MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, COLORADO

July 26^th:   Our last day in Durango and we’re off to see Mesa Verde National Park.  The cliff dwellings were fascinating, imagining the little communities/tribes and how they once lived.  I would have loved to climb the ladders and get a closer look but I didn’t think I was stable enough to climb. 

Mesa Verde is a spectacular reminder of an ancient culture.  Often called Anasazi from a Navajo word meaning “the ancient foreigners,” they are now called Ancestral Puebloans reflecting their modern descendants.  Since the discovery of the cliff dwellings, archeologists have sought to understand these people’s lives.  But despite decades of excavation, analysis, classification, and comparison, scientific knowledge remains sketchy.  We will never know the whole story for they left no written records and much that was important in their lives has perished.  What we do know is that they were adept at building, artistic in their crafts and skillful at making a living from a difficult land.

 

Moving on, we met a couple from Lancaster.  They saw my Penn State car license plate and "honked" me to a stop.  In fact, this would happen several more times over the summer.

I took the long way back to Durango through Cortez, Telluride and Ouray.  I just can’t get enough of the San Juan Mountains covering five million acres of national forests, national parks, wilderness areas and state parks from deserts to alpine forests and mountain passes.

 

Mountains in Telluride

Hello

  

Before I leave Colorado, I must tell a story I was told about the Ute Indians.  The Utes were given massive amounts of spectacular land between Durango and Ouray in a treaty with the US government in the early 1800’s.  The land was not only beautiful, but rich in animal and plant life necessary for survival.  Gold and silver were soon discovered in their mountains by the white man and a bloody dispute ensued.  The US government prevailed and the Utes were located south into New Mexico with only a fraction of the land they once had and food was scarce.  Sometime later their new lands were found to be rich in gas and oil.  The Utes are now the riches tribe in the America (discounting the relatively new rise of casinos).  Every Ute over the age of 18 receives $10,000 a year to this day.  They love to buy trucks essential to their way of life today and it is almost impossible for the rest of the population in that area to buy a new truck without waiting for more than a year.  This story made me smile!