Thursday. The Road.

By 0730, I was at Four Corners, the junction where four states--Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado--come together. The only food that I could find there came off the back of a food truck run bY an Englishman who came here from Britain thirteen years ago. When I asked him how he wound up running a food truck on an Indian reservation, he just said that it was a long story. He makes one heck of a good breakfast burrito though, and only four dollars.

Drove up to the Four Corners Monument, thinking that it was National Park Service, but I was wrong. It's a Navaho operation, so of course it's locked until eight and there's a fee. Still, there's a huge line of people waiting to get in so there must be something there. I took the bait and loitered for a bit so I could see for myself what the big deal was. Know what the big deal is? It's a huge flea market where the Indians flock in to sell turquoise and other trinkets and knick-knacks. All the people in line? Indians waiting to get in and set up. So I just stood on the marker in the middle that designates the exact place that the states meet, and then I left.

Next stop: Shiprock, NM. Town of a decent size named for a huge rock formation that sits out on the plain all by itself just southwest of town. Imposing rock that makes for a nice view, but otherwise, the town is just reservation poverty--trailers and tiny pre-fab houses in poor to worse shape.

Oh, and a word about driving on reservation land: you can be sailing along just nice and smooth, doing 70-80 or so (I prefer "or so" myself), when all of a sudden you come up on an old Indian just coasting along at around 40mph or so. They don't care that they're on a highway; they're just poking, a rear-ender waiting to happen. I must have dodged a dozen of them today. Darndest thing.