Toyota FJ Cruiser Road Trip - An FJ in Four Corners

There's a Toyota pickup chassis under there somewhere. This served to quell the rumors that Toyota's earlier pickups were powered by hamsters. It's evident they're actually powered by chipmunks.

Flagstaff, Arizona, is a great destination in itself. Mention "Arizona" and dry desert immediately comes to mind. Flagstaff and the surrounding countryside fly directly in the face of that perception. Flagstaff's alpine setting at 7,000 feet above sea level and matching climate make for a great respite from the heat of summer. Railroads were economically important in Flagstaff's early days, and the city continues to be a significant railroad hub for northern Arizona. This monument is a tribute to the crews who laid the first rails in the area.

We were anxious to visit the actual Four Corners monument and stand on the confluence of four state lines - Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. We rolled up to the gate a few minutes after 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. As luck would have it, the Four Corners monument is open until 8:00 p.m. Mountain Time. We missed our chance by a few minutes but still got to snap a photo proving we'd showed up.

We're calling this a dual-sport trip because some of our destinations only required pavement driving. Mesa Verde National Park was the first major destination. Cliff dwellings are not endemic to Mesa Verde National Park or to the American Southwest, but Mesa Verde is nevertheless home to the largest and best preserved cliff dwellings in the USA. Cliff Palace, the largest of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, was first spotted by white settlers in 1888 when two cowboys, Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason, happened across it while searching for lost cattle. Mesa Verde National Park was designated as such in 1906, thereby preserving the cliff dwellings from vandalism and misuse.

Touring almost any cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde requires some hiking. A few tours also require climbing ladders and scrambling through narrow passages. The people who built and lived in Cliff Palace and the other nearby cliff dwellings have commonly been referred to as Anasazi. The Anasazi inhabited Cliff Palace from the late 1100s through the mid 1200s. By the year 1300, Cliff Palace was abandoned for unknown reasons. The people did not disappear, however. They moved elsewhere and founded other communities. Since the people of Cliff Palace are the ancestors of the modern-day Native American tribes of the Southwest, they are today referred to as the Ancestral Puebloans.

Here's the tallest ladder in the park. This 30-foot climb is part of the Balcony House tour. While modern visitors to the park use well-established trails and ladders to access the dwellings, the original residents climbed on hand-and-foot holds hewn into the sandstone. Our tour guides pointed out a couple of these hand-and-foot-hold paths: very steep and precarious!

Sharp eyes and a zoom lens will spot other cliff dwellings in the area. There are approximately 600 cliff dwellings in and around Mesa Verde National Park.

The ladders look like leftover artifacts from the Ancestral Puebloans, but they're modern items placed by the National Park Service. The circular pit to the right of the ladders is a ceremonial room called a kiva. Cliff Palace houses 23 such rooms. A functional kiva has a roof on top of the pit with a circular opening for access. Ladders were used for entry and exit.

I drove all night with dawn breaking as we crossed the border from Arizona back into California. In the Mojave, when it rains, it really pours. This puddle next to an isolated off-ramp was the size of a small lake. I strayed from Interstate 40 onto the backroads for a couple of reasons. First, Sunday traffic returning to SoCal is hellacious, and I wanted to get away from the major highway artery we were on. Second, and most importantly, key sections of historic Route 66 were within easy reach. What choice did I have?