We did Turkey Day in a little town called Cortez, tucked into the southwestern corner of Colorado. The draw for us was spending some quality time with family; Shaun's dad and step-mom recently moved to Cortez. We got a grand tour of the town and enjoyed walking in the 60 degree sunshine. Gotta love that dry southwestern desert sun! It was great to wear short sleeves and actually
feel the sunshine, rather than just think of sun as a distant Seattle memory.
Our favorite thing - (besides visiting family, of course!) - was
visiting Mesa Verde National Park. I had read about this place in
elementary school history textbooks and so it was a deeply embedded
desire of mine to see this place. Mesa Verde is famous for the cliff
dwellings - sandstone brick houses built right into the side of a cliff -
built by the Pueblo people circa 500 - 1200 AD.
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| The Cliff Palace, the largest and most impressive of the Pueblo cliff dwellings. |
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| Yay, I can check this place off my bucket list! |
Maybe my desire to see Mesa Verde had something to do with my
childhood fascination with the Indian in the Cupboard book/movie? These
amazing Pueblo Native Americans basically lived on a cliff shelf, and
when you see some of the ruins, the word "precarious" doesn't quite seem
descriptive enough. From one of the ruins, called The House of Many Windows, the only entrance is through
a
"toe-hold trail." It's like the Pueblo were thrill seekers wanting to live on a Via Ferrata. Check it out here:
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| The only way to get into the House of Many Windows is to climb the "Toe Hold Trail." Or be Spiderman. |
This part of Colorado is blessed with sagebrush, juniper, pinyon pine, prickly pear,
and snow-capped peaks and buttes that reminded me immediately of
Stagecoach. Turns
out, a lot of John Wayne westerns were filmed not too far from here. The buttes were sharp and looked like buzz cuts given by God. We
saw several red-tailed hawks, magpies, and Western Scrub Jays. Beautiful country.
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| Shaun in front of a juniper tree. |
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| This is a kiva, a round subterranean structure that was used for ceremonial purposes. |
We were worried that late November would be too cold and the weather too formidable. The only problem was that the guided tour of the Cliff Palace was closed, but everything else was open. Plus, the weather was perfect and there were fewer crowds than if we had gone during the summer. Great trip!
