Denver to Mesa Verde

Deb and I have started a 4 week trip in celebration of our 50th anniversary. We are not on this journey alone however. Our good friends, Renee and Rob, who are celebrating their 40th anniversary, are sharing the joy with us. This celebration is taking us on a road trip taking us to 5 National Parks and many fun places to visit. Obviously there will be lots more to experience besides the Parks, but they are the main focal points of our trip.

We started by driving straight through to Denver and stayed there for a couple of nights. It was a long day in the car, but it set us up nicely for shorter, easier drives from there on.

We visited the Denver Botanic Gardens on our one full day in Denver. It was relaxing and beautiful. Just what we needed after more than 12 hours in the car the day before.

These are just 3 pictures I took there, but it was an enjoyable day walking through acres of different floral displays.

After 2 nights in Denver, our next stop was a stay in Cortez, Colorado. The first of 5 National Parks we will visit on our journies was nearby Mesa Verde. This was the home for hundreds of years for a large group of Ancestral Puebloan people. They made their home on and in the cliffs of a flat topped plateau. There are over 6oo different rooms carved into the steep rocks above a canyon hundreds of feet below. Some rooms were used for cooking, some for religious ceremonies, some for social activities, and many to house the families and people who called it home. The most well known part of Mesa Verde is the Cliff Dwellings. The Cliff Dwellings are believed to have housed from 100 to 120 people at any one time. This section alone is amazing. With rudimentary tools, at best, these people formed and lived in dwellings literally carved into the side of the mesa.

They survived by farming! On a rocky mesa! Three crops (The 3 sisters), beans, corn, and squash were the main staples of their diet. Hunting whatever wild game they could find supplemented this, but the three crops were vital to their very existence.

We took a tour lasting close to 4 hours, and it was worth it in both time and money. We had lots of stops on the tour, with the guide telling us about the history and meaning at each of these. We would have missed so much without having a guide, and wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting. We have learned through our travels that in order for us to get the most out of our trips, taking tours is important.

Here a some of the photos I took, hope you enjoy them.

That is it for now. Still getting used to how to write and insert pics into my blog again! Yesterday we went to Zion National Park, tomorrow we are off to Bryce Canyon National Park. More places for us to explore and fun to experience. Hope you enjoyed todays posting. I’ll probably write again on Sunday. Maybe Monday. Someday. You get the idea. Stay happy.