Tale of the Trip - Part 3

On Wednesday, we headed home by driving Northeast up through the Navajo Nation. We wanted to stop at the Four Corners Monument (where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet) and then drive home through Farmington and Cuba.

On the way we passed these rock monoliths and they are appropriately name "Elephants Feet."

The Four Corners Monument is actually in the Navajo Nation so they administer access to it. It's a good way for them to make some money.

Here's the marker for the four corners. Unfortunately, with the advent of GPS satellites, they've determined that the actual site is about 1,800 feet away, but nobody cares. This still works for everyone.

Yours truly at the monument.

Jane and Hack standing in all four states (pretend the marker is accurate folks).


On the way home we passed Shiprock which is on the Navajo Nation.

All in all it was a great trip.

Jane and Hack didn't have to leave until Saturday, so on Friday, we drove down to Bingham, NM so Jane could look at another rock shop. The only thing in Bingham is the rock shop. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's only about 5 miles from the Trinity Site where the first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945 - exactly one month before I was born.


The heat from the explosion fused the sand into a glass-like particle now called Trinitite. The site is closed now, except for two days a year - one in the Spring and the other in the Fall - when visitors can visit the site. However, it's now illegal to collect Trinitite. So this rock shop is one of the few places, and maybe the only one, where it's still available for sale and their collection is getting quite small.

Jane had a great time looking through the rock shop.

The owner of the shop was out of town so a friend, Lisa, watched the shop for her. She was a neat person and, if you look closely, you'll see she's packing a pistol on her right hip. As she says, "I'm 30 miles from anywhere with money and valuable rocks so I'm the only person who can help if someone tries to give me trouble."

Here is one of the unusual and beautiful pieces they had.

The owner had several cats.

And they liked to be friendly to the point of being a pest. Notice the umbrella. Nothing stops my sister when she's in the quest of a new and unusual rock.

I think she had a good time and she did find some unusual and beautiful pieces to take back to Kentucky.

On our way home, we stopped in San Antonio, NM so Jane and Hack could experience an Owl Cafe and Bar green chile cheeseburger. Mmmm good!

Finally, Betty came home today! Hooray!