We had to leave Canyon De Chelly because you are only allowed to camp there for 5 days and we had stayed our limit. We headed for Mesa Vera, CO. On our way there we pasted the Four Corners Monument. It is the only place in the U.S. that four states meet. Don't forget to click on the pictures to enlarge them. Also, there are more pictures in my album from all these places.
The sign above shows the seals of the four states and the lay out of the monument.
I had been looking forward to be in four states at once so here it is. All the spectators had a good laugh at the old man getting down on his knees. They laughed even more when my wife said "now lets see you get up."
Some people are just copy cats. :-) Peg had to do the same so she could send the picture to her granddaughter. They also had a lot of souvenir stands there. It cost $3.00 a person to get into the monument since it is on Navajo land, but it was fun. Luckily this point didn't land on some mountain peak instead of this nice flat place. From here we drove to Cortez, CO. which is the closest town to Mesa Verde. We stayed at the Sleeping Ute Mountain RV Park. It is just behind the Ute Mountain Casino and about 11 miles south of Cortez. It's a really nice campground with full hookup and only $20.00 a night but they didn't level the sites enough.5/20/2007
Sunday morning early we drove to Mesa Verde. We stopped at Denny's in Cortez for breakfast and naturally on the way back at the Wal-mart.
This is one of the first ruins we got to. This is a Kiva. They believe it was a ceremonial and social room. I had a picture of the rest of the rooms but accidentally deleted it. Unfortunately to add a picture it puts it at the top and if you move it then it can't be expanded. So please go to my album to see more pictures of this ruins and others. All the pictures from here are in the Mesa Verde album.
Can you imagine living on one side of this canyon and wanting to visit some one on the other side back in the days when there were no horses or cars. You would have to climb down one side and up the other and that is what they did.
This is a Pit Kiva. The hole is a ventilation shaft. You can see where it comes up in the upper right hand corner of the picture. The first inhabitants of Mesa Verde lived in these ground dwellings. Later they built the rock houses on top of the mesa before they started to live in the houses in the side of the canyons.
This one is called Fire House. Note the black just above the building in the middle. That was from the fires they made. The black on the rocks on the side of the canyon is called varnish and is created from the water running down the rock when it rains. The moisture then allows organisms to grow on the rock which with the weather creates the black color.
This is the Palace the largest ruins in the park. As you can see you can take a tour of this one with a ranger. Unfortunately it is rather strenuous climbing down the stairs and then a rugged trail to it, so we weren't able to go. We did get a good view of it from the overlook. There are hundreds of different ruins in this area. They think the population back in those days in this area may have been greater than it is now.
This is one of the first ruins we got to. This is a Kiva. They believe it was a ceremonial and social room. I had a picture of the rest of the rooms but accidentally deleted it. Unfortunately to add a picture it puts it at the top and if you move it then it can't be expanded. So please go to my album to see more pictures of this ruins and others. All the pictures from here are in the Mesa Verde album.
Can you imagine living on one side of this canyon and wanting to visit some one on the other side back in the days when there were no horses or cars. You would have to climb down one side and up the other and that is what they did.
This is a Pit Kiva. The hole is a ventilation shaft. You can see where it comes up in the upper right hand corner of the picture. The first inhabitants of Mesa Verde lived in these ground dwellings. Later they built the rock houses on top of the mesa before they started to live in the houses in the side of the canyons.
This one is called Fire House. Note the black just above the building in the middle. That was from the fires they made. The black on the rocks on the side of the canyon is called varnish and is created from the water running down the rock when it rains. The moisture then allows organisms to grow on the rock which with the weather creates the black color.
This is the Palace the largest ruins in the park. As you can see you can take a tour of this one with a ranger. Unfortunately it is rather strenuous climbing down the stairs and then a rugged trail to it, so we weren't able to go. We did get a good view of it from the overlook. There are hundreds of different ruins in this area. They think the population back in those days in this area may have been greater than it is now.
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