Mesa Verde

What an amazing place. The Ute, Pueblo, Zuni, and any other tribes who made these cliff dwellings must have been amazing problem solvers. The planning, skill, and determination it must have required to build a house on a stone cliff is awe inspiring. This is the first two night stop and we are taking full advantage. We "slept in" and didn't have to rush around this morning taking down camp. After we got up we spent almost all day in the park exploring the ruins. We toured Balcony House first which is an hour long ranger led tour. To tour this area we had to descend 100 steps and then climb a 32 step ladder. Once we were in the ruin we were able to walk around and view the amazing architecture built here.





The 32' ladder to climb into the ruins.





Kaleb climbing the steps.





The Fam in the ruins.





The ruins.





More pics of the ruins.

After visiting Balcony House we headed to our next tour which was Cliff Palace. This is the largest cliff dwelling in the world housing more than 150 people. The shear size of this accomplishment is amazing. Our tour guide Scott did a good job of keeping us laughing and got us in the shade as much as possible. Here are a few pics of cliff palace:







Cliff palace from above.





Fam in front of cliff palace.





Approaching cliff palace.

After cliff palace we headed to the museum, watched a movie and then checked out Spruce Tree House which was a self guided tour so we got to go
At our own pace.












Pretty cool site. You can go into a replica of a kiva to see the inside. It was Also nice to go at our own pace. After this site we were ready to head back to camp to eat some dinner. Mindy was cooking again tonight so we had "Mediterranean Pork Chops". They were good.





Tomorrow it's off to Albuquerque for groceries, laundry, and jiffy lube for an oil change. The weird noise from the car did go away by itself which is good.

Location:Mesa Verde Nation Park