Mesa Verde

Day: 41
Date: 12/05
City: Mancos, Colorado
Miles ridden: 87
Cumulative miles: 3608

In the morning we rode to Mesa Verde, two up, and stopped at the highest point of the National Park.

The view was just stunning. Val tried the binoculars as well as the binoculars for kids hoping to see something different 😀


Not sure how the panorama picture will show up on the blog, but I thought I give it a try.

We choose to visit the main attraction of the park, the ‘Cliff Palace’, so we got the ticket for an afternoon guided tour. I thought that Mesa Verde would only consist of the Cliffs Place, as it turned out there more than 100 other cliffs dwellings around. We learned about the history of the Anasazi people living here, and they only developed the cliff dwellings in the last 100 of the 800 years that they lived here!




View into two different Kivas. When it was used, it had a roof and an opening in the middle. It was the place of worship as well as a living room in winter. The stones in front of the fire place (aka hole in the ground) regulated the air circulation.



There was only one room that had a painting on the ceiling, and to see it we had to lean through the window and had a look upwards. Val had bruised her ribs a couple of days earlier and she was reluctant to come down with us and climb the ladders at the exit. So she watched from the top and took these pictures of us trying to get a photo of the ceiling painting.

 


The dwellings were secure since the entry and exit was very narrow and could be easily guarded. The way down was easy, it was created later on with tourists in mind, so it was just a normal walk way down. But the way up was the original entry and exit, and we could imagine that nobody tried to enter through this narrow passage as seen below.

 


After we visited the Cliff Palace we used a round trip to see other dwellings, below is one of them, the fire temple.

 


On the way home we enjoyed riding the nice curved mountain roads with the beautiful view again. Life can be hard 😀

Tomorrow we’ll start to make our way to Flagstaff and to join the ‘Overland Expo’ on the Mormon Lake on the 17 May.

 

4 comments

  1. Looks like you are all having a great time, I am envious. Great pics so keep posting them. Hope your ribs are all good now Val, take care & ride safe guys.

    Love and Best Wishes Steve & Teesh xx

  2. Hallo ihr global Rider´s! viele grüße aus Old Germany! Ela und ich machen Urlaub am Bodensee (Altersgerecht mit Auto versteht sich). Wir lesen voller Begeisterung euren Blog. Eine wirklich tolle Idee den Rest der Welt an euren Abenteuer teil haben zu lassen. Wir wünschen euch weiterhin viel Spass und eine unfallfreie Fahrt. Passt auf euch auf!
    Viele Grüße vom Bodensee Ela & Steppi

  3. I see you’re on your way to LaLa land, as in L.A. !! ?? I’m liking that interactive map, keeping tabs on you, folks! Happy riding! Andrea xoxoxo

    1. hey! lets try skyping again when you are online 🙂 Try from morning till early afternoon :-)Sigrid xoxo

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