A partial success, a fail and a big win... We left the Grand Canyon early with an ambitious day of stops planned. When we heard that Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park was filled with flaming red butts, we were skeptical it was a worthwhile stop, but when someone pointed out to the family's guidebook reader that's not how you pronounce buttes, we were more hopeful. Backdrop to classic movies such as How The West Was Won, Easy Rider and, ahem, Back to the Future Part III, the valley is a beautiful, bizarre moonscape of towering, red rock formations. It's also viewed from a pock-marked dirt road that just about broke the family truckster and had the bikes on the back bouncing wildly with every yard. That was the partial success - we only got about a third of the way in when the rough road and our molasses-like pace forced us to turn back. Next stop: Four Corners. A few weeks ago we watched a TV show about the drawing of western state lines and got really excited to visit the point where AZ, CO, UT, and NM all converge. In our minds, it would be part national park visitor center, part kitschy Wall Drug-esque tourist attraction, with a Southwest flair. In reality, it was a $20 peep show into the depressing exploitation of Native American lands and the poor lemmings willing to wait 45 minutes in 100+ degrees for a chance to take a sad snapshot of a spot that falls so short of its potential. And apparently it's not even where the actual four corners spot sits (source: Marietta). #fail Then onto Mesa Verde. This little gem of a national park is home to cliff side dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblos dating back to about 1200 AD. We had booked a twilight tour of the Cliff Palace, which was a wonderful, intimate ranger-led look at the life and mysterious disappearance of this community. Once again, Fluffy tested our cardiac strength by repeatedly straying too close to a plunging cliff face (the ranger finally made her sit down). Interesting fact about Mesa Verde's role in the protection of public lands in the U.S.: it was the ongoing plundering of this site that spurred passage of the American Antiquities Act of 1906, giving the President the authority to designate national monuments, offering many of the same protections provided to national parks but without requiring congressional approval (source: Ken Burns and Ranger Todd of Muir Woods National Monument). By the way, the day also included a stop in Durango, CO, but that's a story for another time...
