Day 3

Mesa Verde!!! I have dreamed of going to Mesa verde since I was a little girl devouring the national geographic articles and imagining living in those cool dwellings. We got a decent start on the day but so did everyone else and we ended up getting tickets for a 12 and 4 tour. We went first to the Wetherhill Mesa site, it's not as busy, mainly cause it's out in the boonies. Lots of fire damage on the way out to the site, signs dated each fire some were 20 years ago...also wild horse poop (got to be a pony somewhere!). We arrived early for our tour so we hiked to another site the step house. It was hotter than a firecracker but I couldn't wait to see my first ruin. Wow! It was so cool! We met Bill the ranger on duty and he gave us lots of info. We enjoyed visiting with him and found out he's retired and lives winters in Mexico and summers in Co. Tough huh? His wife also works there as an invasive species destroyer! She gets paid to hike and kill weeds...ahhhhhh too bad! :) Gave me some ideas and Clark just shudders! We hiked back up to wait for our tour and there we met another ranger, DJ, he was eating his lunch and we visited. He raises quarter horses, is a calf roper and use to climb big walls in Yosemite in the 70's so of course we had lots to talk about...jerk down rule in Ca calf roping, peta, climbing and climbers we knew, packing horses...I don't think Clark got a word in edge wise. What's new...LOL! Our tour started and Bill from Step house was our ranger so we enjoyed his tour and info. I had a cool experience, on one of the stops for a moment I realized I was experiencing Deja vu. I have done this often during my life but not for quite awhile. Trippy but soooo cool. Those of you who know me, know I'm grounded in the sciences but I still enjoy the experience without trying to figure out the meaning of it. The group was big, 40 but the site Long house, was huge. It was really cool to see but hot and quite a hike. After our tour we headed to the other Mesa but stopped at the museum...the navajo rugs were to die for $$$$ I don't know why Clark just smiled when I showed him the one I wanted, it was one of the less expensive only 1,800. Needless to say I used the bathroom and that's all that I got!! We got to our other tour early and enjoyed sitting looking over a steep canyon. A prairie falcon soared by and I felt honored by the natives by the greetings of the Ravens. Pretty spiritual day for me (which is rare for me). We went on the balcony house tour and had to climb 3 stories of ladder on an open face cliff to reach it!!! Then once there you have to go through little openings one of which was 12ft long that you had to crawl through! Not as nice of ruin but the adventure made it worth it. We stopped by the gift shop for little treats and then started towards cortez to eat!! We found a down home cooking place (we seek these out) Jack and Janelles. As always it paid off, I had a killer indian taco and clark had the classic roast beef dinner. We ate for $20! We were full as ticks and headed back to the Host hotel, Cortez to sleep. And that we did! ZZZZZZZZZ