Colorado Cruising

June 3, 2013

I forgot to get my National Park Passport stamped in Arches yesterday, so we drive the couple of miles back up there to the Visitor Center. We watch their film about the geology of the place—informative, but such low resolution that it’s painful to watch. Not up to the usual National Park standards! (Might have to write a letter… I love this park, and want everything about it to be great!)

 

View from the Visitor's Center of the mountain that vehicles must climb to reach the arches

 

View from visitor's center showing an RV climbing the mountain.

Now we’re ready for our drive to Colorado. We’re on Route 191, not on the interstate, and the scenery is very rural and agricultural. We see yet another spectacular arch on the drive, outside of the park, called Wilson Arch. After a couple of hours, we stop for “second breakfast” (really lunch, since we had our cereal kind of late today) at a little rustic coffee shop. Great raspberry and white chocolate muffin with chai latte.

We are going to meet our friend Julie in Durango. She is the daughter of a very good friend Marilyn (“Msie”), who, sadly, passed away in 2011. We saw Julie just briefly at Msie’s memorial service and we’re looking forward to reconnecting and reminiscing. We spent a lot of time with Julie in her childhood, but have rarely seen her since she moved West after college. Julie is getting ready to go on a vacation back east with her family and has generously offered to let us stay at her house near Durango while she is away. 

We pass Mesa Verde National Park, just about 35 miles outside of Durango, and stop. This is the largest archaeological site in the US (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site), made a national park back in 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt, “to preserve the works of man.” It contains hundreds of adobe cliff dwellings (really apartment houses built under ledges and in caves on the sides of cliffs) built from about 600 to 1300 AD, by the ancestors of today’s Pueblo Indians.  They had a thriving population center for about 700 years, and then for some reason (probably an extended drought) everybody left. These buildings were “rediscovered” by white men in the late 1800s. We discover that the first visitor center is just a place to gather info and schedule tours. We have to drive about an hour to the top of a nearby mesa to see the "real stuff."

Carol at first Mesa Verde visitor center with mesa we will climb in background.

Jack and Carol about to descend trail to cliff dwellings. Note people already there on right.

600 year old dwelling in amazing condition.

 

Jack entering "air conditioned" meeting room.

We gather up the info and start the drive up the mesa. These people, who are now called the “Ancestral Puebloans” (they used to be called “the Anasazi”) really lived way up in the air!  When we get to the top of the mesa, we visit the Museum and Visitor’s Center and watch their film, which provides a lot of good background information on how the Ancestral Puebloans developed over the years and improved their dwellings and agricultural practices. They farmed the mesa tops (squash, beans and corn) and hunted/gathered for the rest of their diet. They had two domesticated animals, dogs and turkeys (but they apparently didn’t eat the turkeys, just used their feathers, according to a ranger). There’s lot of game up here; we see a mule deer go across the road. We walk to one of the best-preserved sites and see their construction methods, using wood, carved stone, adobe bricks and mortar. Some of them are four and five stories tall. Both of us climb down a ladder into a “kiva”, a pit that was probably used for worship (based on practices of today’s Pueblo Indians). It was nice and cool down there.  Archaeologists have figured out quite a bit about their lifestyle, tools, diet, etc., but there are still a lot of mysteries. It was a pretty advanced culture. It’s amazing that their buildings have lasted here for a thousand years! The rooms are small but cool in the heat of the day and are well protected by the rock overhangs. The rangers on site offered additional info and insights. A very interesting place! As we walked back up the trail to the parking lot, a nice lady offered to take a photo of both of us in front of the site—very cool!

As we are driving back down the steep road to the bottom of the mesa, suddenly a black horse appears by the side of the road. Jack sees him first and I just catch a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror as he crosses the road behind us—he was shiny jet black, a beautiful horse. Too bad we weren’t quick enough to get a photo. We ponder where he might have come from. Later I looked this up on the internet and discovered that there are about 150 wild horses in this national park. It’s actually a problem for the park and they’re not sure how to solve it, as the horses are damaging some of the archaeological sites.

Once down from the mesa, we continue our drive toward Durango. I’m supposed to call Julie to arrange a meeting spot at a restaurant in town, but it turns out she has just lost her cell phone. She left a message for us using someone else’s phone and there is a brief panic since we have no way to communicate and we don’t have an address for her. But all turns out fine—someone found her phone and we re-establish communications. We meet in downtown Durango and have a delicious dinner at Steamworks, a microbrewery. 

 

Carol and Julie

We have so much to talk about we almost can’t eat our dinners—there’s a lot to catch up on. Afterwards, Julie gives us a brief tour of downtown, particularly the historic Strater Hotel, a classic old Western hotel—right out of a Western movie set! Julie has lived here for years and is somewhat of a local personality now, as she works for a radio station here, doing public service announcements and commercials, as well as volunteering for a lot of town activities. It’s great to see her.

 

Carol and Julie in lobby of the Strater Hotel

 

Jack dressed up for the occasion.

We go back to her house, which is in Ignacio, a small community near the lands of the Ute tribe that’s about a half hour drive from Durango central. Julie purchased the house in 2010 and has done a lot of work on it already. We love that it’s in a quiet rural area—it has a picket fence, cows across the street and a hayfield in the back. We are going to stay here and housesit for a while; we’ll take her to the airport Wed. morning. We’re so grateful to have such a quiet, comfy place for our home base in Durango! We stay up late talking and talking…

Where we are:

Bird species count: 

Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture, Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal, greater roadrunner, house finch, common raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer tanager, *prothonotary warbler, *yellow-breasted chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned  hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove, *canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher, Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow, *cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, crow, Anna’s hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay, mallard, common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike, Audubon’s warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged blackbird

State count: 14 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado]  

     

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Durango, CO: 114,004 

Accommodations avg cost: 

57 nights, avg $13.57/night