Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

October 13th and 14th

Again we changed our minds. As I said before, that is one of the benefits of long term traveling. The only thing you have to do is change reservations. We always make reservations ahead of time. When we went to Monument Valley, we had to call and change 2 parks.  From Monument Valley we decided to go to Mesa Verde before the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Made a couple of calls to cancel and remake reservations. This was the 2nd time for each park and had no problems.

Mesa Verde is in Southwest Colorado. We were only within a day's travel of where it all started in Gunnison.  We wanted to go now because it is also a place that gets too cold and snowy in the winter. In fact, the first campground we called had already closed. The 2nd was open, but was closing at the end of the week. Whew! Just in time.

Mesa Verde has the most ruins anywhere in the world. It has 4500 archaeological sites, 600 being cliff dwellings. The Ancestral Puebloans lived here from A.D.550 to A.D. 1300. This period has always interested me.

Denny and I were having a little disagreement.  He says we were here in 1976. I  have no recollection of it.  I remember a site like this, but, I think he is getting our trips mixed up.  We were in Montezuma Castle, above Phoenix, in 1996. It has the same type of ruins but alot less.  I don't have my 1996 journal with me, so we won't know who's right until we get home. Hope it's me.

These people amazed me. The cliff dwellings were on the sides of vertical cliffs.  They went up an down the vertical cliffs using hand and toe holds.

 Just think how long it took to construct these homes using simple sticks.

This is Spruce Tree House, built between A.D. 1200-1276. It contains 114 rooms and 8 Kiva's( underground ceremonial chambers)

Denny is looking down into a Kiva

This is an overview of 3 areas in the cliff walls Can you imagine going from one to another

This is Square Tower House . It holds 80 rooms. It is unusual because of the square tower in back. Most were free standing round towers. This is 4 stories with windows, doors, flooring and the inner walls were plastered.

This is a Kiva, a ceremonial house. There is a small hole to the left of the large hole. This is where the spirits go in and out.

On to the Grand Canyon