The editor's word: Mr. Chilian is my German long friend for philately. I have introduced his brief features here, and his story have been published in our philatelic web site . This year, Mr.Chilian and his wife Maria revisit the old haunt--America. But there are two point in this trip: one is driving a car as himself; Other one is in western America, especially Arizona and Grand Canyon. He sent many rare photos for us, It is very valuable for Morricone's Fans who are interested in the Spaghetti Westerns very much. So we publish these photos below for share (Mr.Chilian's more pages : 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13 ...)

Mr. Chilian said in an E-mail: "attached is a map showing our trip. We started in Denver drove up north to Mt. Rushmore, than west to Yellowstone NP, south to Salt Lake City to Grand Canyon. From there we drove east along all the canyons back to Denver."

It is located on the Colorado Plateau west of U.S. Highway 160, 40 miles southwest of Cortez, Colorado. It is centered at 36°59′56.31532″N 109°02′42.62019″W? / ?36.9989764778, -109.045172275.[1] The point was originally declared by Congress to be 37°N, 109°W, but an early surveying error misplaced the location. The US Supreme Court later ruled that the current location had become so standard that it should be officially recognized as the actual boundary between the four states.

Not only is the point a perpendicular corner intersection, it is the only point in the United States shared by four states, leading to their being called the Four Corners region. A Ute Indian reservation abuts the point in Colorado. The landmark is run by the Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation Department and is a popular tourist attraction, despite its isolated and somewhat remote location. An admission fee is required to view and photograph the monument.

Around the monument, local Navajo and Ute artisans sell souvenirs and food. The position of the point was initially surveyed by E. N. Darling in 1868, and marked with a sandstone marker.[2] The first permanent marker at the point was placed in 1912. It was replaced in 1992 with a granite marker embedded with a large circular bronze disk around the point, surrounded by smaller, appropriately located state seals and flags.(See here)

Note: The Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah in the Navajo language) is a semi-autonomous Native American homeland covering about 26,000 square miles (67,339 square kilometres, 17 million acres), occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeast portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States.

The Nation encompasses the land, kinship, language, religion, and the right of its people to govern themselves. Members of the Nation are often known as Navajo (or Navaho) but traditionally call themselves Diné (sometimes spelled in English as Dineh) which means the people.

The 2000 census reported 298,215 Navajo people living throughout the United States, of which 173,987 were within the Navajo Nation boundaries. Of these, 131,166 lived in Arizona (17,512 in Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix).

Because the Navajo Nation includes land in three states, its Division of Economic Development compiles census data for the Navajo Nation as a whole. Another group lives on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation along the Colorado River in California and Arizona.(See here)

The Navajo Indian Reservation (Navajo Country), established in 1868, is the largest Indian reservation in the United States. Lying for the most part in Arizona, it is bounded on the west by the Colorado River and on the north by Lake Powell, a long artificial lake formed in a canyon, and the San Juan River; the boundaries on the east and south are ruler straight. Much of the central part of the territory, roughly half of which is barren and infertile, is a desertic tableland slashed by canyons. To the east, striking north-south, are the Chuska Mountains, with Pastora Peak (9,413ft/2,869m); to the northeast is the Ute Mountain
... More >
Indian Reservation in Colorado; and to the southwest is the Hopi Indian Reservation, which has an area of some 560sq.mi/1,450sq.km. The most interesting parts of Navajo Country, both scenically and culturally, are organized and protected as Tribal Parks or National Monuments. The largest settlements in the reservation are Window Rock (Navajo), the Indian-run administrative center of the reservation, and Hotevilla(See here)

---------------------------------------------