After yet another night in a Walmart parking lot, this time in Cortez, Colorado, we made our way to Mesa Verde National Park. While Cliff Palace is larger, we wanted the experience of actually going into the dwellings so we lucked out and purchased tickets to the Balcony House dwellings for a short time later.
Cool sculpture of a cliff dweller outside the visitor center.
The drive up to the area of the dwellings was beautiful, steep and twisty. Luckily the van has been handling the climbs like a champ. Our drive would have been more beautiful if we had gone up with these folks!
Evidence of past fires was everywhere.
You can see a small area across the valley that they believe was used for storage (see the arrow). Such creative people to see these cliffs and realize the potential.
But their views were beautiful.
The dwellings themselves are at 7000 - 8500 feet in elevation. Climbing and hiking at these elevations this past week has been a real challenge for these flatlanders! But a man who had to be at least 80 was on this tour and he was managing just fine so rose to the challenge of climbing ladders and crawling through narrow crevices and tunnels.
Thanks, Matthew 😝
It was all so worth it!
Then, of course, we had to climb back out. (Notice Cheryl gets lovely photos of Matthew climbing and Matthew gets back end shots of Cheryl every time - hmmm)
Yummy indian fry bread waited for us after all this exertion. Bonus was a lovely chat with the Navaho woman who, after being forbidden to speak Navajo in school as a child, now teaches Navajo as a mandatory subject in the same school.
Final view before leaving Mesa Verde National Park
Now we head to back to Utah and the drive through Bears Ears was amazing! We know we keep saying every place is amazing and that we are awed, but it is so true!
Colorado River
Tonight we stayed at Duke's Slickrock Campground in Hanksville, which had lovely hot showers and beautifully dark skies for star watching. If only we weren't so tired and could stay up later!
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