we left on friday afternoon and drove straight to the campground at mesa verde. we got there in time to set up our tent and then attend the evening ranger program. unfortunately--for us--it was raining during the ranger program, but we powered through. it quit raining during the night, and we woke up the next morning to sunshine and blue skies!
we found a little mouse in the woodsy area by cliff palace.
our first glimpse of cliff palace.
another cliff dwelling across from cliff palace.
there were lots of ladders from us to climb up/down to get the cliff dwellings.
s and w really enjoyed climbing the ladders.
cliff palace is the biggest cliff dwelling at mesa verde. it was amazing.
w looking down into a kiva.
w and s playing on some benches while we waited to go to balcony house.
look at that sky!
the 35 foot ladder we climbed to get to balcony house did get my heart pumping pretty hard. i climbed it just fine, but things like that do freak me out a bit.
balcony house was brian's favorite cliff dwelling we went to.
original pieces of wood. these are about 800 years old.
a painted pattern on the wall of the one of the rooms in balcony house.
sierra using a metate and mano.
you had to climb through a tunnel to get out of balcony house. this tunnel was built by the ancestral pueblans.
at spruce house we saw our first covered kiva.
we all got to climb down into this kiva.
we went on a hike to see petroglyphs. there were some interesting images.
the sky turned very dark during the petroglyph hike. 
a cool carved rock.
the sky cleared up some by the evening, but it was pretty chilly. it was so cold, in fact, that i almost wimped out of the saturday night ranger program. thankfully, i didn't--it was really interesting. it was on history of the navajo in mesa verde. 
on sunday, we woke up after 10 hours of raining--it rained all night long. our tent was pretty sloppy wet. poor w and s's sleeping bags were wet. we took down the tent and packed up the car and headed into cortez to go to church. after church, we drove back into mesa verde and went to the seldom-visited part of the park--the wetherill mesa. they have a wild horse population there.
we rode on a tram that took us around the loop. w and s liked sitting in the front seats. 
another cool cliff dwelling.
a pit house--this is older than the cliff dwellings.
potshards on the ground at step house.
us leaving the park.
since all of our stuff got wet, we decided to head home on sunday evening. we drove straight home and got to sleep in our own, dry beds.
some of the highlights were seeing the museum at the park, the ranger program, (obviously) visiting the cliff dwellings, me getting to see a lazuli bunting (oh man it was gorgeous--the most vivid blue i've ever seen on a bird), s becoming a jr ranger, going to church (and being reminded of why rain is a very good thing for the people who live there--and hearing a prayer in which a woman said how much she enjoyed living in among wonderful people and in a beautiful place--i always love hearing that people enjoy the place they live in), and hanging out together!
1 comment:
Those cliff dwellings are so impressive. I'd love to see them. I bet the folks in Escalante missed you this year, though!
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