Blogs from Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, United States, North America - page 6

We decided to have breakfast out this morning. We stopped at a restaurant with lots of cars outside and figured it must be a great place to eat. Well there was only one waitress and we waited 20 minutes just to get a cup of coffee and 45 minutes for our food. We drove to Cortez, Colorado and stopped at the Welcome Center there and I picked up a free t-shirt I ordered a couple of months ago. This is the first time for Dave in this state. We were able to get a new cable to use to attach my computer to my cell phone at the Radio Shack in Cortez. I broke the old one a couple of days ago and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get a new one until we ... read more

Today was much more eventful than yesterday...no Knock Knock jokes and I'm currently resting comfortably in the "parlor" of the Step Back Inn where I can access the internet. Mom is thrilled with my choice of accomodations. This place is much more charming than the Motel 6. We even have wash cloths, two drinking cups, and the typical basket of shampoo/lotion. Those were all missing from the Motel 6 experience in boring Salt Lake City. We made our way to Arches today to enjoy pleasant temperatures, small crowds, and oh...did I mention the scenery? Incredible! It looked so much like Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland but it was REAL. I don't think my still photos or camcorder shots will do it justice, but I tried. Ethan really loved the cool rocks. Mom showed her fear of ... read more

We stayed the night on the Ute Reservation, where we met some fellow campers (actually, we both just happened to be dumping our...um...waste water....at the same time). They told us about Mesa Verda, which we were only about 25 miles from and hadn't really been planning on visiting. But we're so glad we did! It was awesome...it was the home of quite a few "ancestral puebloan" ruins. To put it more interestingly, there were all of these awesome multilevel and multiroom homes built into the side of the cliffs, under natural arches. We even got to walk around in one. The strange thing about them was that the people seem to have just up and left, without leaving any clues to where they were going and why. and this was all in 1200-1300 ad. Check ... read more

Cette journée nous avons visité en matinée Mesa Verde. La veille nous avons traversé les rocheuses et roulé une partie de la nuit opur rattraper un peu notre retard. Mesa Verde est un parc national dans le sud-ouest du Colorado qui abrite de nombreuses ruines des amérindiens Anasazis qui habitaient cette région de 500 à 1200 ap. J.-C. Ces ruines furent "découvertes" par deux cowboys en 1880, mais celles-ci étaient évidemment bien connues des tribus amérindiennes de l'état. La visite fut un peu rapide (une seule ruine) mais intéressante, le guide sympathique et le groupe petit. Il nous a même été possible de rentré dans le village et d'observer l'intérieur des occupations. L'ensemble est fort bien conservé et il y a même quelques épis de maïs de l'époque que les conditions très sèches ont sauvegardés du ... read more

Colorado to Arizona Silverton was our next stop, but on the way we drove past the Red Mountains, the sight of a booming mining region in days gone by. Our photos do not do it justice, the rock was a far more intence red, a beautiful contrast to the white snow. Silverton was another beautiful little town with the smallest church I had ever seen! We drove down the main street and had a look but didn't stay long. Then we drove on to Durrango where we stopped for lunch. We drove from there on to Mesa Verde National Park. At Mesa Verde we saw amazing Native American Indian ruins. The most spectacular being the Cliff Palace where the native people set up a series of buildings on a ledge within the canyon. (After all a ... read more