Mesa Verde, CO

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The first couple of pictures you will see are of me following Tommy across the pass. It was not fun, but we made it!

Today we went into Mesa Verde National Park. Yes, I got another stamp for my passport. Its getting pretty full. The park entrance is 13 miles from the visitors center and it took 40 minutes to drive there. The park itself is 20,000 acres in total. The roads are twisty and full of switchbacks. The scenery is beautiful but not what we expected. We both thought the rocks were going to be red, as in Moab. They are not. They are sandy  in color. Still pretty though.

We hiked a while and visited several cliff dwellings. The pictures we took,  at first,  look like clay models. But they are not. They really are inside a cliff and were made over 1000 years ago. Some of the 'villages' as they are called, you cannot walk through. All of them are made of sand stone, which is fragile. Some of the villages you enter into and truly explore them. In one village we climbed down a 8 rung ladder to an underground ceremonial section. It was very weird, but cool.

We also visited the museum while there and ate at the restaurant they have. (I packed a lunch, but when we pulled into the picnic area and set everything up - I forgot to put the sandwiches in the cooler. We had everything but the food!) Hence, we at the extremely over priced, over cooked, and total tourist trap of a restaurant.

We came home relatively early so we can cook a good steak for dinner and sit outside and watch the Dolphin/Jets game. The temperature here is 74 degrees and just lovely. We are still quite high in altitude - 7400 feet.

Tomorrow we hit the road again. It will be a long ride. 288 miles to Flagstaff. We want to spend a while there before heading to Albuquerque because we want to actually house shop there. The place we both would love to live in forever is out of the question, so Flagstaff is another option we're hoping pans out for us. (The place we want to live in is Telluride, but a 1 bedroom condo is almost 800K.)

Okay, time to start dinner and watch the game, thanks for reading and have a good week coming up!