Aneth Lodge Cortez

We left Sedona this morning and headed north to Colorado. We arrived at Mesa Verde National Park late in the afternoon, in time to tour the Spruce Tree Pueblo Cliff Dwelling and the ruins along the Mesa Top Loop drive. There are 600 cliff dwellings here in Mesa Verde and many more ancient pit and mesa top dwelling ruins have been uncovered. The pit ...

... The Cliff Palace tour is one of the most popular tours in the park. Ours was led by a very amiable young man who introduced himself as Ranger Jake. He warned us about the difficulties of the hike, that there would be lots of steps going down, and what goes down must come up again, so there would be ladders too. He also gave us a bit of background about the site. He talked about the importance of community that struck him at the sites, and hoped we would ...

... bring alive the lifestyle and the spiritual connection between the land and the people who have lived here.  One of our guides at one point used the word "we" making the connection that as human beings and as Americans we all can feel a kinship with the people who lived here and made a home here.  It is interesting to think about the human saga and how "we ...

... that science has now been able to throw a lot of doubt about in that story. Simply by researching and understanding that the whole area, underwent a severe drought that ranged for about 30 years, beginning in around 1276, would be a simple explanation, as to why this culture moved, on to enable them to grow crops and survive. They never found any major burial grounds nor evidence of fighting. They have found the remains of 200 people and ...

... make it all about me. If more people would take that perspective in life then I think things would be much better. I also hope that my two son's Joey and Jordan, look at this and understand that lesson for their lives as they grow older. By the time I developed the concept for Ride with Joe, I only had about 6 weeks to pull together the pieces I needed to do the ride. The biggest challenge was building a functional website for the blog and having a mechanism to track my ...

... investment. Likewise, since firewood had to be carried down from the mesa above, the use of fire also had to be justified. The pueblo had been discovered in the 1880s by cowboys looking for lost cattle. Since then, it has been the site of extensive archaeological excavation and preservation. Most of the walls and chambers are as they were found. Long House is the second largest of the cliff dwellings in Mesa ...

... we have tried it. ( we call it 'extreme RVing') and it is not for the faint hearted I can tell you. So we turned back as we had no other way of continuing in this direction. We reached Cortez mid-afternoon having stopped at a place called Bluff to see the remains of an old Mormon settlement where we saw a real old log cabin that was built by the family that lived there. We saw an old school house ...

... of bundling up we&#8217;d have to do.<br><br>We finished putting on our layers and went outside. We quickly discovered that it is one thing to hear about a 17 degree wind chill factor, and it&#8217;s another thing to experience it. The wind managed to find its way through our layers, instantly causing us to shiver. But, what was even worse was the feeling of the wind on our uncovered areas, like our faces. It actually felt like little knives were ...

... because it means the vacation is just about over), we were looking forward to seeing what promised to be a couple of the trip's highlights.<br><br>We went back into the breakfast room for another delicious breakfast. Our companions at the table on this morning were a British couple who were visiting their children and grandchildren who resided in the area. What struck me most about our conversation with them was the absolute lack of fear they displayed in regards to traveling ...