Four Corners National Monument / Monument Valley

Call us a glutton for punishment, but our next day of vacation included between eight and nine hours in the car. We got it accomplished in 2-3 hour increments, so it wasn’t that bad. Things in the West are definitely spread out.

From our base in Moab, Utah, Four Corners National Monument was about a three-hour drive. We made a stop about halfway to visit a dinosaur museum in Blanding. It had a few actual fossils and quite a few replicas. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was very inexpensive to get in, so it was worth it.

The Four Corners monument is a “national” monument, but the nation referred to is the Navajo Nation and not the US National Park Service. The monument marks the only place in the United States where the boundaries of four states meet.

This makes for some interesting photos, especially for kids who can have appendages in four states at one time (a leg in Arizona, a leg in New Mexico, a hand in Colorado, a hand in Utah for example). We also took a family photo with each of us standing in a different state.

I was very pleased to see that visitors to the attraction made a nice orderly line so that everyone could get their picture taken at the intersection of the states.

Admission was $3 per person. There are a host of Native American vendors at the site selling native crafts. There are also a couple of booths to purchase Fry Bread Tacos.

Four Corners is in the middle of nowhere, but it was appealing to our kids.

From Four Corners, we drove west on Highway 160 to Kayenta, Ariz. There we turned north on Highway 163 and headed through Monument Valley. We didn’t make any stops for hikes, but simply drove through to marvel at the scenery.

It took us 2-3 hours to get to Natural Bridges National Monument, which you’ll read about in our next post.