Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

After getting an early start today we headed for Mesa Verde National Park.  The drive to the park is VERY steep and the road just zig sags up the rock face.  The park is located 7000 ft above sea level !  I drove up the mountain slowly but it was so steep there were times I didn't know if the "toaster" would make it ! We knew there was so much to see so we didn't plan on doing a hike today, just viewing the museum and ruins.  We drove up to the park and found that there was a $25 fee (per car) to enter the park.  The cute park ranger was flirting with me (Ranger Tim) and gave us the advice to buy the annual pass for all US national parks as it would pay for itself.  Most of the parks outwest have fees that help preserve the parks.  The larger ones like Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore can be up to $35 per carload.  Just those two parks, plus Mesa Verde paid for the $80 annual pass.  If you like National Parks, I would take Ranger Tim's advice and buy the pass.  There are at present 391 National Parks/Monuments/Historical Sites in the US, and this pass will get you into ALL of them.  (this includes the Statue of Liberty in NYC and other well known monuments)  A list can be found at :National Park Service For now on, I'm heading to any National Parks I can access on long weekends and school breaks !  And this does not include STATE PARKS and monuments which are usually free or have a minimal fee! One thing we have learned on our trip is to always go to the visitors center first and plan our day.  When we entered the visitor's center we saw signs for a special event today- A Hopi Indian dance presentation that was to start in just 15 minutes !  What luck !  We headed to the outside auditorium and found a seat.  Most of the people playing the instruments were adults while the dancers were children of all ages.  The costumes were all ornamental and were made by the children's mothers.  The children did the "Corn Dance" which is a prayer to God for a good harvest.  The hand movements of the girls depicted them grinding the corn while the boy's hand movements showed them planting the seed with "planting sticks".  Before they started, they invited us to join them at the end of the dance and honor them with our participation.  Of course I intended to do so !  Towards the end of the dance they called to us to come down and I looked at Rachael and told her, "you can see lots of people want to go, but no one wants to be the first one".  I waited a minute and saw no one was going so I went to dance at the end of the line.  It was like magic !  As soon as I got there children and adults followed suit !  What an awesome opportunity !  I danced with Hopi Indians ! 

After the presentation we headed to the guided tour of Palace and Balcony Houses.  We had to climb some steep cliffs and ladders but it was worth it to see the excavated ruins.  Even though the trail to the ruins was steep, it was really short, and not a "real" hike.  Even so we brought our camel backs which hold 3 liters of water, by the end of the day we had each consumed 6 liters !  It's really DRY and hot here. How did the Anazai people get water in their mountain face homes?  The homes were located in sandstone which is porous.  Spring thaw and Summer rains soak into the rock and eventually trickle down to "seep springs" that appear at different areas in the rock face.

These people collected this water and built reservoirs to store the water for dry times.  It should also be noted that while this area was still quite dry 1000 years ago, it was much wetter than it is today. 

Next we went to Spruce Tree House ruins.  These ruins are the best preserved and are actually open to where we can walk around the ruins.  We have seen many Kiva's, the spiritual areas for these pueblo people who migrated here from the Chaco Canyon.  Here we saw the first one with the original roof still intact ! -- and the best part?  We got to climb down a wooden ladder that has survived 1000 years and walk around inside the Kiva ! 

 It was a small Kiva, about the size of a small bedroom.  While down there I took a moment to be silent and respect the thousands of years of prayers offered to God here from these people.  This caused me to reflect on my own beliefs... Christianity has it's creation story as written in Genesis in the Bible.  These people believed that the Earth was their Mother and that the Moon  was their Father.  They believed that life came from the earth.  They also honored the Sun and had intricate astronomical awareness of the solstices and incorporated this information into their buildings. This was an Egalitarian Society but it was Matrilineal where family lines and land were passed on through the mother.  In many sects of Christianity, it is taught that "salvation" only comes through belief in Jesus.  What of these people who lived here in Colorado 800 - 1100 AD ?  I choose to believe that throughout the ages of human history people have sought to Worship God as they understood him.  Each culture, including the many cultures and religions today, honor God in their own way based on their culture, technology, and understanding of the world.  In my eyes, there is only one God and the people who prayed in this Kiva prayed to the same God I pray to each day. 

After these ruins we headed to the car to drive over to the Museum.  We found a note on our car that said " Go toaster go, you can do it !" with a smiley face.  We have gotten so many comments about our car and our trip, I'm glad I painted it and wrote what I did on the back ! At the museum we were able to see thousands of artifacts collected at Mesa Verde.  It was amazing how many uses there are for Yuca leaves !  They made fibers out of the leaves and wove them into clothing, mats, shoes, etc.  They discovered how to fire pottery to make it durable.  They figured out how to grow corn, beans, and squash with the little water available to them.  These were not 'savages', but intelligent men and woman who lived a difficult life here in the desert.  They were the ancient relatives of the modern Hopi, Navajo, and Aztec cultures.

We stayed in the museum till it closed, they had to ask us to leave ! LOL and headed back to Cortez, CO where our hotel was located.  On the drive back I let Rachael drive and I must say that I had to hold my tongue several times when I felt she was going to drive us right off the edge !  We chose a place to eat called Nero's Mediterranean Grill.  The food was amazing! I tried a local beer, but was laughing when I found out from Joel via text that New Amsterdam Fat Tire ale is available at Harris Teeter !  We ended the day by watching a couple episodes of Star Trek Enterprise on Netflix... It was a great day!

Today's photos can be seen at : https://plus.google.com/photos/104423898538711271791/albums/5760423711013303617?authkey=CI7Uxb3zsNzBoAE