Day 2: Something to do at last

inside the Kiva
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May 20th

Colorado and Mesa Verde

On one of the ruins we had to restrain our selves from playing four square, as there was a perfect court there.

Well I was tired, so I pretty much slept through the beginning of Colorado. I spent the first couple hours trying to keep Adam awake, while bobbing my head in and out of sleep. Soon Steve took over again and I fell fast asleep. I awoke to a beautiful valley and a decent into a place very alien to anything I am used to. I was awake permanently after a gas station stop, and then spoke with Dani. My phone died and/or lost reception, and seems to do that a lot out here.

The view from the highest part of Mesa Verde
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LT-20 decided that driving through the Rio Grande Forest would be the quickest way to Mesa Verde, so we eventually made it to the forest, despite spending countless minutes watching our position triangulate on my lap top via our droid. It was pretty nice, however it seems that the towns seemed a lot like rust belt towns that were along the old Santa Fe lines. In the middle of the forest we found our selves in a traffic jam. Apparently workers were doing a very lengthy amount of road work on the only road in the forest. Needless to say we were stopped for over an hour. We almost played four square however we decided that this would be a bad idea, because the piece of road we were stopped on bordered, without guard rail, a river that claimed to be the Rio Grande. We didn’t want to lose the ball and/or get fined for littering because it the ball could be washed down stream via and errant hit… So we waited patiently, at this point I took over driving.

some of the Spruce Tree House ruins
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When we finally got through we went down a 7.5% grade slope, and I terrified Peter. At the bottom of this slope there was a scenic overlook and we stopped. It was one of the most beautiful scenic overlooks we have seen. I continued driving and Adam became hungry, so we queued up LT 20 and he told us that there was a subway (one of the only things he can eat) in the next town. The dreaded Durango. We drove in an odd little commercial town to find a subway with the worst parking ever. From there I drove us to Mesa Verde. And it seemed like it took forever for us to get there.

One of the ruins on top of Mesa Verde
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Mesa Verde was fifty times better then expected. I had wanted to go here since I first saw the cliff drawing in photos of high school history books. It was well worth it. We arrived too late to have a guided tour, which would have consisted of crawling, hiking, and climbing. We decided to go look at the Spruce Tree House, which was a preserved ruin that did not require a guide. We enjoyed this very much. We got to crawl into a Kiva and hang out for a bit, and explored other ruins on this massive mountain. The site took about 25 minutes to get to and was at an elevation of 8700 feet. Needless to say the view was spectacular. I have the picture to prove it! On one of the ruins we had to restrain our selves from playing four square, as there was a perfect court there.

Another ruins picture from Spruce Tree House Site
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We left after a couple hours and made it to a Days Inn, which we sat in the parking lot to find out if it had wireless. We then used its wireless to comparative shop for the best hotel in Cortez, Days Inn ended up our choice. We dumped off our stuffs, began recharging our phones and left for dinner. We went to a place that I can’t even remember what it was called now. We had a very confused waitress that was on her first day. But the funny thing was they didn’t even bother to train her, so she had no idea what she was doing. LOL. But the place was covered in baby pictures, and did not have the best food.

getting the torch
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Pete and Adam decided to eat Wendys again. And we returned back to the hotel, where my phone did not seem to want to work very well. All in all it seemed like a good day after all the driving was done.