SPAS, TRAINS, HIKING AND ANCIENT SITES IN CO, NM, UT 2014 day 7

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September 28, 2014
Early next morning we took the advice on the website (it is hard to contact this place by phone) and with a detailed road map (not GPS) drove north from Farmington, NM to find Hovenweep National Monument, located in Utah and Colorado just north of Four Corners. It took us a bit over two hours including asking for directions along the way. This is another ancestral ruin of the Puebloans from about 500 - 1300 AD but there are traces of the nomadic Paleoindians passing through here over 10,000 years ago.

The people who lived in Hovenweep were hunter gatherers, farmers and basket weavers but were also advanced builders. Their masonry dwellings and pottery styles resembled the workmanship of the Pueblo people in Mesa Verde and other nearby sites suggesting they traded with other Pueblo people. They were master craftsmen, building circular and square towers, D-shaped houses, many kivas on top of and around the rocky mesa as well as storage granaries under canyon rims that served to protect their harvests of corn, beans and squash. The masonry here is quite beautiful and very carefully crafted by a people with expert masonry skills and engineering. Careful attention was given to construction and detail to erect these structures on the rocky canyon walls. Crops were grown in terraces and water was dammed for irrigation but there were challenges with weeping water along the canyon walls causing them to construct weep holes to dispel the water. Despite the challenges of this location, some of their structures are still standing on top of rocky boulders after 700 years.

Some say the towers were for observing the skies since other Puebloan people used astronomy to guide them in timing their agriculture and for locating their buildings. Other archeologists suggest the towers were fro defense, homes, storage rooms or even kivas. No one knows for sure but the power and majesty of these structures if striking against the landscape that surrounds it. There are steep canyon walls, rocky mesas and mountains in the distance, not an easy place to grow food, build homes or walk about but beautiful and impressive none-the-less.

Once again the day started out hot and sunny but rain and winds soon appeared chasing us off the mesa and on our way west to Twin Rocks restaurant in Bluff, UT. This drive was about an hour west on 191 and brought us to a place we had been to before. There are not a lot of choices out here and rather than be surprised we figured we would go with what we knew. This restaurant was literally under two large natural stone towers not unlike a hoodoo. The restaurant food is passable considering where we were and we still had over an hour’s drive to get to our destination that evening. We did not want to miss one moment of the vista that awaited in the Valley of the Gods!

We left Bluff, UT and drove west on Rt 163 passing the first turn to The Valley of the Gods. You can get to the B&B from this turn but it is a 17 mile bumpy, dirt road barely graded in areas. Instead drive west until you get to the second entrance to the Valley of the Gods and head north for about 6 1/2 miles until you see the turn for the entrance to the Valley of the Gods Bed and Breakfast.

With Bluff, UT to the east, Natural Bridges, UT to the north and Monument valley south west, the Valley of the
Gods B&B is located in, of course, The Valley of the Gods Utah, a remote, pristine area that was all ours for a night and a day. I booked a room in July for late September and would have stayed longer but they were already full, so take that into consideration if you want to enjoy this little bit of heaven.

You are miles from nowhere. No cars. No traffic. No lights. Nothing commercial. You are in the middle of the Milky Way, absorbed by millions of stars, viewing ghost-like spires rising from the valley floor, inhaling the fresh, crisp air in the beauty of southern Utah. You are in the wild. What an amazing experience! This was indeed the highlight of our three week vacation.

We were warmly greeted by Claire who gave us a tour of the “Honeymoon Cottage” our own little abode near the historic early 20th century stone ranch house that serves as the B&B. This old western style cottage has two floors. The top floor has its own little balcony and to be redundant I will say that it has a spectacular view. On this level is a small sitting area, and a bathroom with shower and toilet. From the living area there is a spiral staircase that winds down to the lower level to the bedroom. This used to be a root cellar but is now a comfortable bedroom.

I will say that it is hard to sleep here. Not because it is noisy. Not because of the bed (it was fantastically comfortable) but because the surrounding beauty is so astounding that you don’t want to miss a moment of this unique place. I did peer out the upstairs window that night and couldn’t believe my eyes. The Moki Dugway, which is on the mountain behind the cottage and visible from our window, had car lights coming down the steep switchbacks in the dark!

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