ancestral Puebloan people whose ancestors still live in the South West today.  These specific ruins were built over a 200-year period from 1100-1300 AD.  The white stuff in the photographs is snow!

This wall was built in line with the shadows caused by the sun at the winter and summer solstice

Layer or green sandstone in the walls - for decoration?

This large round building, called a Kiva, was the centre of the plaza used by the residents for ceremonies.  This has been recreated from the ruins to show how it would have looked originally

Inside the Kiva

There are original ceilings remaining intact after 900 years

You can walk through some of the linked rooms that are still intact. There was a 15-minute film to explain the history of the ancestral tribes and how they progressed from being nomadic to establishing roots and also a museum containing information and artefacts (above). Note – other ancient Puebloan ruins are available!  However, these were the ones on our route and most easily accessible in an RV.  Very interesting. 

This is the exact point where the four corners meet

It was time for a quick lunch and coffees for the road to the four corners.  This is the only place in the United States marking the common corner of four states at one monument – New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona:

Kissing over four states at once!

 

That means we have now been into 30 States out of 48!! The monument is also surrounded by market stalls where the local native Navajo people sell some of their cultural goods, but instead of all that cultural stuff we haggled a great deal where we got four shot-glasses (one per state) and a four-corners fridge magnet for $20 – bargain!

I don’t like to bang on about it but we were spoilt again today by some amazing scenery (right). 















From the four corners monument it was another 44 miles to Cortez, Colorado just in time to park before the snow became too icy and it was dark.  This was closer to snow than we were planning to get....!