Four Corners Conspiracy Theory

 Each year as come down off the high passes of Colorado and approach the Four Corners, I grow saddened that I am leaving behind the alpine meadows, pine forests, and the cool air that I love much, and reminds me so much of home. 

Even the Four Corners themselves seem to verify the transition from one state to another in an uncanny way. As one approaches the famous point, one descends rapidly into the valley of the San Juan River, which by a weird coincidence seems to flow almost exactly through the Four Corners, missing it only by a few hundred yards.

One comes up the other side and one finds oneself in New Mexico for a few miles, and along this small stretch of the road is the entrance to the Four Corners, the monument for sits on a small plateau above the river.

Last year the gate to the monument (which is just a big plaza with a four-cornered emblem on the ground, flanked by a stalls selling Navajo fry bread and beads) was locked with a tribal police officer stationed in front, making sure no one tried to access the point. It seemed both typical of the reservation---where everything was shut down in the most extreme way, all the while in the most ridiculous way, as the Four Corners are very much out in the open air. Very few things about this whole shutdown have been rational. The Navajo went into extreme isolation. That's their right. They have been slow to reopen. i think in some ways they never will. They will use this episode as a permanent change. The signs along the road urging people to avoid large gatherings will linger for many years, I think . If you know anything about the reservations, and the way of life that people lead there, you will know what I mean. 

Ginger and I have a conspiracy theory about the Four Corners, one that I invented. I noticed that it seemed too perfect that the Four Corners happened to land on this convenient plateau above the river. Too perfect, I think. I have this theory that the actual location is actually on the flank of a steep cliff nearby, or in the river bottom by the San Juan. There is no way the geographical location could have determined when the borders were determined by law. They had to be surveyed later. What if the surveyors conveniently decided that the Four Corners would be on the plateau, instead of in a less convenient location that woujld less amenable to commemoration? What if?