Super 8 Motel - Cortez/Mesa Verde Area

... live-long-and-prosper-sign to the peple along the side of the tracks as we got nearer to the train station. One or two people on some inner tubes headed down the river actualy mooned us! The weather cooperated with us exept for a few raindrops. But by the time we got back to the campground we were dying, I swear, its the heat and the altitude that's killing us. We really are lowland people.

... it'll be in the 60's one day, then snow the very next day! So anyway, there was snow on the ground, but it was in the mid 30's and the roads were clear, so we decided to head east to Mesa Verde National Park. The drive wasn't too bad, and after a quick stop in Cortez for Silas to get his haircut, we drove the last 10 miles to the park entrance. The weather still wasn't too bad, but we could see that we were about to ...

... temperate. As we are so far behind in our blogs, I will not spend much time on narrative but let the pictures do the talking. The main scenic drive through Mesa Verde wanders to the top of a mesa and beyond. At the top, a short trail leads to great panoramas of the surrounding area-New Mexico to the south, Utah to the west, and Colorado to the north. Beyond the Visitor's Center ...

... all along and wondered what it was, and it is actually in NM. Back at camp we hung up the hammock a second time. Tonight we are planning to attend the Ranger program at 9pm and then another program at 10pm about the stars. Looking forward to them both. The Ranger program was fun. Ranger Bruce is a 70 year old retired science teacher. He had lots of stories to tell. He told us about the fire in 2000 that several ...

... We should be learning a lesson here. That does remind me to say that I notice the Westerners are much more resource conscious than we are out east. My old staff will remember my trying to re-use my McDonald's cup. (By the way, I still use it.) Well, that is not odd here. If you bring your own cup into places you usually get a discount. Telluride and Aspen are having a contest on who can use the least number of ...

... the top of the cave just to go to sleep. So much work went into building these dwellings without the tools that we have at our disposal. As I look at these dwellings, I wonder how they even got the rocks and other materials into these caves. I have to think that these Indians may have been shorter in stature than we are because the rooms were small in height as well. We were allowed close to the buildings and look inside. In one tower we saw Indian ...

... cost extra. There are two reasons for the extra admission charge. First, charging extra and requiring a ticket for entry allows the Park Service to control the number of people touring the site at any given time. Second, because these sites can only be visited on a guided tour, the extra charge covers the cost of the ranger guiding the tour. We bought tickets for a morning tour of Balcony House and an afternoon tour of Cliff Palace.

We walked back ...

... reused by another group of Ancestral Pueblo Indians who were also responsible for building the Mesa Verde structures. Like any new homeowners, this group remodeled and enhanced many of the structures. They were abandoned by this group around 1300. It wasn’t until the early 1800s that the structures were noted again. Serious archeological exploration of the site didn’t take place until the 1930s.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve always considered the Aztec ...