After an uninspired breakfast, we left Thunderbird Lodge the next morning and toured the North Rim of Canyon de Chelly. The overlooks here are for Antelope House, Mummy Cave, and Massacre Cave (photos in yesterday’s post). Although there are only three overlooks on the North Rim vs Seven on the South, I think it gives better views – especially if you are not taking a canyon tour.
We finished the North Rim tour in about an hour and headed off to the Four Corners Monument at the intersection of AZ, CO, UT, and NM. This is the only spot in the United States where four states touch each other. I know, I know - “Big Whoop.” But we’re having fun doing little things that bring smiles to our faces.
It was on the North Rim drive I found out that my camera had taken a beating from all the dust on the jeep tour – my zoom control just was *not* working smoothly. It either wouldn’t zoom or it wouldn’t stop zooming. Annoying. [After working it a lot and air blowing it here in Lansing, it seems fine now.]
The rest of the day was a pleasant but non-descript drive to Durango. We pulled into the Durango Super 8 expecting to do some blogging (good intentions anyway) only to find out that the internet was down and would be for the foreseeable future. They were changing providers and didn’t know when the new one would be in place. Arrrgh! McDonalds saw a lot of us here when we wanted to connect.
On Wednesday we drove over to Mesa Verde. Ken had never been there but I had spent several days at Mesa Verde in May 2009. I had taken the guided tours for Cliff Palace and Balcony House but hadn’t gone over to Wetherill Mesa and taken the tour for Long House. Ken didn’t express any interest in a particular ruin so that’s what we did this time: Long House tour - at noon.
I misunderstood the ticket seller on when we needed to arrive for the tour so we arrived with some time to spare. Not enough to do anything substantial (natch) but plenty to walk over to the overlook for Step House and photograph the ruins and then set around and wait for the tram to take us to Long House.
Finally, we all loaded up and (almost) headed out. At the last moment, I decided I wanted to take a picture. And they graciously stopped and let me. Ken (end of second full row) graciously acknowledged my existence. While waiting, we had talked to a ranger about the various fires they had had in Mesa Verde. About 75% of it has been burned since the park was founded in 1906. Wetherill Mesa had a big burn in 2000 and the results are still very evident – great open grazing for browsers but no big trees.
It was only about a 5 min ride to the ruins and then we started the long walk down – thinking all the time about the walk back up. It was hot and would only get hotter. We made one stop on the way down where the Ranger talked about how the mesa top communities lived.
Long House ruin is the second largest ruin at Mesa Verde and is a more relaxed experience than Cliff Palace (or Balcony House) since fewer people make the drive out to Wetherill Mesa. The first photo is from the overlook we stopped at after the tour. The others are the view just before the last flight of steps leading into the ruin and looking right and left from within the ruin.
Once inside the ruin, the ranger led us up the ladders into the rooms and showed us the seep at the back wall (where they got their water) and an area that was probably used for grinding corn. Thought to be that because of the small containment wall around it. At the end we thanked the ranger. All in all, a very interesting tour. And the walk back up wasn’t as bad as I feared. But it *was* hot and we should have brought along a second bottle of water.
At the top, we had the option of taking a tram directly back to the parking lot or continuing around the loop. We chose to continue around the loop and stopped at the Long House and Kodak House overlooks. The Kodak House is so named not because it is particularly colorful (my first thought) but because Nordenskiold (first scientific explorer) stored his camera supplies there. Although I can’t help but think there should have been easier places to store it.
Finally, back to the parking lot where we rehydrated our bodies for the trip back to Durango. And a quick stop at Walmart to pick up some more bottled water.
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