If you are following along with us this summer, by now you are ready to stay home! It has been a crazy summer and not quite over yet. This spring we had originally planned to hike down to Havasu Falls, but we had several things that wouldn't allow us to make it this year. We really wanted to take the entire family to somewhere not many of us had gone to, so we decide to go to Mesa Verde, CO. and see the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians. We were so excited to head down there with our good friends the Andersons and Kimballs. There were 18 of us total. We left late on Friday after work and drove through Moab, Monticello, Cortez Co. and finally arrived at the Morefield Campground in Mesa Verde. We attempted to set up camp and realized we left an important part of our Springbar tent. Yikes! We piled our three kids in the small tent and blew up an air mattress and slept in our car.
Saturday morning we all headed down to the Cliff Palace guided tour. We learned something new, I had told the kids that the people that had lived in these dwellings were Anasazi, but we learned that morning that they are being referred to now as Ancestral Pueblo. They lived in this area from 500 AD to 1100 AD on the Mesas. Around 1150 AD several hundred moved into the cliffs and built these amazing dwellings in the cliffs and lived there until around 1320 AD when archeologists think them moved down into the valleys of New Mexico and CO. due to a severe 24 year long drought. We learned so much and got to climb tall ladders, crawl through rock slots, and hike in great temperatures. We spent the enter day on that side of Mesa Verde. That evening we cooked taco salads and hunkered down for a wicked rain storm. Sunday morning we went to the Wetherill Mesa where Long House is located. We took a tram and hiked down to see Long house and Step house. They were amazing and we got to hike into pit houses, and Kivas too! After a long day going through ruins, we went back and cooked dutch oven chicken and potatoes and peach cobbler. The kids played scum and we all chatted. No campfires due to high fire danger :(. Monday morning we packed up and headed to Moab to see the dinosaur tracks and Petrogliphs. We then had our last supper at Wendys and got home around 7pm. We had a blast! We have all been friends since we lived back in our first homes in West Valley 15 years ago! Mesa Verde was educational and very cool!
No comments:
Post a Comment