4 Corners 2025 pt 2

TL;Dr: More old buildings,

Day 4: To Bluff! Bluff is a little hippy community about 30 min south of Blanding. It’s… Less Bland. Good coffee & espresso, nice art & rugs, a felting workshop, and another Petroglyph wall. This one had quite a bit of graffiti on it hard to know what you were looking at. One small human figure was about 40 feet up the cliff face all on its own, except for about 6 apparent gunshot holes. People – will they never stop tearing old shit down?

After Blanding: Mexican Hat, the San Just an trading post, Gooseneck & Moki Dugway.

Mexican Hat

San Juan Trading post is a motel, gift shop & cafe. I had Navajo Tacos on Fry Bread & some green Chile stew. The spiciest thing was our waitress (saltiest?). She mentioned that they were out of soap… This ended up on several low/Buffalo lists.

GooseNeck is where the San Juan river has carved out s-curves. You are looking down around 1000 feet and (I forgot how many thousands of years).

Moki Dugway is a funny name. And it means: the road excavated from the (Moki) cliffs. Wow – steep, bumpy, spectacular.

We stopped at the top for some fun and photos

Day 5: Edge of the Cedars

Man – what a great museum right in Blanding. Lots of pottery, Clovis knapped blades, a decorative shawl of red & blue feathers (apparently traded from Mexico, hundreds of miles away). And… A huge pueblo site with a Kiva you could climb into.

Lots of context about the site in the museum..apparently there were between 6 and 20 buildings. They were built, occupied for about 100 years, and the abandoned in 3 phases between 800 and 1300 BCE. One on top of the other. And… They think there was a road attached to the site. Some of these roads were 40 feet wide and hundreds of miles long. Wow.

In the evening we goofed around in the woodlands near the barnhouse

Day 6: M & I headed to Hovenweep – one of the largest pueblo sites.  Pictures are better than words..

We had a sweet day having a little road trip of our own. And yeah, I left my phone in the toilet, as is tradition.

I looked for Comet Lemmon this evening and the next morning but did not find it. Needs more binoculars.

Day 7: Some shopping and lunch in Moab. Our flight out of Moab was delayed, then delayed, then delayed again. Stressful thinking we would miss our connection in Denver, but ended up at the gate in plenty of time.

A wonderful trip. So great to have good friends to travel with, and so amazing to travel to this amazing place.