And The ADVENTURE Continues...: September 13, 2015 Travel Day to Mesa Verde, Stop at Four Corners and an unexpected tour of Cliff Palace

Sunday September 13, 2015 Travel Day to Mesa Verde, Stop at Four Corners and an unexpected tour of Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park.

We slept in this morning since we only had 160 miles to our next stop at Mesa Verde. We left Monument Valley at 9:30 and headed east. We were traveling on highway 160 that runs close to the Arizona/Utah border and crosses over into New Mexico and then Colorado.At the junction of all of these states is a monument called Four Corners. It is the only place in the United States where 4 states meet at such a place. This is in the middle of nowhere and on Navajo Land. The monument is surrounded by Navajo vendors selling all kinds of items.

After a short stop for pictures we finished our drive to Mesa Verde and arrived at Mesa Verde RV Resort about 1:30. After a quick set up and lunch we decided to head over the Mesa Verde National Park and get information about the tours available. We found out that one of the tours would not be offered after today for the rest of the season. This was the tour of the Ancestral Pueblo Cliff dwelling called Cliff Palace. This is the largest cliff dwelling in the park and one of the main ones we wanted to see so we made arrangement for a 4:30 tour and off we went. It was an hour drive through the park to these ruins.

These dwelling were built in the 1200's and was amazing to visit. We had to go down steel and stone steps and to come back up we had to even climb ladders. We finished up the tour and headed for home. Poor Max was wondering where dinner was. But he survived and we called it a day. We have 2 more tours and a few hikes here to see all of the cliff dwellings.

Just some info on all of these cliff dwelling. The people that lived here were the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians.They farmed the mesa top and created these cliff houses where they lived for approximately 80 years and then moved on the the next area. They were a culture that lasted for more than 700 years. The dwelling consisted of 150 rooms most were used for storage. They figured this out since only 24 had fire places. The alcove is about 215 feet wide, 90 feet deep and 60 feet high. They determined that the store rooms were used to store food for all of the people that lived in the area. They built these units in the cliff faces under an overhang to help keep the food dry and so it would last for years. That way in lean times or times of drought they would still have food.

This particular dwelling was home to anywhere from 125 to 400 people. For unknown reasons the people left this area around 1285ad. It could have been because they had a population increase and the area could not support them or any of a number of other reason. I guess we will never really know. It took about 25 years or a generation for the Cliff Palace to become unused and there is no evidence that anyone else used these dwelling as a home.

It was discovered by a couple of cowboys in 1880s, From that time until 1906 when Mesa Verde was made a National Park the area was used and abused by the many visitors who took relics and damaged the ruins. What you see today is 90% original as it was found in the 1880s.