Mesa Verde .. .. at last

Emmrey has presented Mesa Verde for her National Park for the last three years. She had told us that she would continue to choose it until it received the most votes. Needless to say, she was pretty thrilled that our road trip destination this year was Mesa Verde.

After a stay over in Alamosa we got back on the road to learn more about the Ancestral Puebloan people of the San Luis Valley .We spent the first day looking around the visitor center, reserving our tour tickets, getting set up at camp and then touring the Mesa Top Loop. 

Morefield Campground

The self guided 6 mile tour includes 12 sites including an excavated pit house, Square Tower House, Sun Temple and an overlook to Cliff Palace.

Square Tower House

view from a window at Sun Temple

 remnants of a Kiva

Looking at where we would be touring the following day

Cliff Palace

Our second day in MV we had a couple of tours scheduled. 

We got an early start with a hearty camp breakfast.

We made a stop at Park Point fire lookout. At around 8500 ft, it is the highest point in the park and offers a 360 degree view that is unbelievable.  From this point you can see several mountain ranges as well as the Mancos Valley below.

 Our first tour was Cliff Palace. 

This 150 room dwelling was the home to ancestral Puebloans for 80-100 years. I was blown away by the sheer beauty and ingenuity of this place. Our tour guide really did an amazing job of creating a picture for us of a very vibrant community at Cliff Palace

 The one hour tour involved 100 + uneven stone steps and climbing five, 8-10 foot ladders on a 100 foot vertical climb.

We found an empty picnic area for lunch before our next tour. The baby orangutan was happy to get out of the car since she couldn't join us in the Palace. BTW she finally got her name while we were stopped for lunch in Durango ..  Rose Enu.

 The tour of Balcony House was pretty adventurous.

waiting at our meeting spot

It involved climbing a 32 ft. ladder, crawling through a 12ft.-long tunnel, and climbing up a 60ft open rock face with two 10ft ladders to exit the site.

One last ladder on the way out

Karsyn made it to the last quarter of the tour and she was overcome with nausea. She was fine the entire day and then it just hit her. We couldn't get out of there fast enough (I was nervous she was going to puke all over this historical landmark ... and I just knew how she must feel). Unfortunately you can't just run for a bathroom when you're on the side of a cliff.  She made it out and was pretty miserable as we made our way through the park.
She really just wanted to sleep so while I sat with her in the car ....

Mark took Bailee and Emmrey to see a couple more sights

Long House

Kars slept a lot and then eventually puked all over the parking lot :( A nice lady passing by offered her diagnosis that it was likely altitude sickness. I am not so sure about that since she didn't have any other symptoms and high elevation isn't exactly foreign to us. She felt better after "getting it out" and was so hungry at dinner she decided to eat. Not such a good idea since the middle of the night brought another vomit session. Poor girl couldn't find the tent zipper and so she partially threw up in the tent which was made worse because she was sharing a tent with Bailee who has such a phobia about people throwing up that she was no help. Honestly, I wasn't much help either since I was so out of it. Mark was pretty much a rockstar and he spent several hours doing laundry at 2 in the morning. Imagine the fun!! I don't know what we would have done if our campground hadn't had a laundromat that was open 24 hours ... what are the odds of that! Things were looking a little better in the morning. Kars just didn't eat much of anything all day. We cleaned up camp and  said farewell to Mesa Verde.

Rabbit Brush that adorned our campsite steps