We had a rough night with the heat and humidity. Yes, there is humidity in the desert despite the claims. We fired up the generator and started the house AC’s to cool us off. It worked well and we went to bed but only slept for a couple of hours.
Around 1 AM Ron restarted the generator and got the AC running again. By 3 AM we were cool enough to actually get around three more hours of sleep. By 7:30 AM we were still hot and tired but ready to hit the road again.
Ron went out to do a check of the car and MH and left the door open. OOPHS. More darn flies. Ron was killing the flies again and when we looked around we couldn’t find Jewel. Where could she be??? She wasn’t outside, under the table on the couch, chair or bed!!!!! No place to really hide with the slides closed. Or was there? Jewel had jumped over the bed to the other side and was hiding on the floor between the bed and wall a mere 10 inch space. Poor Jewel, she is afraid every time we take out the swatter or even a paper to kill flies.
We finally got her out, stopped killing flies and headed down the road to Mesa Verde National Park. On the way we stopped at the Four Corners Monument where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet. Since it is on Navajo Nation Land there was a n entrance fee to get to see it.
We arrived at Mesa Verde National Park and proceeded to secure a CG site. The CG has 400 sites and the place was virtually empty.
Once settled in and despite feeling tired and cranky from no sleep we took the six mile drive to the Visitor Center. The distances from the CG to the Cliff Houses are several miles long on very winding roads so a six – mile drive is estimated to take at least 30 minutes.
At the Visitor Center we spoke to very knowledgeable Rangers and opted to buy tour tickets to the Cliff Palace, one of the cliff houses inaccessible without a Ranger tour.
We then drove 5 miles up the road to the Chapin Mesa Museum where we watched a video on the discovery of the cliff dwellings and the development of Mesa Verde National Park.
Behind the Museum is the best preserved cliff dwelling called the Spruce Tree House. It is one of a few self-guided tour with rangers available to answer questions.
The structure of the buildings was amazing and incredible to think that they are built on the side of a cliff overhanging the canyon.
Just think - these buildings have survived over 1200 years.
This was our first exposure to an ancient cliff dwelling and we couldn’t wait for our tour of Cliff Palace on Saturday.
After leaving Spruce Tree House we decided to take the Chapin Mesa Loop before heading back to the CG. We stopped at the Geologic Overlook and enjoyed the views. To get to the views there were moderate hikes but well worth the walking.
Next we hiked to the Park Point Lookout Tower.
We found out why the CG was so empty – school starts early around here - so no weekday camping going on.
Later that evening we took in the Ranger Program at the Amphitheatre. It was a very informative program about Gustav and the Wetherill brothers who discovered and excavated the cliff dwellings.
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