Mesa Verde National Park

We spent Saturday at Mesa Verde National Park. The Indian ruins were amazing. We went on tours of two different "dwellings" and did a self guided tour through one other.

Looking at "Long House" along the trail. It's hard to imagine how the Indians decided to build way up there. It was a long way from the valley floor.

There were a lot of stairs and ladder climbing.

They figure these dwellings were built between 1200 and 1500 AD! It is amazing that so much of the original buildings are still standing.

Above is a hand print that was on the "ceiling" of the cave. It is a small right hand print that was stamped there with some sort of "paint". They think the people were quite small with men averaging 5'5" and women 5'2". (I would have fit right in!) Also the "elders" were in their mid 30's to 40"s. They didn't live to the ripe old ages we do now. One thing is that they had very bad teeth from eating so much sand that was ground in with the corn.

The picture above is of "Cliff Palace". It is the largest cliff dwelling. There is so much that is not known about the people who lived here and one of the biggest mystery's is when and why they left. One reason may have been the lack of water which was only about 18" per year. They collected what little water there was through seeping in the back of the alcove behind their homes and by building small dams in the steams to flood their crops. It was a very interesting day.

One of the best things about the day was that we stopped by the campground in Mesa Verde and had a "free" shower. It sure felt good since we had not showered in 2 days. It rained had on the drive back to Durango so we decided to get KFC for dinner. We took it back to camp and ate in the back of our van watching the rain come down. The rain did let up a little so we could have a camp fire. We have had rain almost every day on the trip so far. What's up with that???