Mesa Verde......

First an apology to my three other children--all those trips we made from Utah to Texas or from Texas to Utah and I never took the 10 mile detour from Cortez to this amazing spot on the earth-Mesa Verde.  It seemed like we were always hurrying to visit family and to get back home that the middle spots got overlooked.  It was only in 2009 that we stopped at Four Corners which is another fun spot along this route.  Someday I hope that we can go back and share this spot with all of our kids and their kids.  It is truly so unique.

Mesa Verde is a national park which preserves some ancient dwellings of the Native Americans from this region.  Most famous for the cliff dwellings which are amazing there are also other ruins from more ancient buildings.  It felt like a holy spot in each of these special sites.

At the visitors center----

They had this statue at the visitors center of a man climbing with some wood on his back.  I didn't realize how much those cliff dwellers traveled up and down these walls.  Looking at them I wondered how the mothers managed when they were pregnant or had little ones just learning to crawl and walk--that would be scary.

This high in the mountains there were still wild flowers throughout the park.

 We were able to camp inside Mesa Verde at the camp ground which was great.

 

 

That evening we headed to the Ranger Talk.  As a kid, our parents often took us to these types of things and I still like them today.  The topic for the night was "The Critters of Mesa Verde".  You were a lot more cautious about walking around after you learned that there were bears, mountain lions, and cougars in those hills around you.

 

Jena gave a wave as I was taking pictures on the way to the ranger talk.

Monday morning we headed off to see the cliff dwellings.  They were stunning both up close and across the canyons.  Really unbelievable.  They believe that they only lived in them about 2-3 generations and then left the area but they don't really know why they left.

 On the hike down, Jena and Gary take a break.

These were early dwellings when they started making pit houses which were mostly under ground.

 A larger above the ground structure that I think is called Sun Temple.

Can you imagine coming into a canyon in 1880s and seeing this?  They said that the Native Americans had not forgotten the sites and told of them in their lore, but it was in the 1880s that a rancher searching for lost cattle "discovered" the site and spread the news throughout the US?  Now of course this is a world famous site.  It was the first site in the US declared as a national park specifically to preserve the Native American sites.

Pictures do not do it justice.  You really need to see it in person.  Put it on your bucket list!

And that just took us to lunch time............................