Mesa Verde!

Long House at Mesa Verde National Park

Hola mon freres! (I think that's right. I don't really Habla the francois.) Welcome back to our big adventure. Or not. I doubt anybody is still reading, although Lizzie told me she had received three texts from people wondering what has been happening and where we have been. She did, however, refuse to show me those texts, or to disclose the identity of anyone who sent a text. But we're back and better than ever! We have just been very busy, and sans the use of the interwebs.

When last we met, we were having a grand ol' time in Taos, New Mexico. We had done some excellent hiking, and also watched Isabella collapse in a crumpled heap while waiting in line for huevos rancheros. On that day, we were enjoying our traditional afternoon thunderstorm when we discovered that it would also be an evening, all-night, and all-the-next-day storm. There would be no day 3 of Taos except sitting indoors. And so we packed up our things, and moved to Bev-er-ly, um, Mesa Verde National Park, in southwestern Colorado.

I continue to be absolutely amazed by the natural beauty this country has to offer. Just driving from Taos to Mesa Verde, or Mesa Verde to Salt Lake City (as we did yesterday), could be a vacation by itself. You know, if you weren't driving.

July 2. On our way through New Mexico and into Colorado, we just made it to a gas station. A really hard gas station to get a camper into. And only then discovered that they were out of gas. So we waited twenty minutes for one car to move so we could get out and go to the gas station next door, which was just as hard to get in and out of. These people also hadn't come into this century, and you couldn't pay at the pump. So I handed over my credit card, and then I forgot it there. And had to do a U-turn with the trailer on a desolate two-lane road. Don't ask. I don't want to talk about it.

Mom and Dad had taken the kids for lunch while we fueled up and left ahead of us, “just for an hour.” Unfortunately, we were communicating the route via text, and didn't realize that we had lost service and ended up taking different routes. And Liz and I were completely despondent as we longed for our children who were so far away from us, and were bereft as we drove quietly for the next five hours without arguing or hitting or whining or name-calling.

We arrived at Mesa Verde just before 7pm, and got Iz her Junior Ranger book and we got info and tour tickets from the visitor center. And I don't remember anything else about that very, very long day.

The view from our campground

Pottery and other relics that have been discovered over the past 130 years

Hopi singers and instrumentalists

Hopi dancers 

Hopi dancers

The whole family participates

Riding the Long House Loop

Fruit on an agave

Looking across the canyon to Long House

The girl loves her Poppy

The view from your bedroom, 700 years ago

Long House

July 3. Our first very full day at MVNP started with a return to the visitor center. There we watched Hopi singers and dancers from northern Arizona, who shared their traditional deer dance with us. Very cool.

Side note: Not long ago (like within the last 20 years), the inhabitants of this area were referred to as Anasazi, and the park service said, “...and then they just disappeared and no one knows what happened to them.” But it turns out that we do know, and they have been here all along, in the many groups of Pueblo people who now live in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas. In fact, the cliff dwelling tours are now designed by a man who is Pueblo, who just happened to be on one of our tours! (No pressure, young Ranger Kaycee. Unannounced observation, anyone?)

After experiencing the traditional dance, we drove an hour to Wetherill Mesa, where we enjoyed a hike to Step House (Lizzie, Izzie, Mom and Dad), and a bike ride around the Long House Loop (me, Gabe, Kieran). We all then reunited for our tour of Long House. Also very cool. Most interesting thing for me was the food storage... the food pantries would be sealed up with a brick-and-mortar wall, with a campfire burning inside. The fire would devour all of the oxygen in the room, putting itself out, and – voila! - vacuum sealing the entire room! And when they opened the sealed pottery seed jars after 700 years???? IT GREW!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other interesting point: The axes used to cut trees for roofs and supports (that are still in place) were stone, not iron or steel. It's estimated that it took 5,000 swings of an axe to bring down an 8-inch tree, as it was being crushed more than cut.

One of Long House's kivas

Canyon View from Long House

Other super, really interesting point: these dwellings were abandoned 700 years ago. They were re-discovered in the late 1800s by the Wetherill Brothers, and they called in an archaelogist from Finland whose name was something like Gersh gurndy morn-dee burn-dee, burn-dee, Sher de chicky en de farney hoog. And he spent years searching and discovering and researching and cataloging and wrote books about it and then he tried to steal everything. But they arrested him in Durango and said “Hey, you can't steal that, we have the American Antiquities Act!” But we didn't, and so he took everything back to Helsinki, and it is still there, in a museum. But then because of that, Congress passed the American Antiquities Act, and now you can't steal stuff.

July 4. First of all, most importantly, as it is every year, today is Dependence Day. It's our 18^th wedding anniversary!

We got up and drove to Chapin Mesa to tour Balcony House. This is one that some of us were looking forward to and some of were dreading, all for its level of adventure. To tour this cliff dwelling, you get to climb a 32-foot ladder to get in, and then scrunch through a 12-foot long itty-bitty tunnel to get out. And they reeeeeeaaally oversold how narrow the tunnel was, because they didn't want people getting there and then chickening out or getting stuck and then the rest of us would have to vacuum seal ourselves in there for 700 years. The ranger must have said more than a dozen times that “the tunnel is no wider than the width of a ranger's hat,” but this particular ranger was significantly wider than a ranger's hat, if you know what I mean. And the guy behind me, who wanted to be last, was even more wider-than-a-ranger's-hat, although he did have to turn sideways and slither.

My whole family on a ladder. I went last, so
I didn't need to have a photo taken of my butt.

After the tour, we went on a hike that a number of us didn't actually know we were going on until we were on it! But it was the very best kind of trail, a mountaingoaty path of ups and downs and jumps and rocks and climbing and fun and shade and a cool breeze almost the whole way. It took us to Petroglyph Point, where we looked at – wait for it – petroglyphs. But on the way, there was so much to see and we had one of our best lunch spots ever, up on big rocks that we had to scamper up, in an alcove, just underneath the ruins of a cliff dwelling.

Spruce Tree House

On Da Hike

Looking down at our lunch spot 

Manly Men 

View from the trail

Petroglyphs

A collared lizard, the largest we've seen

A final view across the canyon

Lizzie and I were supposed to have a romantic dinner for our anniversary but there didn't seem to be much available in Cortez, so we invited the whole gang out to La Casita de Cortez for dinner and nachos and guac and margaritas.

Sadly, there were no fireworks to see this year, but it was (just barely) dark enough that we could see lots of stars and the Milky Way.

We were last in Mesa Verde in 2008 and it was okay, but didn't do much for me. I was the one who said we only needed one day there; I was so glad that we had two days, and could have easily taken another day or two in the park and another three or four in the surrounding areas.

Closing point, the question we know everyone has about our visit to Colorado: We didn't see anybody smoking the wacky, but it's still illegal inside the park because it's on federal property. But while you can purchase the chronic in this state just because you're in the mood for it, you have to go to a liquor store to buy full-strength beer. Interesting.

July 5. OhMyGoshThis WasSuchALongDayOfDriving but guess what? Bonus Park! We realized we would be driving right through Moab, so we got everything packed up the night before, got up extra early, and stopped for a couple of hours at my beloved Arches National Park. We saw some sights, walked around Balanced Rock, and Izzie set a new record for fastest Junior Rangering ever. And then we drove and drove and drove and drove to Brigham City for provisions at Walton's Arkansas-style Sutlery, and sleep.

Approaching Moab

At Balanced Rock, Arches National Park

And today is July 6, and we are driving to Arco, Idaho and Craters of the Moon National Monument. Liz, Iz, Mom and Dad were there last year after the boys and I headed east for band camp, and they loved it, although they say that Arco is a bit of a ghost town. I guess everyone picked up and moved to Pizzicato.

At least, that's my string theory.

You're welcome.