Day 13 - Tuesday 7/12/2005 -  Off to the ruins...

After a short walk from the motel, I was at the dealership at 7 am when it opened.  My service rep knew that I had not had a pleasant evening  when he found my note and key.  He promised they would get it fixed pronto, so I went back to the motel to wait.  By 9 am they had identified the problem (in the rush to get it finished the night before, a wire had not been fully secured to the distributor).  We hoofed it over to the dealership, picked up the car and drove around town for a while to make sure it was OK.  In spite of the fact that the breakdown was an inconvenience, our service rep (Ed) did a great job of working to get us taken care of.  

I wanted to say a special thanks to Ed and his team for working to get us back on the road.  They worked until 9pm on Monday, and the problem we encountered that caused the breakdown was a result of them rushing to get us on our way.  They were the ONLY dealership that pulled us right in and got us diagnosed quickly.  After the breakdown, Ed was apologetic and filled up the car before he gave it back to us.  That's great customer service!

By 11 am we were satisfied, and started off for Four Corners.  I visited Four Corners in 1979 on a west trip, and it was a small stone marker with lots of Indians selling beads from pickup trucks.   ('scuze me - "Native Americans" or is it "Indigenous Peoples"? - I've come a long way from "Redskins", but I guess the fans in DC haven't).  Now Four Corners is a "fee area" with a full-blown monument and the pickup trucks have been replaced by booths.  One of the best things here is the Navajo "Fried Bread".  This is similar to a flat biscuit served with cinnamon, honey, or powdered sugar.  They have also added snowcones to the selection, which is a nice improvement in 105+ degree temperatures.

After Four Corners, we headed north, back into Colorado and over to Mesa Verde.  We grabbed a tentsite and headed off to explore the park.  There are over 600 locations where ruins have been identified, and a vast number have not been explored or catalogued for artifacts.  We purchased some tickets for the "Cliff Place" tour for Wednesday morning and headed back to set up camp.  In these daytime temperatures, we will be setting up camp after dark to avoid the heat.  We were treated to a beautiful sunset over the mesas, and late at night the wind picked up as the canyons cooled.  It was neat to hear a far off "whoosshhh" that gradually got closer and louder as the wind rushed down the canyons.