Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys

Daily Mileage=128;
Trip Mileage=2731 (By the way, Rich wants you all to know we got 44 miles to a gallon the last time we filled up. WOW!! Chevy Prism Rocks!!)

Today we went to Mesa Verde National Park. This is an area that was inhabited for over 4,000 years by the Anasazi (a.k.a. the Puebloans). They are the people known for the cliff dwellings although most of their time was spent on the mesas in pithouses.

From the entrance to the park up to the Visitor's Center was 20 miles of hairpin turns. The view was incredible! But poor Rich had to hear me gasping for breath on some of the turns.


We decided to get there really early because you need to take ranger guided tours to actually enter some of the cliff dwellings. We signed up for two of the best experiences we've had in national parks in all our travels.

Mesa Verde (green table in Spanish) has some of the most numerous and best preserved cliff dwellings in the world. We have been to others in AZ and NM but these were spectacular.

The first tour took us to the largest cliff dwelling in North America, The Cliff Palace. We descended 100 feet into the canyon and then went through the site and back up ladders attached to the rock walls! (Definitely not for the faint at heart; this was the easy tour!) MaryAnne kept looking straight ahead at the rungs of the ladder to get out without panicking!!!

The 150 room site housed more than 100 people. This is only one of several hundred that were in the area. The Puebloans inhabited the area for centuries however, the remnants of their occupation can only be traced back from 600AD to about 1200AD. At that time they abruptly migrated to other areas and no one has a definitive explanation as to their reasons.






The second tour took us to the Balcony House. This one was described as the "adventurous cliff dwelling tour." We had to climb a 32 ft ladder to gain entrance into the site, crawl through a 12 ft X 1.5 ft-wide tunnel, and then climb stairs up a 60 ft vertical rock face including two 10 ft ladders to exit the site! My biggest concern was would I (MaryAnne) get though the tunnel or be stuck there until I lost enough weight to get out! They basically said I would be OK so I tentatively went on it. It was fabulous! Although the heights didn't make me super comfortable. We actually got to go inside the dwellings (usually you're on the outside) and crawl in and out like the Puebloans.

This 40 ft room dwelling is one of the highlights of the park and we would definitely recommend it. Imagine being inside a room and up against a wall that's 900 years old? It's unbelievable.



OK so we loved our tours and then spent the rest of the day doing a number of trails which showed great scenery and more agricultural and architectural history. We did stop to have a delicious picnic lunch overlooking one of the canyons with our great hard salami and provolone cheese that we brought with us from HHI and some wonderful French bread we picked up at a bakery in Durango. What more could one ask for ? (Well , maybe some wine but we wanted to hike some more and knew that wouldn't happen if we drank wine at lunch.)



We got back to Durango and wanted some food and a drink. We had both. We decided we had to go the the historic Diamond Belle Saloon after dinner.
Here's Rich with the modern day Belle.

SO in honor of Mother's Day tomorrow. The title of this blog is "Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys." This is what happens to them, they hang out in saloons and drink with wild women.

Happy Mother's Day to all,
Love,
Mare & Rich


PS Bernie Flannagan and Craig DiNapoli responded with the correct answer to who wrote and sang - Romance in Durango. It was Bob Dylan who did both. Your prize will be in the mail, but don't get too excited!!

Also, I did get some Johnny Cash, John Denver and Waylon Jennings for our listening pleasure courtesy of Itunes and a credit card. We listened to it all the way out & back to Mesa Verde.

We saw two notable "signs" today. The first was a tee shirt. We're staying at a Hampton Inn and there was a big soccer tournament going on. One of the coaches comes into the lobby with this on the back of his shirt, "They Play. I Coach. You Cheer." We thought this was great especially for all of you "coaching" parents out there.
Then on the way back from Mesa Verde, we see a sign that looks like a cow in a field, it says, "I'd rather be a cow than a condo." Guess what's on everyone's mind out here?????