Mesa Verde

Our tour continued from Utah into southwest Colorado to the little town of Cortez.  We stayed at a very nice KOA which had nice sites although no grass.  It was all stone with a few trees but everything was very clean. It was just a little drive to Mesa Verde.  This is another site the Puebloans occupied circa 900 to 1200 AD.  There were several sites all up and down the valley as well as sites on top of the mesa where they farmed.  The first photo is one of the sites along the valley wall.  It shows how they were built into the cliff side and under the overhanging rock.

The next one is just a closer view of the same site.  It shows the multi level structures.

This is one of the larger sites.  All of these pictures were taken from the other side of the valley looking across to the sites.  That actually afforded the best view.

This site is a little more exposed and not quite as well preserved.

The next one is one of the largest sites.  There were Ranger led tours available but our timing was not right to join one of the tours.  

I have to say the drive into Mesa Verde is exciting.   It was very steep with lots of switchbacks and cliff hanging views(which I was afraid to look at).  That would have been bad enough but there was road construction on about half of the fifteen mile drive with construction equipment and one way traffic.  I was glad to get back to our campsite down in the valley.

This is Marcia on Wolf Creek Pass at 10400 feet.  You can see there is still quite a bit of snow here.

Just to show that I am not a complete chicken.  This is yours truly next to the Dancer at the top of Wolf Creek Pass.

We were trying to beat a storm so we left a day before we planned to.  They were forecasting extreme high winds especially in the mountains so we decided to get over the passes before they hit.  I think that was a very good decision because that night I woke up with the camper rocking back and forth from the wind blowing so hard.  We had to bring the slide in so the awning on top of it would not make so much noise flapping in the wind.