The Journey Continues

On our second leg of the journey we left Farmington, NM and headed north to Colorado. It was a beautiful drive; there was blue sky mixed with cotton candy white clouds to the east of us and gray skies covered with charcoal clouds and heavy rain to the northwest. The mountain and rock formations are incredible. We passed Shiprock which in actuality is what's left of a volcano that has been dormant for thousands of years.

Our destination was....

In order to get to the park you must drive up a very windy road. Until you get here; and then you hike up a little further -

until you get here....to the top of the world.

Here are pictures of two beautiful girls that happened to be passengers in the car.

This is a picture of one of the beautiful vistas from our view.

The formation in the background haze is Shiprock.

After we finished taking pictures of the beautiful vistas from this point we hopped back in the car and drove on until we got to the visitors center.

Upon checking the schedules we discovered we were too late for a tour since we had to be in Alamosa later and it was already 2:00 p.m.

We decided to do the driving tour so after we found something to eat and did a little shopping we began our personal driving tour.

The canyons that the Anasazi's built their dwellings above were gorgeous. Especially this day when the skies were so exquisite.

To the novice's eye you would never guess that there were dwellings below you.

They built their homes on the side of the mountains to keep them safe from enemies. Their advantage was being able to see what was coming.

(How did they know what was above them though?)

I couldn't help but wonder how many children they may have lost over the cliffs. Boys will be boys - and boys are very active.

We were standing on an overlook. You had to walk down to the dwellings below this vantage point. You can't see the cliff from here but it's straight down.

As we drove we came across this flat land dwelling. We were able to walk around and through some of it. The structure was larger than my house but the rooms were very small with doorways that were about three feet tall.

The notch in the bricks above is actually a water spout that was built into the brick and pointing toward the outside. Maybe they collected water this way?

I'm not sure what the above picture is....maybe a kiva?

This picture shows how short the doorways were. Hannah had to bend in half to get through them. They were so narrow I didn't even try to get through them.

I didn't think anyone would have any Crisco shortening to grease me if I got wedged in.

We have come to the end of our personal driving tour of

Mesa Verde National Park ; I hope you enjoyed this tour as much as we did.

Goodbye - from your personal tour guides.