September 22, 2019

Another sunny day, a little cool at 10°C and a slight wind. Departure was at 8 a.m. for the drive to Mesa Verde National Park. We are still on the 337,000 square kilometer Colorado Plateau. The scenery is rolling high desert which is now a greyish stone. For the first leg of today’s trip Matt played another country music CD. We were travelling again on Highway 160, then onto Highway 64 after about an hour. Shortly after we spent about one mile in New Mexico at the area called Four Corners, where the southwest corner of Colorado, the southeast corner of Utah, the northeast corner of Arizona and the northwest corner of New Mexico meet (the only place in the United States were this happens.

Matt explained that New Mexico was a Spanish territory, then Mexican and became American in 1848 after the Mexican-American war, Treaty of Guadeloupe. The capital of New Mexico is Santa Fe, but the most populous city is Albuquerque. We were travelling in Colorado’s San Juan basin of the San Juan River. Now in Colorado we are travelling through the Southern Ute Reservation. Next Matt played a video about Mesa Verde National Park.

Mesa Verde National Park was created on June 26, 1906 and designated a UNESCOWorld Heritage Site in 1978. After the cliff dwellings were located and advertised, souvenir hunters and a Swedish archeologist took many artifacts. Some can be seen in a museum in Helsinki, Finland. The elevation of the Parkis between 2,134 to 2,590 meters above sea level. The park was established to preserve the Ancestral Puebloan culture and cliff dwelling architecture. Mesa Verde National Park has more than 300 archeological sites on its 52,000 acres. The dwellings were inhabited between 550 to 1300 AD starting with Pithouses that gradually evolved into pueblo roomblocks on cliff ledges.

The group explored the Chapin Mesa section of the park, arriving via a paved winding ascending road at the viewpoint for Spruce Tree House. It is the best preserved and one of the largest cliff houses in the park. The arch above the cliff ledge was in shadow and the rooms were hard to photograph. When it was abandoned it contained 114 rooms, with some stacked three rooms high and had eight Kivas, which are ceremonial chambers. Their rooms housed between 100 and 150 people. After some photos, we hiked over to the Chapin Amphitheater which is using for ranger talks. Along the way we found a yucca plant with fruit on it, which is edible. The buildings for rangers, administration and guests are only in red sandstone bricks, similar to the outer sides of the pueblo rooms.

The second stop was to see preserved a pithouse and the foundation of a pueblo house showing the evolution of house building over 700 years.

Next, we stopped at Sun Point View to observe the ledges on the cliffs with roomblocks including the Cliff Palace which contained 150 rooms. You could see the Sun Temple, one of the last buildings built on the top of the plateau about 1250 AD.

The final stop was at the red sandstone brick Sun Temple, which had no ground entrance. It is thought that it had an astronomical purpose. The best view of the Cliff Palace could be seen from this viewpoint.

After a comfort stop at the Far View Lodge, we headed for Durango, about an hour’s drive away. We travelled about 260 kilometers from Kayenta. For the next two nights, we stayed at the Durango Downtown Innjust a few blocks from Durango’s historic downtown. The Animas River is flowing on the other side of the parking lot. Durango’s elevation is 1,988 meters (6,512 feet) which about an average elevation for Colorado.

We explored Durango’s historic downtown going south to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad station then walked on 4^thStreet to E 2^ndAvenue north up 10^thAvenue, passing the end of the Sunday street market which had stretched across four blocks. As we turned back to the railway, we met Stef & Sue and Elsa & Ken looking for the market. We continued back to Main Street returning north to 12^thStreet, then turned around and walked back to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad station checking the menus of cafés and restaurants as we walked. We met Ann & Angela and Kerrin & Greg. We decided to go for drinks at Francisco’s Ristorante and we all ended up ordering from their Mexican food menu. We all enjoyed the drinks and dinner even though the service was a little slow. We all walked back to the hotel then Ann & Angela continued to a grocery store. Total steps 15,361