Downhill - Gathering Pace

There is a sort of feeling that you get as you ride up to the start of a roller coaster - tension, anticipation, holding of breath. There is the sound of clanking chains as the car is ratcheted up the track, you can look down and see where you are going to go. But it is not until you reach the top and hurtle down the other side that you know that all the slow drag up to the top was a prelude to something more tense, more exciting, more breathtaking. So it has been with our adventure this spring. We have been travelling through the Mid West - Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico and we have really enjoyed ourselves. But all the time, in the back of our minds, growing with every mile we drew nearer, has been the anticipation of The Big Country - the scenery of the the Colorado Plateau, the buttes, the mesas, the red rock, the canyons, the cloudless skies and starlit nights. That tension reached its max as we drove across the Continental Divide and we started downhill, slowly at first, through the badlands of North West New Mexico. We held the anticipation by resting in Farmington. But today we let go and raced down into that vast expanse of land that is the Four Corners Area. Within minutes of leaving the campground we could see the tall elegance of Ship Rock, a Volcanic plug that stands by the entrance to that wonderful scenery, like the Princess Castle stands over the Enchanted Kingdom at Disney. Even at our closest approach (7 miles away) it stood massively towering above the plains. From nowhere it reaches 1550 feet in the air, taller than the Empire Sate Building. Having passed that (though we could see it for another 40 miles) we rushed on down through unexpected turns and switchbacks of the approaches to Patora Peak. One moment driving on level ground, the next plunging into canyons and ravines that only revealed themselves seconds before. Past rock faces of infinite variety, with strata at every possible angle. We had been to The Garden of The Gods (Colorado Springs), we are going to visit The Valley of The Gods, but this must surely be the Sandpit of the Gods. Driving on for about an hour, with a growing sense of excitement, we arrived at The Four Corners Monument. This was the place we didn't visit in 2003 and wished we had. We had 8 years of anticipation to release as we wandered round the new installation (you can't call it a building) which screams "This is the Heartland, Soul and Centre Of America". The place where the great mass of people who inhabit, and have inhabited, America have reached for - even if they did not know of its existence, the immigrant nature of it's peoples which aspires to be somewhere better. All those to the East of it live with the tension that it is the place to go to. Those to the West have conquered it and relax in the confidence of having gone beyond it. We were just happy to have been able to have experienced being there, as we played in the sun and the cold wind, on the little metal plate that signifies the spot where four states meet.
From there, we dropped down to the San Juan River, which like the Rio Grande in New Mexico, will be our guide through this area of The Four Corners. It is difficult to define it by State, as already we had passed from New Mexico to Arizona, back into New Mexico to get to the Four Corners Monument, then into Colorado to cross the San Juan. Following the San Juan River we drove into Utah. For a while we crossed level plains, with cattle and sagebrush. On the horizon we could see behind us, to the East, the great Mesa Verde, beyond that the snow covered tops of the mountains behind Durango. To the North East the Ute Mountains, to the North we could see the snow covered mountains above Monticello. To the South, Patora Peak was dropping below the horizon. To the West the horizon appeared level, but again, as we travelled we drove past great, long, barriers of rock with weird outcroppings and needles with cap stones. We passed shallow caves, some with remains of dwellings inside. Our goal for today was Bluff, we knew that it had a nice small campground. It is a small village built on the banks of the San Juan River, behind it, to the North, is a protective wall of red rock, hence the name, Bluff. We arrived at about 4.00. There was a lady there to greet us, ask us if we had a reservation (no!). She said that she had just had a cancellation and could take us, giving us a spot where we have a view over the river valley. As it happens if we had called ahead we would have been told that it was full, so there you are.
We parked and set up and sat and relaxed. My first thought was, we have at last arrived, this campground feels like home, we are now in the Monument Valley area, we can relax and enjoy it.
Strangely the tension of traveling to somewhere had lifted. As though we were at the bottom of our roller coaster ride, just gliding smoothly to a stop. Ready now to see and enjoy this fabulous part of America. We had a quick kip, went for a great steak in the local (and only) steakhouse, had a game of Rummikub in the evening and went to bed contented, having as yet, made no decision about what we would do tomorrow. That is another day.