Mesa Verde National Park

Our primary reason for stopping in Cortez, Colorado was to visit Mesa Verde. However, a major wind and dust storm blew through Cortez on Saturday, so we drove over to Durango instead to deal with our computer problem.

Dolores:

On the return trip to Cortez, we took a scenic route to the small town of Dolores on the banks of the Rio de Nuestra Senora de las Dolores, or “The River of Our Lady of Sorrows,” obviously named by a couple of Spanish priests. The town dates back to 1900. It was once a major railroad stop between Telluride and Durango. Today, it’s old depot is a museum and the home of the historic “Galloping Goose,” a very unusual piece of railroad equipment. Half bus and half rail baggage car, the goose provided mail and passenger service prior to its retirement.

A mile or so from Dolores is Lake McPhee, the second largest lake in Colorado. It’s also an artificial lake in an area that’s very rich in archaeological history. Prior to building the dam, the area was combed quickly and carefully for ancient ruins and artifacts. Many of the findings are now displayed in the Anasazi Heritage Center, where more than 3.5 million artifacts have been processed and stored. It’s only about 10 miles off the beaten path, but a beautiful facility.

Mesa Verde National Park:
The wind and dust eased a little on Sunday, so we got an early start for the white-knuckle drive to the 7,700 ft. top of Mesa Verde. The road was steep, bumpy, narrow in places, with hairpin curves and steep drop-offs. It was not Bonnie’s kind of feel-good highway but her nerves survived the trip.


The Far View Visitor Center is in an area once occupied by nearly 50 villages. It was an active agricultural community and the remains of many structures can still be seen.  While most of the early residents lived and farmed the top of the mesa, Mesa Verde is most famous for its cliff dwellings and that’s what we wanted to see. The steep cliffs and protective sandstone alcoves of the canyons are perfectly tailored for habitats.

The people who inhabited these dwellings are now collectively referred to as Ancestral Puebloans. They moved down into the canyons from the mesa top for unknown reasons. One theory is that they were threatened by outsiders and the canyons offered security and protection. They occupied the cliff dwellings until the thirteenth century when they abandoned their canyons and moved elsewhere, probably because of a prolonged drought.

Cliff Palace is considered the crown jewel of Mesa Verde. It’s the largest cliff dwelling in North America and an architectural masterpiece.

Visitors must now have tickets for guided tours, so we got our tickets early. The hike down to Cliff Palace involved steep stairways, narrow pathways along cliff ledges and climbs on wooden ladders.

We weren’t sure we were up for that level of physical activity and at an altitude where there was less oxygen. But, we huffed, puffed and panted our way through the tour with everyone else and it was well worth the effort. Paula, our guide, was excellent and the ruins were very impressive and well preserved.

Our second tour was of Balcony House.  Also a 13th century dwelling, it’s considered one of the best preserved sites and the most strenuous of the guided tours. We knew that when we bought our tickets, but figured it was our once in a lifetime chance to see this historic structure, so we’d give it our best shot.

Getting into Balcony House involved descending about 100 feet of steep stairway, a walk along a narrow ledge, then a climb up a 32 foot wooden ladder into the structure.

Balcony House is a medium-sized masonry structure, two stories high and under a broad rock overhang. Local sandstone was shaped into building blocks and stuck together with mortar to create its 38 rooms and two kivas (circular ceremonial rooms). Some interior walls were also plastered and painted with pictographs that are still visible.

Balcony House was designed somewhat like a fortress and intended to be difficult to enter. It was difficult to exit as well. To get out, we had to crawl through an 18 inch wide twelve foot long rock tunnel. A couple larger guys in our group had a little trouble getting through. Ron fit the tunnel perfectly, as shown below.

Bonnie made it through easily.

After the tunnel, we had to climb three ten-foot wooden ladders, then a series of steps that were chiseled into the face of the cliff. It was nearly vertical but there was no turning back and no room for fear at that point. We just kept climbing and hanging onto the chain railing until we got to the top.  No problem!

It was quite an experience for us couch potatoes and we were proud of ourselves for making it through.

We ended our visit to Mesa Verde with a stop at Spruce Tree House and the park museum.  It's an exceptionally interesting place to visit and we wore ourselves out enjoying it.  After we got back to Cortez, we treated ourselves to a margarita and a good Mexican dinner, then watched Brooks & Dunn's Last Rodeo TV special.  It was a terrific day!

Kokopelli, Batteries & Computers

Who is Kokopelli? Kokopelli is an interesting and popular mythical character of the Southwest. The image of this humpbacked dancing flute player with wild feathers sprouting from his head appeared as early as 750 A.D. on early Puebloan pottery. The Hopi people believed that Kokopelli was a fertility god who carried unborn children on his back and distributed them to women. For that reason, young single girls feared him. But he was later a part of their marriage rituals.

Kokopelli also presides over the reproduction of game animals and is often depicted in rock art (mostly petroglyphs) with animal companions such as rams, deer, snakes, lizards and insects. The Zuni believe that Kokopelli’s flute chases away the winter and brings about spring and rain.


Whatever the case, the modern version of Kokopelli has been adopted as a sort of broad symbol of the Southwest, particularly the Four Corners region, and his image is everywhere. It adorns T-shirts, ball caps, keychains, pottery and all kinds of souvenirs. Even a bicycle trail from Colorado to Moab has been named the Kokopelli Trail. With all that attention, we couldn’t pass up buying a small metal sculpture of the little character to take home with us.


Battery Problem: We noticed that our RV battery was too weak to start the engine after camping for a couple days and we had to use the auxiliary batteries to get us going. Before we left home in April, we had the main battery checked. We were told it was bad and should be replaced. Later, we got a second estimate and were told it was fine. Ron liked the second estimate better, so we continued on our way. By the time we got to Moab, the battery wouldn’t start the engine after we camped for a couple days. We took it to an RV repair place in Moab but they didn’t do batteries. They referred us to an auto parts store which sold batteries but didn’t install them, which seemed odd. Ron didn’t want to spend time and get dirty replacing batteries, so we continued down the highway to Cortez, Colorado where we got excellent immediate service and a new battery.

Computer Problem: We pulled into our Cortez campground on Friday, May 21. The next morning, Ron began to check our email and discovered that our laptop computer wouldn’t turn on. It was panic time! We tried everything we could think of and, after everything failed, we went downtown in search of a computer shop, only to find that Cortez has very few such shops and they’re all closed on weekends. So, we decided to take a little side trip over to Durango (45 mi.) where we found an Office Depot store offering a free computer problem diagnosis. The “geek” diagnosed our problem to be a worn out power/charger cord. We were delighted to leave with our brand new $100 power cord and eager to try it out. When we got back to Cortez and Ron tried to plug in the new cord he discovered that it was not compatible with our Toshiba laptop and none of the eight different jacks would fit. Fortunately, the computer decided to start when he pushed the button, its battery was fully charged, and the old cord now seems to be working fine. Go figure. We’ll be in Durango again tomorrow and are looking forward to another chat with the geek at Office Depot.

Canyonlands National Park

May 20: Canyonlands is Utah’s largest national park. It covers 527 square miles in the heart of the Colorado Plateau. It’s probably the most rugged landscape we’ve ever seen with hundreds of canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches and spires.

Near the center of Canyonlands, the Green River from the north meets the Colorado River from the northeast (above). Both rivers have carved out beautiful deep canyons over millions of years and their combined waters flow as the Colorado through Utah toward the Grand Canyon.

This is still a wild area with very few roads (mostly unpaved), primitive trails, free-flowing rivers, bighorn sheep, coyotes and many other wild animals. It was a nice feeling to be able to look out over miles and miles of wilderness and experience the absence of urban development, noise, signs, and cell phone service.

Can you spot Bonnie is this photo?

We visited the district of Canyonlands known as “Island in the Sky”. It’s a broad mesa wedged between the Green and Colorado Rivers at an elevation of over 6,000 ft. and 100 mile views. Most of the rivers and canyons are 2,000 feet below. A few trails and dirt roads can be seen far below and are available for those with Jeeps, mountain bikes and other suitable vehicles.  The photo below shows the Shafer Canyon Trail (road), which is one of the few routes from the top to the valley below.  We didn't go that way.

We took a short hike to Mesa Arch for a great view of the La Sal Mountains and canyons beyond.

Several types of flowers were in bloom while we were there. Prickly pear cactus were budding but not yet blooming. But we saw a lot of lupine, Indian paintbrush, cliff roses and other flowers.  Here are a few examples . . .

Canyonlands is similar to the Grand Canyon but much larger in scale and not as deep. The impact on the visitor is similar. Both are awesome!  This park was established in 1964 and, hopefully, will remain in its wild and beautiful state for a very long time.

We had a little rain in Moab, but it left us with a nice rainbow to end the day.

Arches National Park

May 17: After a leisurely drive to Moab, Utah, we spent a little time getting to know the town. We walked the downtown strip, in and out of numerous shops that sold pretty much the same things . . . lots of T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, jewelry, pottery, artwork, goofy gifts and the usual tourist trinkets. We stopped for ice cream cones and stocked up on groceries at the local market.

About 10 miles south of Moab is "Hole in the Rock", a famous oddity that we had to see for ourselves.  Albert and Gladys Christensen began hollowing out this enormous rock in the early 1940s.  After 20 years of hard work, they had created a very livable 14-room home.  Albert was a big fan of Franklin D. Roosevelt, so he carved a likeness of FDR into the front wall of his house.  The home, like a cave, maintained a fairly constant temperature, so they didn't need heat in the winter nor air conditioning in the summer.  Pretty cool.

May 18:  The next day we drove up on the nearby mesa to Arches National Park. The park is only a few miles north of Moab and has the largest concentration of natural sandstone arches in the world. There are more than 2,500 arches in the park, but only a fraction are visible to the typical tourist. Most visitors stay close to the paved scenic drives, trails and viewpoints. That’s what we did, and we found that most of the largest and most dramatic arches were easily accessible and very photogenic.

The Windows Arches were very popular and close to several others.

Turret Arch . . .

Although arches and red rock are the main features of this park, there are many geological formations that are just as impressive, including high sandstone fins and towering pinnacles.  The Three Gossips look somewhat like three people talking . . .

and we wondered how long Balanced Rock will continue to balance before the forces of nature erode its pedestal out from under it.

The sky was turning dark and we got rained on, but not before we had a great time in Arches Nat'l. Park.  It's a very unique and awesome place.

Utah's Castle Country

May 14:  After an enjoyable week in the Great Salt Lake basin, the weather finally improved enough to allow us to venture over 7,477 ft. Soldier Summit and into “Castle Country”, the northeastern portion of Utah. Even on a relatively nice day, we still got snowed on in the mountains. We’re convinced that nasty weather is following us.

I think they call it Castle Country because of the steep rocky terrain that resembles castles, with a little imagination. Very impressive in any case.

Price (pop. 8,000) is the major city in this region, complete with Walmart. We set up camp in the nearby town of Wellington (pop. 1,500). The campground was rustic, but the price was right. Within walking distance were the Outlaw Café, which serves pretty good cowboy food, a car wash, gas station and mini-mart. Who could ask for more?

We drove to downtown Price.  It's an older city but has some nice features.

We found a Visitor Information office in the very impressive College of Eastern Utah’s Prehistoric Museum. The info lady informed us that the museum was the only thing in Price worthy of our attention. We took her word for it and spent a couple hours there. It was an excellent museum with lots of dinosaur remains, mostly from the local area and some Montana digs. We especially liked the Wooly Mammoth and Utahraptor.

The highlight of the day was the 4:00 PM feeding of the alligator and sea turtle, who share a small pond. The museum guy gave our small group of onlookers a short lecture about gators and turtles, then tossed a live white mouse into the pond. The little guy swam as fast as he could but was no match for the predators. The gator snapped him up. The next mouse was chased down and munched by the turtle (no photos). Then another mouse went swimming. It was too much reality for us. The little mice were too cute and didn’t have a fighting chance. We had to go.

May 15: A few miles from Price is the former town of Pratt’s Siding.  Although nearly a ghost town, it’s still alive and has lots of fascinating history. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and the discovery of coal made it a boom town in 1881. It became a staging area for trains going over Soldier Summit. “Helper” engines were added to trains to help them over the mountains and the name of the town was changed to Helper.

The old Strand Theater hasn't been used for years and is for sale.

Some of the old buildings were very interesting, especially this one with a combination of stone and brick in random patterns.

Today, Helper needs a lot of help. It doesn’t have much going for it, other than a very interesting museum that covers three floors and the basement of the 1914 Helper Hotel. We walked the downtown and looked through every nook and cranny of the museum.  This room displayed a typical kitchen of an early mining family's home.

Many storefronts are vacant and buildings are deteriorating, but the lady at the antique store told us that the old town may have a future as an art community. Some artists have found the town and the old buildings to be just what they’re looking for. She hopes some wealthy artists will come along, fix up some buildings and bring the town back to life. We hope so too.

May 16: Nine Mile Canyon was the primary reason for our stop in Castle Country. The canyon is actually about 70 miles long and it was an all-day event. The canyon is served by a winding dirt road, and has an abundance of archaeological sites, well-preserved rock art, a few old buildings and plenty of rocky scenery. At least 63 canyon sites are on the National Register of Historic Places. Nine Mile Canyon has been the home of people and cultures for at least 8,000 years. Most of the rock artists were members of the Fremont Culture which occupied the canyon for nearly 1,000 years. They moved away about 800 years ago but left their artwork behind.

We started out early since the drive averages about 20 mph with frequent stops, slow curves and narrow spots. The scenery was beautiful, deer were grazing in the fields, and the road followed Minnie Maud Creek through the canyon.

We saw several of the rock art sites (mostly petroglyphs). Some have been damaged by vandals, but we were very happy to find most of the art in very good condition.

Short trails led into side canyons and to higher viewpoints.

"The Great Hunt" is one of the largest and best preserved of the petroglyphs.

Balance Rock is an interesting stop along the road.

Several old abandoned homesteads add interest to the canyon.

Nine Mile Canyon isn’t one of the most visited parts of Utah, so there was very little traffic and we had a great time there.