Four Corners and Mesa Verde National Park are very close to one another and can potentially be visited on the same day. When I went up there we got to Four Corners too late after the gates closed. We were sort of surprised that the gates would even be closed at all considering it is just the border between Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. We stopped and played with the camera equipment taking some pictures of the sign and messed around with the exposures.
As the sign says the land that Four Corners lays on is owned by the Navajo Nation. If you aren't from the United States basically different Native American Tribes have their own Nations within the United States. They govern and police themselves and have rules about alcohol, public works projects, gambling, and many other things.
Here was a time lapse of a car passing by while we were stopped there.
I slept on a park bench that night and the next morning we went to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. Here is a map of where that is at.
Mesa Verde which is Spanish for green table, was built by the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from AD 600 to 1300. The park protects nearly 5,000 known archeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings. It really is a look into the past! When you first get there you can look over the other side of the cliff and see one of the main "apartment" complexes.
Hiking down there is a must in my opinion if you are capable of it. This really shows you how intricate the structure really is.
Here is my friend Andy standing by the structure to give you a better idea of the size.
You really have to ask yourself how good of architects these people were consider their structures are still standing to this day. Would are houses still be standing after centuries?
You can even climb down into some of the lower apartments. A family would have lived down here.
After visiting these main ruins we did a several mile hike to some ancient rock carvings. Here is a good look at what the landscape looks like at Mesa Verde.
Here is Andy, Matt, and myself sitting in front of the carvings.
Here is a closer view of some of the carvings.
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