Ancient Homes

There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep to rejuvenate you for another day of adventure. Today we visited Mesa Verde National Park. It is the only national park that was established to preserve the archeological heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people. When I first learned about these Native American cliff dwellers, they were called the Anansazi. That however, is a Navajo term that carries a connotation of enemy. There are a number of Pueblo tribes that trace their ancestry back to these ancient people, so now we refer to them as the Ancestral Puebloans.

We first stopped at the Visitor Center to purchase tickets for two ranger-led tours of Balcony House and Cliff Palace. Each tour was about an hour long and we got to climb up ladders, steep rock steps, and through narrow tunnels to get to the different rooms. We also went on a self-guided tour of Spruce Tree House where we got to climb down into a kiva. A kiva was probably like a living room where families gathered. Eventually it became more of a ceremonial room that was used for the entire community.

All in all, it was really fun to get so close to these 800 year-old homes.  On one of the tours, a lady commented that back in the 1990s, they were allowed to climb all over the cliff dwellings. Now you must be with a ranger and are limited to certain areas. I’m glad that they are preserving this piece of ancient history for future generations to see and appreciate.

While we were at the park, we saw a number of areas with burned and dead trees. The ranger told us that most of what we saw burned ten years ago. She said it would take 300 years for the forest to regrow.  She also told us that this was one of the few national parks that did not allow fires to burn naturally. Instead they put them out to protect the archeological sites. She then said that in some ways it has backfired on them. Apparently, there was a year when about half of the park burned because they hadn’t allowed the naturally occurring fires to thin out the forests. She said they are still trying to figure out the best way to manage wildfires at Mesa Verde.

We left Mesa Verde and are now headed toward Sedona. Zach's driving while I write this post. We made a quick stop at Four Corners Monument and took our photos standing in the fours states, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. Admission is $3.00 a person. Despite the expensive photo, we just couldn’t drive past Four Corners without standing in this desert spot out in the middle of nowhere.

Tomorrow will be the last day of our road trip. We’ll explore Sedona and then make the long drive home. It will be good to sleep in our beds again.

P.S. We arrived at our motel at 10:24 p.m. (we stopped in Flagstaff for dinner). We were surprised to see that the office closed at 10:00. There was a a phone number to call in case of an emergency. My cell phone was only working for emergencies, and I was starting to wonder if we'd be sleeping in the car. My work phone had just enough battery left and reception, so I called the number to find out our key had been left in a white mailbox in the middle of the parking lot. Interesting. 

We couldn't access the WiFi because no one was around to give us the password and the information was not in our room either. This morning, the office opened at 7:00 a.m., so I went to get the password from the office. The man there wrote down the word BeelRock, but pronounced it Bell Rock. I looked a little confused, so he spelled it out for me. B-E-E-L-R-O-C-K. I thought okay, it must be some local site that is pronounced "bell" but spelled differently. I went back to my room, and the password didn't work on any of the connections available.

Back to the office, I went this time with my computer to show the man that it didn't work. He watched me type it in, and then said, "Oh, you are spelling it wrong. It's BellRock." I then showed him the paper he had written on. He sheepishly apologized. Good grief.