Life on the Edge

Laundry done - check.  Night of swimming at the pool - success.  Everyone was rested up and ready to explore Mesa Verde National Park - the first park dedicated to preserving the works of man, instead of the works of nature.  Over 1,400 years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan people chose the Four Corners area to call home - building homes among the large cliffs built into the rocks.  For about 700 years, they lived in this area - protected from the elements, working together to meet all of their basic needs for survival.

We dropped the trailer at the parking lot intended for that purpose just outside the gate before heading into the park.  More construction on the roads and parking lots not designed for large vehicles meant that we needed to leave the trailer behind before heading in.  Normally we don't have the trailer in tow when visiting the parks, but we were on our way to Durango - so we left it behind.  Arriving at the Visitor's Center, we found a long line of other people wrapped around the building also waiting to get tickets for a tour of one of the cliff dwellings.  Summer = crowds at many of the more poplar national parks.  Deep breaths...

After waiting our turn, we settled on a tour of the Balcony House dwelling - described as the "more adventurous" of the tours we were considering.  To tour the site, we would need to climb a 32-foot ladder and squeeze through a 12-foot long tunnel that was less than 18" wide.  Isaac thought it sounded perfect...but I'm not sure Matt was quite as thrilled.  Ever since Isaac discovered caving earlier in the trip, he has jumped at any opportunity to explore, squeeze through, or hang out in small spaces.  So that's what sold him...and Abby was pretty excited as well.  Before the tour started, we had time to explore a bit on our own - visiting the museum and stops along the loop road, where we saw several pit houses, kivas and other cliff dwellings.

But the Balcony House tour was well worth the wait.  Our ranger-guide was a Navajo - and the insight he brought to the discussions on the lifestyle of the cliff-dwellers was inpsired, by his own culture and link to the past of these people.  He described how the people were able to meet their physical needs using the surrounding lands, but also told stories about the importance of meeting their social and spiritual needs in order to survive.  Abby even got to participate in his illustration when he called for someone who had a cross - or other symbol of the Christian faith.  He made a link between the Christain faith and the faith of the Ancestral Puebloan people, creating a bond that helped them to survive.

Although we would have liked to explore more of the cliff dwellings, Durango was calling - and the train tickets had to be picked up before the ticket office closed for the evening.  So the kids finished up their Junior Ranger programs and we headed back to pick up the trailer...adding yet another place to our list of places to re-visit with more time.

Tracy