Kim's office had a conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I had to work that week in San Francisco. We met in Santa Fe and decided to spend our anniversary weekend together in pursuit of the "Four Corners"--the only place in the United States where four states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah) meet at one point.
So I flew in on a puddle jumper and Kim met me at the airport. This is from the next day — the Saint Francis Cathedral in downtown Santa Fe.
We first went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum and were dully impressed. Santa Fe is definitely a small but very art-influenced town. This is the front of a small gallery that had paintings and ceramics.
Close up of a big pot, same gallery.
There's a little church called Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe that has a staircase showcased. The legend goes that a mysterious carpenter showed up, after some prayer, and came up with a solution to get to the second floor in this little chapel. The resulting staircase (they say) defies all architectural laws by not having any vertical supports.
We spent the first part of the day "fleaing." There is a good sized flea market near the Santa Fe opera, just outside of town. We were told that fleaing was a very Santa Fe thing to do, so we decided to give it a shot (OK, a four hour shot).
The next stop was Embudo Station. This is about 20 miles north of Santa Fe, and is the site of the last remaining intact 1880s narrow gauge railroad station. It is right on the Rio Grande river.
We spent that night in Durango, Colorado. If we had more time, Durango looked like a fun place to check out.
The next sanctioned stop was Mesa Verde (green table) national park.
Mesa Verde is one of the largest parks in the U.S. and, unlike most other U.S. parks, is distinguished because it is set up to show and preserve works of man--instead of nature. Of course, the nature isn't so shabby either. The park has a large canyon shaped like fingers.
This is the cliff dwelling known as Cliff Palace. It is the most visited cliff dwelling in the U.S. We hiked down to it with a Park Ranger guide and learned the history of the Native Americans who built it.
Next stop was Valley of the Gods, Utah. This was an 18 mile dirt road through some very nice rock formations. This was fairly remote. We only saw other cars a few times. We were a little concerned that the our rental Cavalier would hit a big rock in the road, break down and we'd be stranded among the buttes and bluffs. Indian legend says that the formations are frozen warriors.
We spent the night in nearby Mexican Hat, Utah. It was dark when we got there so we didn't notice the incredible view from our average motel.
First thing on our last day of the trip was to go to Monument Valley. Monument Valley is the site of numerous movies including several westerns by John Ford. These are the most famous formations (L-R) Left Mitten, Right Mitten and Elephant Butte.
This is the area known as John Ford's Point. Apparently he favored this view for more than a couple of his movies. There was some deal where you could pay a sawbuck to get a photo-op on a horse from the cliff. Didn't do it.
I guess I was feeling moved by the film history. I did my best John Ford/Ansel Adams. This was taken from what is known as Artist's Point.
We spent the night in the W.E. Mauger Estate B&B in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Nice room, very hospitable and excellent breakfast.
Then we spent the rest of the trip on the train. Albuquerque to Chicago and then Chicago to Washington. It was relaxing but a slow, slow trip. This is us having fun on the train.
Oh, and we never saw the 4 corners monument. It closed early on the day we showed up.
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