ROAD TRIP JOURNAL: Mesa Verde

Our next adventure took us through Colorado. Koala Bear has been learning about Native Americans this last year in school so I thought it would be fun/educational to see the Pueblo dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park. 

Again, we were greeted by a different type of desert landscape as we drove from Four Corners North into Colorado. As we were driving we were surprised to see we drove through some of the famous landmarks in Ute territory. 

 We stayed the night in Cortez and then first thing in the morning we went up to Mesa Verde National Park. It was a beautiful drive up to the top of the Mesas. One you are up there, they are so big, you forget how high you are until you reach the rim and see how far down the cliffs go! 

You can see how the desert starts to give away into mountains of evergreen trees. 

We had fun exploring the different parts of the ruins. We did not get our reservations to go up to some of the big cliff dwellings (partially because we didn't plan this trip at all! HAHA). But we were able to walk up to some of them and we could see them from across the cliffs as we did the loop. 

It was cool to imagine what it was like for these people to live so high above the cliffs and to figure out they knew how to survive in such precarious positions. 

They had such large and thriving communities. It was special to learn about their lives and how they traded with people from all over the world. They were not isolated at all, even though they were so high in the cliffs. 

The Visitor Center had a research facility. That was one of the coolest parts of the place. We could see them cataloging items they had found around the area. It was really great to go see them working.