On the 4th Day of My Road Trip...

On the 4th day of my road trip

America gave to me

4 state borders

3 Mexican dishes
2 lane highways

And a rainbow over Mesa Verde!

Now if only I could sing, then I could be the next American Idol! I mean, with an audition song like this, I'd be sure to get a ticket to Hollywood!

Let me briefly explain the song. I went to the Four Corner monument today, hence the first line of the rhyme. The second line refers to my dinner of a cheese enchilada, a chicken taco, and a tostada tonight (tastes better than it looks, I promise!) at a pretty good Mexican restaurant called Tequila's (sorry to disappoint, but no tequila shots for me!) in Cortez, Colorado, which claims to be Gateway to the Southwest. It's not the Jewel of Black Mountain (aka, my home town community of Rancho Penasquitos for those that aren't familiar), but it's an ok little town. The third line, ugh, just reading it reminds me of today's drive and how many trucks I got stuck behind, as you can see above. And I hate the parts of the road with this sign:

Not cool! Made the drive slower than I would have liked, but that's the price I pay for taking the scenic routes I suppose. The final line is pretty self explanatory, but I'll talk about it in more detail later on in the blog.

Despite the fun song, today wasn't as exciting as the previous days have been as it involved a lot of driving and not as much sightseeing. For some reason, I was grumpy this morning, I sort of overslept past my goal time to leave, then I accidentally reset the mileage I was keeping for the trip on my car, which was upsetting even though I've been keeping track on paper as well, and I woke up too late for breakfast which was a bummer, and I just wasn't feeling like I was having very much fun anymore. But I tried to stay positive. I figured I'm just overtired and having a bad day. No one said every day of the trip would be unbelievably amazing and that everything would go perfectly. There are bound to be bumps along the road, both literally and figuratively. So I put on my Ellen DeGeneres book on tape and she helped cheer me up and put a smile back on my face. Yay Ellen!

So the first of today's two main attractions was the Four Corners Monument. Well, I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but this place leaves a lot to be desired. It's a big square piece of concrete in the middle of nowhere split into four sections, one for each state (Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico), with the state flags flying above, a few souveneir stands surrounding it, some Port-a-Potties nearby, and that's pretty much it. I was amused by the thought that I actually had this on the list of major attractions I wanted to see on this trip. Well, at least now I can say I've been there, done that, and don't need to go back again! I don't want to discourage you from going there or anything, but unless it's on your way to something, well, it's up to you I guess. I just don't want to give anyone false hope on seeing a spectacular sight at the Four Corners, there are plenty of other amazing sights to see besides this, as I've already seen so far! Of course, this is just my opinion, take of it what you will.

Moving on, the second attraction of the day was Mesa Verde National Park. Now, today's plan wasn't thought out as well as I would have liked as it didn't take into account leaving at 10am as opposed to 8 or 9am as I had hoped, nor did I factor in the hour difference from Arizona to Colorado which turned meant I was an hour later after already being late to start out the day, and I also didn't know about the 30-45 drive from the park entrance to an actual site to see in the park besides mountains and trees as I traveled to an altitude of 7,000 feet along the windy mountain road. Fortunately, the park was open until sunset which during the summer isn't until around 8 or 8:30pm and I arrived at 5 or 5:30pm, so I was able to get some time in the park. The problem was that by that time of day, they were no longer selling tickets for the guided tours to the really amazing cliff dwellings which Mesa Verde is known for. I was bummed. Luckily, there is one pretty cool site that had a self-guided trail, the Spruce Tree House. I still wasn't too excited though because I assumed from the name that it was just an old tree house. However, it was instead named for the spruce trees surrounding the cliff dwelling. It was a little pueblo home/community built right under a cliff, using the cliff as a roof of sorts. It had windows and even an underground component, though I was feeling too claustrophobic to climb down the ladder through the small 1 or so square foot hole in the ground. The upstairs was plenty for me! I was worried that the rain storms all around me would catch up to me and I would get rained out of Mesa Verde before I got to Spruce Tree, but luckily, things did go my way for a change today and it began to rain just as I was getting ready to leave anyway.

And to top off a pretty good day despite my grumpiness and poor travel planning, there was an amazing rainbow that I caught a glimpse of out the passenger window as I was leaving the park and I couldn't resist pulling over to snap some pictures. Didn't find any gold, but I guess I could be really sappy and say that the treasure I take with me is worth more than a pot of gold, because my memories are priceless! Although, if I write a novel about my road trip and become a best selling author, then I could have the priceless memories plus a pretty nice house to hang all of my award winning photos and a really expensive car to use on my next road trip! Hmm, something to contemplate on tomorrow's drive...