Summer of Hell - Days 13-14: Mesa Verde, Monument Valley
Mesa Verde National Park is a collection of cliff dwellings from native americans who lives here thousands of years ago. We sniped tour spots two weeks earlier and Thursday we toured both the Cliff Palace and Balcony House. Friday we hiked another section of the rim trail to see petroglyphs carved into the rock walls, then drove into Monument Valley, a Navajo tribal park, for our last park outing of the trip!
Mesa Verde
Mesa Verde means "green table" in Spanish, it's the name for these flat-topped mesas where the Puebloan people lived 500-1300AD.
They built these curious stone houses mid-way up the cliffs at the top of the mesa. Hard to get to, easy to defend against attackers, and maybe easier to heat and cool?
We hadn't seen anything else like this on our adventure so far and we got the full history lesson from the guides.
Balcony House tour
We had to climb up to the Balcony House, the first tour, from a path that dropped down from the top of the mesa then carefully came back up to the undercut living area.
The soot from 700 years of fires is burnt into the rocks.
The views were amazing! Maybe that's why they lived here.
Cliff Palace tour
We then walked around to the next site, Cliff Palace, which is the largest of the preserved cliff dwellings.
As is true with any interesting archeological tour, the kids were bored stiff. They occasionally needed a stare-down.
Pool and hot tub*
Back to the RV Resort, more pool and hot tub* time, plus we smashed some beers and the kids smashed some screen time.
Petroglyphs hike
Friday we hiked another section of the cliff trails to see some petroglyphs, carvings made in the rock walls more than 1000 years old!
Driving to Monument Valley
We then drove into Monument Valley, a Navajo nation park and the famous scene of Forrest Gump's cross-country running epiphany: "I'm pretty tired. Think I'll go home now."
Gouldings RV Resort
We stayed at Gouldings RV Resort, which was really nice.
Not so nice: Harriet and I were covered in bumps. BED BUGS?!
* Beth the public health professional helped us realize it was hot tub rash. She called the Mesa Verde RV Resort people and told them off!