Making our way back towards California, we decided at the last minute to get off the Interstate and make a trip into rural southern Colorado to visit Mesa Verde National Park. This place was absolutely astounding, and it was a cool addition to the trip.
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| Through southern Colorado we drove through quite a few high altitude ranches like this. |
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| Our first stop in Mesa Verde National Park was Balcony House. This was a dwelling for the Ancient Puebloan people, the indigenous people of this area of the country. |
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| This is a large "kiva," a gathering place and shelter of the people who once lived here. The pillars on the sides once held up the top of this thing, so it would be entirely enclosed except for a small hole in the top they could climb through. |
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| The park tour guide snapped this photo of us in front of Balcony House. |
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| Part of the tour required climbing back up using this big wooden (and slippery) ladder. It was kind of freaky, but imagine the indigenous people scrambling up these rock faces without it! |
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| The most majestic part of the park we saw was Cliff Palace, an enormous and well preserved ancient dwelling nearby. |
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| This is looking up into one of the towers in Cliff Palace, where the shelter has allowed some of the ancient painting to be preserved. Imagine an ancient person of this area using natural dyes to paint these images over a thousand years ago! |
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| Before leaving the park we had a fancy dinner at the park's restaurant. |
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| It was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, so even though it was well after 8:00pm, we stopped to watch the sunset over this place before heading out and making our way out of Colorado and into Arizona. |
