Tunnel Arch.
Pine Tree Arch.
San Dune Arch.
View along route 128.
Looks like a fishes mouth.
More views along route 128.
View along route 128.
This one above I will caption. This is a view up Negro Bill Canyon. That's what the sign called it.
The river you can see is of course the Colorado.
This is just one of the pull off and thank goodness all along the way they have pit toilets for us old folk. :-)
It seems like every where you look there are places that look like arches are starting. 
About 20 miles further north on route 191 we saw the pull off for the arch shown below. It's called Wilson Arch. The funny thing about this arch is that at first we didn't see it. We pulled off at the pull off because we saw the sign and people crawling all over the hill. Peggy was standing in front of the sign reading about the arch when I walked up to her, she still hadn't seen the arch. I told her to just look up and there it was. She had been looking all around for it and couldn't find it. As you can see it's no small arch.
We had called ahead to make reservations at a campground for a week. We hadn't realized that it was Memorial Day weekend coming up. All the campgrounds were full starting Friday. So we made the reservation just through Thursday at the Canyon View RV Park. It's about 10 miles north of Moab but right at the entrance to the road that leads to Canyonland National Park (route 323). When we registered we told them that if they had a cancellation we would like to stay for the holiday weekend. 
They have a nice visitor center and show a short movie about the park. As soon as you leave the visitor center and head into the park you start up a steep hill. The above picture was taken at the first pull off about half way up the mountain. You can see the entrance gate, the visitor center and route 191 north. Our campground is about 8 miles north up route 191.
This is the next pull off and is called the Park Avenue Trail Head. The trail leaves from here and goes down through the valley to a pull off further down the road. The trail is about one mile long. When we were there, there was a group of boyscouts starting off on the trail.
For some reason humans like to give things names, so here are the names that we were given for these rocks, from right to left, The Organ, Tower of Babel, Sheep Rock, The Three Gossips.
This is the back side of the Park Avenue Trail. The sign says please pick up your Park Avenue hikers here.
The sign at this pull off, says these are petrified sand dunes. This area was covered by sand dunes. About 200 million years ago, winds from the northwest carried tons of fine-grained sand into this area. Over time the sand drifts were covered by other layers of sediment, compressed and cemented by quartz and calcite into Navajo Sandstone. Erosion has washed away the overlying layers, exposing the "petrified" dunes. Note the La Sal mountains in the background. That is a new covering of snow just applied last night. Those mountain peaks are around 13,000 feet. 
Here is a jewel the Balance Rock. I walked completely around it and you wonder what in the world is holding it up and more importantly when is it coming down. There are more pictures of it in the album from different sides.
This picture of Double Arch really doesn't show the second part of the arch right behind the first one. If we get back to it I will try to get closer and see if it will show the second arch. As you can see there appears to be other arches still forming.
This is the North Window Arch. There is a South Window Arch unfortunately the trail was to long for me.
This is called Mules-Ear. What a weird name for such a pretty flower. They almost look like small Sun Flowers. Also there are more pictures of them in the album. We actually only did half of the park but plan to go back again before we leave to do the rest. We were just worn out. That's what happens when you get old. You just don't have the stamina you had when you were young.
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.
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.
Through most of the ride in Canyon Del Muerto the road is just the stream.
This was our rest stop at the Antelope ruins. You can see the trucks we rode in, in the back ground.
A view of one of the Pictographs.
These ruins are called the White House. Notice that the buildings at the back top are white. They have a white plaster on them. That's how these ruins got their name.
This was one of the ladies on the trip with us. I thought she had the most beautiful red hair I had ever seen. The ride ended about 12:30 back at the Thunderbird Lodge where it started at 9:00 o'clock. There is a cafeteria at the lodge so we ate lunch there. I tried some of the Navajo fried bread and thought it was very good. It reminded me of the Mexican sopapia but with out the honey or a funnel cake with out the powdered sugar. 
View from the first overlook.
Antelope Ruins. There are some pictographs on the rock walls here. One is of an antelope. That is how these ruins got that name.
More Anasazi ruins. All of the ruins are on the south facing slopes, so that when the winter sun is low on the horizon it shines in and helps heat the rooms and in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky the over hang shades it.
On the way out from the last overlook we met this Bull snake on the road. They are not poisonous and are beneficial. He just crawled off into the brush.
This is a sample Hogan which is on display at the visitor center. They are six or eight sided and always have the entrance facing east. 
