Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, Four Corners Monument, and Mesa Verde National Park. (October, 2022).

On the way to Utah we detoured to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, a bucket list item for Stephanie.  And it remains on the bucket list.  The balloons were rained out on the day we were in town.  Actually it was a “cloud out” as a low cloud ceiling prevented takeoffs.

Festivities start at 6:00 AM.  Because of a light rain, we purposely arrived at the park late, around 6:20, joining thousands of other folks hoping for a 7:00 AM launch. 

A yellow flag was flying, meaning it was wait and see with weather.  A couple of balloons (out of hundreds) were inflated for a short time, but none of the teams was making an effort to get ready for launch.

Balloon Fiesta Park appears to be larger than a football field, though it was hard to estimate in the dark.  The balloons are set out in a grid, about 23 by 11 rows.  Along one side of the field is a long row of state fair like tents: coffee, donuts, funnel cakes, burgers, brats, turkey legs, corn dogs, cokes, beer, and also jewelry (mostly turquoise).  The atmosphere was great.

Shortly after 7:00 AM an announcement was made that the flag would remain yellow.  As we understood it, this means that no balloons will launch unless the weather improves, which was not in the forecast.  It was a disappointing end to our first balloon fiesta, but not surprising.

Stephanie is already making plans to return in another year or two.

That afternoon we answered an unexpected question: What’s more disappointing than a rain out at balloon fiesta?  Spending an hour detouring to Four Corners Monument on Navajoland. 

Navajo Nation is a huge reservation in parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, adjacent to Colorado.  Four Corners Monument, as you would expect, is at the intersection of the borders of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.  It is out in the middle of nowhere. 

For the privilege of paying $8 per person to enter, you get to stand on a marked concrete spot.  Basically you are paying $8 to take a couple of selfies and leave. 

Stalls for members of the Navajo Nation to sell trinkets to tourists surround the four corners.  When we arrived, midday on a Wednesday, only about 10% of the stalls were in use.  Maybe it is the off season?  Or perhaps sellers quit setting up shop after years of lousy sales?  There is no way we were going to part with more cash after forking over $8 per person just to look at a marked concrete spot.

We stayed quite a while at Four Corners, at least 10 minutes, which is a good 5 minutes longer than necessary.

Though I am not a fan of Four Corners, Stephanie and I really like several of the other Navajoland parks, notably Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly, both in Arizona, which we visited several years ago.

After spending the night in Cortez, Colorado, we ventured to our next destination, Mesa Verde National Park. 

The park is basically Pueblo central, as there are hundreds of cliff dwellings in the area.  The largest and best preserved cliff dwellings are located in Mesa Verde.

Loosely speaking there are two main areas in the park: Wetherill Mesa and Chapin Mesa.  Wetherhill Mesa is the location of Long House and Step House.  It looks like a great area to see, but unfortunately was closed for the season when we arrived.

Chapin Mesa is comprised of three main visiting sections: Spruce Tree Terrace; Mesa Top Loop; and, Cliff Palace Loop.

The actual Spruce Tree House has been closed to tours since 2015 for remediation work.  You can get a nice view of it from the trail behind the Mesa Museum. 

We did not visit Mesa Museum as it was closed for renovations.  I doubt we would have found it that interesting.  Besides, we arrived at Spruce Tree House at the same time as two bus loads of tour groups.  If the museum were open, it would have been a madhouse.

Mesa Top Loop is home to the Square Tower House and Sun Temple.  This loop drive was closed for road work during our visit.

Thankfully we knew about these closings in advance and were not surprised.  We would not have been happy to find out at the entrance gate that large sections of the park were off limits.

Cliff Palace Loop was our destination for the primary purpose of our trip to Mesa Verde, the Cliff Palace Tour.  This is a ranger guided, 45 minute tour of the largest cliff dwelling in the park.  After descending over 100 feet via metal stairs and steps carved out of rock, we walked across the front of Cliff Palace. 

Two rangers led short discussions about the area in general and the palace specifically.  Cliff Palace is four stories high and goes back over 90 feet deep into the rock alcove.  It is comprised of over 150 rooms and 20 kivas.  After walking past (but not into) Cliff Palace, we climbed back up to the parking lot using steps carved into the rock and two short ladders. 

Even Stephanie, who is afraid of heights, handled the ladders without any problems.

Our Cliff Palace tour tickets cost $8 each – good value for the money.

In total we spent about three hours in the park.  About half that time was spent driving from the entrance to Cliff Palace and back out.  The rest of the time was spent at Spruce Tree House, on the Cliff Palace Tour, and a stop at Park Point, which offers spectacular views over the Montezuma Valley and San Juan Mountains.

Mesa Verde National Park is a great place to spend a day.  Even if you are not particularly interested in Native American history, the cliff dwellings are worth seeing.

Finally we are heading to Utah to visit the national parks and go hiking.

Garrett and Stephanie

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