We said goodbye to Alamosa and headed south west. The topography changes so much in Colorado and the SW is no exception. We have gone from mountains to plains and now to mesas and yucca and cactus.

Lunch in Durango started with a challenge to find RV parking in a small city. Conversations with several folks at the municipal court building got us where we needed to go. We walked a number of blocks with this being Sprocket’s first real “city walk”.  She handled it like a champ with several people fawning over her cuteness. Lunch at Steamworks Brewing at an outside table in the 75 degree sun was a lovely change from home.

Mesa Verde National Park was just down the road. We checked into Morefield Campground at a dry site which means no hookups: we filled our water tanks and emptied our dirty tanks at the KOA and will rely on our solar to keep the batteries charged and our propane for cooking and refrigeration. We did a bit of driving around this evening and saw a couple of cliff dwellings and will see more tomorrow along with the history of the people that lived there on the 700 Years Tour. Unfortunately, because of Covid, none of the dwellings are open so we figured we would take the bus tour to at least hear some of the history. Sprocket will spend the day in the kennel which is a bummer but really nice that they have this amenity.

We dropped Sprocket at the kennel in the back of a gas station and put her in a cage!!! OMG! So hard to leave her! She was jumping up on us and grabbing on to us!!! Talk about pulling on our heart strings!!!

We headed over to Wetherill Mesa. The drive along the top of the mesa was just really cool. Only a little wider than the 2 lanes, it was fun being able to see down on both sides. (we later learned that mesa here is a misnomer and it is really an escarpment.) We walked to the Nordenskiold Site 16 site. About a mile walk through the landscape, we were treated to our first wildflowers of the season: arrow leaf balsam root, Indian paintbrush and one I have never seen which was later identified as tufted Evening primrose.

Tufted Evening Primrose

Beautiful day today…warmest yet!

So Nordenskiold Site 16 is a pretty cool place. All of these cliff dwellings push your brain trying to imagine what it would be like to have to crawl up toe and foot holds carved almost vertically in solid rock 100 feet off the ground to get to your house! This cliff dwelling has 50 rooms! Incredible!

Still worrying about Sprocket….

The 700 year tour was awesome!! We learned so much from Marty, our tour guide. We stopped at numerous sites and I will try to explain some of the history of the area. The Anasazi people built, left, came back, built again, left, returned, improved on buildings, etc. for several hundred years…like 700 years!! They lived in the area off and on from 800 CE to about 1300 CE. They were hunter/gatherers for several hundred years then progressed to farmers and grew maize, beans, and squash. Not much is known of their government or their religion except through the Ute Indians of New Mexico who are the descendants of the Anasazi meaning “enemy ancestors”, now known as the Ancestral Pueblo. 

But they were fine architects who made almost perfectly round kivas without the help of a computer program and blueprint! They were artisans making white paint from the rocks and black paint from a very elaborate process with plants and fire to decorate their pottery. They made stews of rabbit and corn and beans. They climbed toe/foot holds carved into vertical rock to get in and out of their houses and ceremonials centers. The daily lives of these people elicit feeling of admiration…we are so soft, especially compared to them. Trying to imagine what living this way would REALLY be like, leaves me breathless.

The Cliff House, the Spruce Tree House, Sun Temple, Coyote Village ….are so impressive in their design, their thoughtfulness to purpose. There are over 5000 artifacts discovered in Mesa Verde with about 600 of them cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park. Many, many more sites are located on the Ute reservation. The National Park Service has used ground penetrating radar to discover artifacts. For reasons of financing and preservation, they have made the decision to leave them untouched.

Cliff Palace

So I know y’all are dying to know how Sprocket did at the kennel!! When I went in to pay, the guy asked me if I was Sprocket’s Mommy and then he said how cute and loving she is and she and the other dog Bandit became friends…..so  she was fine!!

Saw the Star Link train go by tonight…kinda cool!

Poor Buzz tried and tried to get the telescope to line up to no avail…cheap shit retirement gift!

But the stars were impressive even with the slight haze.

Our last day here, saw us going to Far View Site which we almost liked the best. You could get up close to the ruins and you could even walk through one. That was very cool.

So we are learning….hitching up only took about 20 minutes today…woo hoo!!

Buzz has wanted to “boondock” since we first started talking about buying a camper. For the uninformed, boondocking is camping “off the grid” …no power, no water, many times no formal camping sites at all….just out there. So on the first  part of the way home, we looked for state forests and the like.  We landed at O’Haver Lake in the San Isabele National  Forest. It is so beautiful and serene with Mt Ouray (13,961 ft) as the backdrop.

An evening walk around the lake followed by leftovers of Curry Chicken with Mango (thanks Costco) and a cocktail end a pretty perfect day.

Overall, the maiden voyage of our camper was a great success!!

Home tomorrow…..