Whirlwind tour: Four states in one day

The urban mind is a busy little lump of gray, unable to relax even when plucked out of its caffeine-crazed city environment.

So it came to pass that after two days of peacefully exploring Monument Valley, a hyperactive idea crawled its way into my cortex.

Since I'm staying in the Four Corners area. . . . Why not try to see a special spot in each of the quartet of states — Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico?

In one day.

I wheedled my reluctant buddy, Jebb, into forgoing another lazy day wandering among the monoliths and instead embarking on what became "a car too far." A 357-mile blitzkrieg around Four Corners. A journey at times ridiculous, exhausting, slightly illegal and sublime.

We'd loop around the land the Navajo call "Disoos" — the "glittering of the sparkling world." At 70 miles per hour, would their prayer about the land hold true?

"May it be beautiful before me.

May it be beautiful behind me.

May it be beautiful above me.

May it be beautiful below me."

ARIZONA

Much of the world around Four Corners revolves around the traditional cycles of the day. When the sun goes down, there's not a whole lot to do but gaze at the stars or go to sleep.

So we cheated a bit.

Since we'd need to be back at the starting point by nightfall, we started the 24-hour clock with a late afternoon visit to the Burger King in Kayenta, Ariz. The dusty highway intersection is the main town in the Monument Valley area of the Navajo Reservation, whose land straddles all four states.

We weren't there for the Whoppers. The fast-food joint is the unlikely home to a small museum dedicated to the Navajo Code Talkers, the World War II soldiers who used the American Indian language to fool enemy troops, primarily in the Pacific Theater.

The once super-secret project was launched by a Marine officer whose family had lived as missionaries on the reservation. He knew the Navajos had no written language and that the tones and syntax of the spoken language were different from any European or Asian language.

The project began with 29 Navajos at Camp Pendleton who applied Navajo words to military terminology. Eventually more than 300 code talkers were deployed into combat, earning fame in the bloody invasion of Iwo Jima and other stops on the island-hopping campaign.