Four Corners, Cortez, CO and the Canyon of the Ancients

Wednesday, October 23
We packed up Wednesday and headed east toward Colorado. Well, actually we headed to Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico.......or rather the junction of the four. I'm talking about the Four Corners Monument at the juncture of these four states. The only place in the USA where four states share a common point.

Nice drive through the hills east of Bluff, UT

Crossing the San Juan River.

We paid our five bucks each and did the obligatory pictures that has you stand in all four states at once. We browsed the various vendors selling Navajo jewelry and artwork. We bought a couple of items then hit the road north toward Cortez, CO.

Lots of vendors selling jewelry, t-shirts, other trinkets.

Four states intersect here. At least they claim to. Modern surveying techniques have shown the boundaries don't really intersect here, but court rulings keep these historic boundaries intact.

Some guy walked into my shot!

GPS proves we were here!

We are staying at the Sundance RV Park in Cortez. After a quick bite of lunch we headed over to the Visitor Center and got the lowdown on Mesa Verde which we will visit tomorrow (Thursday). The fellow there also told us about the Canyon of the Ancients Museum just north of town. So, off we went.

The road to Cortez, CO

Downtown Cortez.

Nice mural!

Home for a couple of days. Kind of pricey at $44/night with the Good Sam discount. The site 50 amp breaker kept tripping so we used 30 amp.

Nice shady sites.

This is a first class museum of Puebloan artifacts. Well presented and complete. There are artifacts from AD500 up to AD1300.

Interesting model of an excavation. Notice how far below present day ground level they artifacts are found. could be six feet.

How to use an Atlatl or spear thrower.

Interesting timeline shown here and the next three pictures. This one is for the time BC.

Note the types of housing on the tops of the panels. This is Basketmaker II and III. From 1500 BC to 750 AD.

Pueblo I and II. 750 AD to 1150 AD

Pueblo III to the migration time when the buildings were abandoned. 1150 AD to about 1300 AD.

Time to head back to Cortez for some shopping. Tomorrow we head to Mesa Verde to see some Puebloan ruins.

......and that was Our View From Here!