Hello Everyone! Greetings to you all from Grand Junction, Colorado. As I mentioned last week, I have just dipped over the border for the day because I wanted to pay a quick visit to Colorado National Monument. While I’m here I got some groceries and now I’m going to hole up in the library and get this week’s newsletter done before returning to Utah later today. Crossing into another state is fascinating when you’ve really dug in somewhere for a few weeks and have been paying close attention to the culture of a place. Crossing from Nevada into Utah or Utah into Colorado is very much like crossing into a different country. Not like going from Sweden to Uganda, but more like going between England and Wales or between Cambodia and Laos – there are plenty of similarities, but they’re also remarkably different. I’ve really been enjoying my time in Utah and this feels like I’m cheating on it, but I’m sure Utah will get over it and I’m really looking forward to the rest of my time in The Beehive State. I’ve spent more of this last week on the trail than on the road, and that’s been an excellent use of my time. It’s been another soul-stirring week out here, so let’s get right into what I’ve been up to since last I wrote.
After I finished this post last week, I ended up spending another morning there in Blanding, a town I grew quite fond of during my three night stay. I started off my day with a quick visit to the Four Corners Cultural Park (the “four corners” refers to the shared border of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, the only place in the country where four states come together in a squared off fashion). I thought this cultural park was really cool because you could walk between examples of the “houses” of the different cultures that came together in Blanding. There were Ute teepees, Navajo hogans, a Mexican hacienda and Mormon pioneer cabins all within a short walk of each other and I thought it was just a neat place to check out. From there I went to the museum at Edge of the Cedars State Park which displays cultural artifacts found around the area and interprets the cultures which came before the modern inhabitants of the region. The museum’s pottery collection is remarkable and it’s amazing to see the artistic expression of the people who made these items. These bowls and jugs were not simply utilitarian, they were beautifully crafted and then painted with precise geometric designs and were all very impressive. The museum also had a beautiful macaw shawl which has kept its bright coloration for over a thousand years. I always find the macaw feathers found here fascinating because they are evidence of the vast trade networks of these earlier cultures which stretched deep down into what’s now Mexico (where macaws were commonly found). I’m sure this one cost someone a few beautifully crafted pottery items in trade. The museum was fabulous, and the ruins out back were okay but not nearly as good as so many others I have visited in the last few weeks.
