Have Koala, Will Travel .... with apologies to Paladin: Sunday-06/17/18

After stopping at Kirtland, NM Saturday, we changed our plans some. All the previous hard driving got us a couple of days ahead of schedule, so we decided to go to Cortez, CO. At Cortez there is a national park called Mesa Verde National Park. It has the ruins of the Ancestral Pueblo people. They lived through out the 4 corner regions of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. More about that later.

On the way to Cortez, CO, we drove by Four Corners Monument. It's located on and run by the Navajo Nation.

It's basically a large disc on the ground, surrounded by a square building loaded with stalls waiting for tourist to leave their money.

This would never be on anyone's bucket list, but it's OK to drop in if you happen to be driving. My friend, Keith Carr, kept telling me I had to have some Fry Bread sold by Native Americans. Naturally, there was a stand that sold Fry Bread, so we opted for some.

After leaving Four Corners, we traveled a little longer to Cortez, CO. We arrived early enough to get the trailer set up and go over to Mesa Verde National Park. It's not very far out of Cortez, to the park entrance. By the way, it's nice to have a "Geezer" Pass AKA Senior Pass. This gets us into national parks for free. It cost $10, back in the day, but is now $80. It's a one time pay, and good for ever. It also gets reduced fees to programs and camping inside the parks.

Once we entered the park, we had to drive 20 miles to the Welcome center. That was not an experience I'd want to do again. We climbed as high as 8,370 feet. There were hairpin curves. Indeed, a snake would have back strain if he slithered along that road. My friend Keith Carr asked if I would like to pull my trailer up there. My quick answer was, "No, no, and hell no!" I had the truck in Tow Haul mode, and in 2nd gear. This keeps the truck at the 35 mph speed limit using engine braking when going down grade.

The above two pictures were taken by Mary while we were climbing the mountain. Needless to say, I didn't see much. My eye was on the yellow line in the middle of the road.

This picture shows a less extreme left turn. There is a faint white line in the center left of the picture.

The park was a great visit however. I'd recommend it to anyone. The following are several pictures taken within the park. These ancient people were most notably know as cliff dwellers, but this was largely just in the 1100's and 1200's. When these ancient people first settled in the region, they made pit houses up on top of the mesas.