So among the ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park, the ancestral pueblos at Chaco Canyon, the towering sandstone formations in Valley of the Gods and the pair of buttes that look like a bear’s ears, what place could possibly earn such a designation?
The Four Corners Monument.
The Active Times, a health, fitness and travel publication, recently released “The Most Disappointing Travel Destinations on Earth” list with the Four Corners Monument earning the second spot.
“Can you really be in two, three or four places at the same time?” The Active Times wrote. “No. So what’s the point of going all the way out there, in the middle of a desert with nothing else to do, to play Twister and bend four ways so you can touch a tiny area of four states?”
The Four Corners Monument, recognized in 1912, marks the spot where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet, and is the only point in the U.S. shared by four states.
The Active Times doesn’t mention how the Four Corners Monument may be doubly disappointing, given that the marker is off by anywhere from 1,807 feet to 2.5 miles to the east, according to the National Geodetic Survey.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1925 ruled the marker at the Four Corners Monument is the location where the four states intersect.
Regardless, the monument joins these other “disappointing” destinations:
1. Times Square, New York2. Four Corners Monument, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah3. The Prairies, Nebraska4. Madame Trussauds’ wax museums, anywhere5. Dubai, United Arab Emirates6. Equator, Ecuador7. Loch Ness, Scotland8. The Blarney Stone, Ireland9. Mexico City, Mexico10. Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt11. Jamaica12. Lagos, Nigeria13. The Mall of America, Minnesota14. The Hollywood Walk of Fame, California