Childhood Dream Lived

 

From a very young age Cyndee has been intrigued with Puebloan dwellings, Mesa Verde in particular.  We're as close as we have ever been to Mesa Verde here in Ignacio, CO.  Our time in Colorado is drawing to a close but we are going to use every bit of the time we have left in this first week of May.  It is off to Mesa Verde and more and fulfill a childhood desire of walking where the ancients dwelled.

From Ignacio it is about an hour and forty minutes to Mesa Verde.  It is a large National Park and we want to make a whole day of it so we got an early start.

The drive up to the top of the plateau afforded us a four state view; Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

While the view is really nice, we came for the main attraction, Puebloan dwellings.  And the park did not disappoint.

These are but one of several cliff dwellings in the park.
Probably the most recognizable as they get used in all 
the literature and documentary TV shows.

Two dimensional photographs just can't do this place justice.

Normally this place (down below in the photographs) would be crawling with people.  But we are here when the park is barely open.  In fact, seasonal rangers were being trained at this very spot for doing guided tours down to the dwellings.  Since there are many, many steps and lots of ladders this group of 10 to 12 trainees were composed mostly of young knees and young backs.

Access to the dwellings being closed was not a disappointment for us, Cyndee's knees would never have gotten her down to the dwellings, little alone back up.  And it is easy to tell from the ear to ear grin that she is really enjoying this place.

Besides the big house in the above pics there were other dwelling sites scattered throughout the park.  We drove about 75 miles inside the park going between sites and revisiting others.  Only one disappointment though, they were repaving one of the branches of road, the one that lead deepest into the park, and it was closed.  So we didn't get to see all the different cliff dwellings but the ones that we did....wow!

A day that won't be forgotten.  Of all the ancient dwellings we have toured the past month this one touched us most deeply.  We are super glad we had this place on our must-see list and that the weather cooperated to let it happen.