four corners and things...

Last weekend, my mom and I had our third annual girl’s trip. We went to the Four Corners area of my home state, and it has to be said: there is not much life going on down yonder. I mean, there’s Moab (which is pretty spectacular)…but beyond that, it’s just a whole lot of NUTTIN’.

But do you know what? That doesn’t matter. Not when I’m with Momma. We always have so much fun when we’re together; even in the remotest of places where all you see is a whole lot of nearly-dead landscape (we’re talking sagebrush and tumbleweeds and…umm…an occasional trailer home…aaaaand, like, dirt and weeds)…

Even in such bleak surroundings, Mom and I have ourselves a good time. *cue the cackling*

Mom and I left Thursday morning and headed south on I15. We drove and drove until we hit Moab (which, as it turns out, isn’t so bleak and depressing as basically everything south of it), where we stopped for a late lunch. We ate at a tasty place called Twisted Sisters, and then we headed northward (for just a minute) to the Wolfe Ranch trailhead. And then we hiked to the Delicate Arch.

On the drive to the Wolfe Ranch trailhead.
Mom and I decided they look rather Egyptian.

I had lied, as it turns out, to my mother. I told her that the hike to the Delicate Arch was only 3 miles round-trip, and that it was mostly flat. (I was right about the distance, but the hike itself was more up-hilly than I remembered. That’s the way it always goes; I’ve hiked to the Delicate Arch 4 times now, and the optimist in me remembers it as a basic nature walk. I’m not saying it’s a horribly difficult hike, but it ain’t flat, either. The second time I was about to hike it, I didn’t even take a water bottle. Sure, we hiked it at night that time around, but COME ON, Gina! Take a dang water bottle! What can it hurt?)

Anyway, it was a rather warm day…somewhere in the mid 80s…and it was up-hilly.

Just follow the cairns... 

But the view was totally worth it…

Swoon, huh?

The first of several selfies of the weekend...

Oh look, another selfie. (Can you see a tiny bit of the arch between us?)

After hiking the Delicate Arch, we got back on the road and headed on south to...Monticello, Utah.

Have you ever heard of Monticello? I'm not sure I had until I started looking at hotels down in the "Four Corners Area" of Utah, to be honest. We were either going to stay in Monticello or Blanding, and we opted for Monticello because they have a temple there, and we wanted to do a session there. And do you want to know something? Besides the temple, there's not much else in that teeny, tiny community. 

Aaaanyway, we got to our hotel later than we intended, and we took the quickest showers of our lives, and we rushed off to the temple (which was less than 1/4 mile from our hotel) to make it to the 7:15 session in time. 

We made it in plenty of time, by the way. (I think we were dressed and seated with more than 20 minutes to spare; but we'd rather be early than late.)

It's a wee little temple, but the workers inside were some of the kindest people I've ever met.

We didn't get out of the temple until around 9:30, and by that time I was stupid with hunger, so we drove around the little town (it took all of five minutes) in search of a place to eat. The only "restaurant" that was open was Subway, which was actually inside a gas station. But I was ever so grateful that it was open. (I'm telling you, we drove past the little grocery store, and it seemed like that might've even been closed by then.)

Wow, I'm being really wordy here, aren't I?

Let's see if I can be more concise for the remainder, shall we? 

Friday morning, we found our way to Four Corners Monument: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico. It was quite hot, and we enjoyed walking around the artisan booths looking at Native American jewelry and sand paintings, etc. Then we weaseled our way into the gaggle of human tourists to get our picture taken as we sat on all four states at the same time.

Along the way, Mom said, "I wonder how many snakes per square foot there are out here."

My butt was in Arizona, and Mom's was in Utah. Boom, baby.

This was obviously another selfie...

After Four Corners, we headed to Cortez, Colorado, to check out the Indian ruins...but I hadn't done enough homework to figure out exactly where the hyroglyphics were located, and my GPS led us into private property, so we didn't get to see the writing on the wall...

The locked gate was the telltale sign that we were on the wrong road.
Thanks a LOT, modern technology!

Instead we hightailed it to Mesa Verde National Park, and blah, blah, blah...we went on a ranger guided tour of something called Balcony House. We ended up going up a rather high, steep ladder, and my feet were sweating the whole time in my dang Chacos. It was a dang cool tour, though...

Before we got to our tour, we stopped a few times to take pictures of the cliff side dwellings.

It's crazy to think that people lived right inside the cliffs like they did!
Just for reference: this cliff house here? It's at the top of a very steep cliff.

This cliff, to be precise.

At Balcony House. This is right about the time that my feet started sweating...

This was another ladder. Not as high as the first.

Inside Balcony House

Ummm...this is looking at one of the Kivas, I think.

Proof(ish) that we were there.

This part was the worst. These teeny, narrow little steps cut into the cliff side.
You better believe I white-knuckled the chains the whole way up. While praying.

After Balcony House, we headed back to Monticello. Fortunately, we got to town before all the restaurants closed up, and we ate at a rather tasty diner called PJ's Restaurant. Delicious burger and fries, PJ. Good job.

Since the night was still rather young (8:00ish), we walked all over the tiny town of Monticello to get in some exercise and see the sights:

"The sights" include the temple. And that's it.

I slept like a champ on Friday night. I think I crashed at, like, 10:00. Wow. And I do have to give a shout-out to our hotel (Inn at the Canyons); the room was very clean, and the bed is probably the most comfortable hotel bed I've ever slept on...

Saturday morning came, and northward we went! We stopped in Payson to check out the progress on the temple there. Also, we walked by the Provo City Center temple to see how it was coming along. Then we ate at a place called Guru's (YUM!), then we went to SLC for some shopping.

Maybe Four Corners isn't the most exciting place to take a little trip, but I think it's rad to have stood in four states at the same time. Mesa Verde is a really rad NP I didn't even know existed. And, as always, a weekend away with Momma was stupendous.