Durango and Mesa Verde

Queen of the Trailer Park

On the road from Moab, Utah to Durango, Colorado the wind was incredible, tossing the motorhome around and raising dust clouds that made the distant mountains hazy.  But Durango was flawless - lush and green and surrounded by pretty hills, and we stayed there a few days at a pleasant RV park a few miles out of town. 




Queen of the Trailer Park washing the Princess

The second day in Durango we left our dogs in the motorhome, air-conditioning turned on for their comfort, and drove in our little pickup truck to Mesa Verde National Park, about an hour and a half away.  I have a vague memory of visiting the well preserved cliff dwellings there with my parents when I was a kid, and loving it.  The drive from the flat valley floor to the Visitors Center was an extreme upgrade but beautiful.  We bought tickets for a guided tour of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling community in the park - and in fact, the largest in the US.  A park ranger gave our group a safety talk and then led us down a challenging series of steep steps to the level of the cliff houses.  Not everyone enjoyed the descent.

The ranger told us that the native Americans called Anasazi lived at Mesa Verde from 600 AD to around 1300, and transitioned from hunter-gatherers to an agricultural society.  They most likely settled there because of good spring water, and on the plateau above the dwellings, they farmed corn, squash, yucca, and other crops.  They abandoned Mesa Verde, probably for better opportunities, after a twenty-year drought.

Back in town, we attended "A Taste of Durango".  Durango has a number of fine restaurants, and many of them had booths on Main Street. 

After mingling with the young hardbodies at the event, we decided to hang with the older, fatter citizens - our people - at the local Walmart, to stock up for the road.

Durango was fabulous.  Colorado looks like our kind of state.