New Mexico Makes 47 for the Bimmer

After Monument Valley I drove back to Kayenta, then headed east on the main U.S. highway across the plateau towards the Four Corners. I got there in late afternoon---it was on my must see list, since I'd never been there.

I gave it as much time as it was worth, considering it was simply a geographical anomaly. Of course I made sure to stand caddy-corner to be in both Arizona and Colorado at once. I grabbed lunch from one of the Navajo Fry Bread stands alongside the parking lot. I bought another mutton-filled one, and it was far inferior to the one in Window Rock for the reason that it contained more mutton bone than mutton meat. Moreover it was more expensive. But that's what I get for buying from a tourist-oriented stand.

Leaving the Four Corners going eastward, I was still in the Navajo Nation but no longer in Arizona. In New Mexico, the speed limit on the same highway was suddenly ten miles per hour slower. The state highway road signs no longer looked like an angular version of Arizona but were a stylized version of the sun symbol on the New Mexico flag.

"47!" I said to myself outloud, once I was over the border. Arizona had been the forty-sixth state I had visited in the BMW since acquiring it in 2007. Now there were only three more to go---Alaska, Hawaii, and Florida. Given the unlikelihood of driving the old vehicle to the first two, it seems 48 will be the highest I'll get. But Florida seems pretty unlikely too at this point.

Going eastward on the highway I passed through the gritty, grimy town of Shiprock,  then exited the Navajo Nation. Almost immediately the pre-fab houses seemed kept up more neatly, in the way that they are across most of rural America. It must be hard to grow up on an Indian reservation.

I spent the night at the Quality Inn in Farmington, where I had reservations. I had decided to switch from Wyndham to Choice Hotels for a night at least, since they were having a promo for the frequent-stay members. That evening I dined at the local Golden Corral, a budget buffet-steakhouse that my late grandfather particularly liked during the last years of his life. He grew up in the Great Depression, I can hardly blame him for liking a place in which you can go back for as many refills on sirloin as you choose.

The table next to me was filled with a long row of at least a dozen Japanese tourists who seemed to appreciate the place in the same manner.