but I always assumed that this was something that had to be reserved and gotten via a permit or something. When we got to the museum I learned just how wrong I was. We paid a fee of 3 bucks each and were set to go on the 10 o'clock ranger tour. We looked around the museum to waste some time then headed over
to the Cliff Palace overlook where our program was scheduled to start. There were 2 other couples waiting at the lookout with us and we were soon joined by the ranger. He informed us that we were lucky to be traveling during this time of year. Usually, during the summer months, these tours consist of groups of 60 people and go every half hour as opposed to every hour as they were running now. This meant that not only did we have 7
people in our group, but by the time we reached the level of the Cliff Palace, we were the only ones down there. Again illustrating the fact that its better to travel in the fall! The climb down to the cliff dwellings was pretty neat. We got to climb on ladders and through slender crevasses in the rock. It felt like we were traveling to a hidden fort, which in essence, was exactly what we were doing. The ranger was extremely knowledgeable and because there was so few of us, he had plenty of time to address all of our questions and satisfy our curiosities about the buildings and the people who created them. The first thing that the ranger told us, which was a real eye opener for me is that the indians who lived in the cliff dwellings were not Anasazi. I would have told you with confidence, had you asked me, that the Anasazi was the name of people who
inhabited this area. It is a fact I had known since my first visit to the park and even today if you read the information panels at the National Park, they still refer to the inhabitants as Anasazi. However, the ranger informed us that "Anasazi" is a Navajo word and the Navajo do not claim these people as their ancestors. The Pueblo people do claim them as ancestors however and many of their rituals are still practiced today in much the same way, which is how we know so much about the cliff dwelling's inhabitants. In true PC fashion, the appropriate term for the cliff dwellers is now "ancestral puebloeans". Anyway, we walked around the Cliff Palace for an hour while the ranger pointed out various things, then we began our climb back to the mesa top using the same foot and toe holds that the ancients used, as well as a few wooden ladders which looked old but were modernly made. We headed back to the museum area where we hiked down to the only other accessible cliff dwelling in the national park; Spruce Tree House. This
structure was not nearly as big as the Cliff Palace but it did have a few features, like a giant court yard, that the Cliff Palace did not have. As we made our decent into the canyon, we noticed that we were being followed by a group of children that must have been on a class field trip or something. Nothing takes away from the experience, reverence and serenity of a place like a group of howling kids on your tail. We hurried up our visit to Spruce Tree House so that we wouldn't collide with the field trip and left just in time before they overran the dwelling. Next we headed to do the mesa top loop. This was the drive that I had done with my Dad when I first visited the park. I recognized many of the buildings and had a lot of fun reliving the experience with Katie. After the loop we both decided that we had had our fill of ruins for the day and left Mesa Verde heading back to Cortez for a late lunch. The night before as we drove through town we noticed a brewery on Main Street, ironically named the Main Street Brewery, and decided it was where we would eat our one meal for the day. The place was really awesome, with a lot of cool scenes painted on the walls. When we walked in the guy sitting next to us noticed that we had our Atlas with us and proceeded to shower us, almost Russ-like, with every pamphlet that was ever printed about the surrounding area. We already had a loose plan for the rest of our day and more to humor him than anything we began to search through the pamphlets. Through the mounds of garbage which he handed us we did find one relevant flyer which highlighted the
route that we had planned to take anyway, naming key stopping points along the way. The pamphlet was titled Trail of the Ancients and followed the scenic byway of the same name from Mesa Verde all the way into Northern Arizona near Monument Valley, highlighting all of the spots where ruins can still be visited. One of these stops along the way was at Hovenweep National Monument. Hovenweep, we had read, contained one of the highest concentration of ruins at Square Tower, and we decided to make this a stop on our way toward Monument Valley. After we finished our food and drinks and by the time the server with her notably horrible local restaurant service, brought the check, we were anxious to hit the road. We made it to Hovenweep National Monument moments before the visitor center closed. We got our
information and self guided tour of the area, then began to walk the 2 mile loop trail. It was amazing to us how different Hovenweep was from Mesa Verde. Though these cultures were so close and obviously were in contact with each other in some fashion, the stone buildings here looked quite different from the cliff dwellings, yet some similarities existed. After our interpretive walk we again sailed down the road making our way toward Monument Valley. We had discovered a State Park close enough to see Monument Valley in the setting sun as we pulled into our camping site. The State Park was called Goosenecks and it had 4 free camping sites and no fee to enter. This is because the actual State Park was basically a lookout and a pit toilet. The 4 camping sites were designated by 4 picnic tables that lined the edge of the canyon. The sun had almost completely set by the time we had pulled in and night was swiftly approaching. Katie and I stayed up for a bit using our picnic table to write postcards and such. After a few hours of this Katie went to bed and I stayed up to look at the stars. The Utah sky is
something that has really taken both Katie and I by surprise. The amazing rock formations of the Colorado Plateau we had expected, but nothing could have prepared us for this ever changing sky. Cloudless most of the day, the sky takes on an orange hue at dusk which encompasses every bit of visible sky, and there is enough of it to give Montana a run for the "big sky country" label. Every sun set that we have seen here has been simply beautiful and the most amazing part about it is they reoccur every day. Once all of the colors of the setting sun have bled into the still blue night, then the stars begin to make their presence known. They are so vibrant and numerous that the constellations don't even stick out and I find myself straining to find the big dipper. I stayed outside laying on the picnic table for at least a couple of hours admiring the night sky, watching shooting stars whiz by, looking of different constellations, and following Venus on her slow march across the heavens. Grudgingly, I headed into the van once my teeth were chattering from the cold and my eyes began to get heavy. I briefly contemplated just bringing out my sleeping bag and truly sleeping under the stars but thought that it would just be too cold in the end and submitted to CJ's comforting belly.
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