Mesa Verde CO

From the park web site
Located in Southwestern Colorado, Mesa Verde National Park offers an unparalleled opportunity to see and experience a unique cultural and physical landscape. The park contains more than 4,000 known archeological sites including cliff dwellings, which are elaborate stone villages that the Ancestral Puebloans constructed in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls and lived in from approximately A.D. 550 through A.D. 1300. These archeological sites are some of the most notable and best preserved in the United States.

The park also offers visitors 8,500 acres of federally designated wilderness that support a great diversity of wildlife including 74 species of mammals, 200 species of birds, 16 species of reptiles, five species of amphibians, six species of fishes and over 1,000 species of insects and other invertebrates.

Mesa Verde is located in Colorado not far from Durango. The two nearest towns are Cortez and Mancos. The drive into the park is spectacular. Coming from the Midwest, it's hard to believe the relative height of Mesa Verde over the valley floor.

 This satellite view of the same area makes a different point. The colors show how the vegetation varies from outside the park to the visitor center. This place is huge. (click on image to see full size)





See the interactive Google Earth ->> here

Mesa Verde is on of those classic Western Indian settings we've seen so often in the

This picture provides a glimpse of daily life.

Walk down to the primary site. Very nice.

 Close up view of one site that is relatively intact.

Believe it or not the Indians lived in these ground depressions.

In this living quarter example you could climb down into the room.

 

Mancos CO

Our motel was in Mancos, about 15 miles east and hard to find in the dark (at least for old folks). As we pulled into the motel parking lot we saw a large fire blazing in an iron tub. The evening had cooled off and the fire looked inviting. We pulled up to the office and started to walk in, when the man from the fire walk right in front of us. I’m thinking: “hey, is this guy trying to get in front of us?” Classic city push-and-shove thinking. Nope, it was the manager ready to handle our registration. Ann and Al got a room on one side of the U shaped layout while we were on the other end. Once again, this was a classic 1950s motel that was clean but otherwise historically accurate for when it was built. Al couldn’t find the kitchen, which was included for every room. I helped him search for it and couldn’t find it either. Shortly thereafter Al finally found it behind a door – that looked very innocuous. Next morning Al prepared a large breakfast of eggs and bacon – a treat that we ate at the picnic table near the fire place.

 

One interesting feature near the Country West Motel was a large solar array nextdoor. It was protected by a solid wall about 6' high so the solar PV units could not be scene from the motel.