We spent the day at Mesa Verde National Park. It is quite an unusual place. The a Pueblo peoples built and then left these dwellings in the cliffs for some unknown reason. There is speculation that there was a drought and they moved southeast into New Mexico. They grew their crops on the mesas above and climbed down the face of the rocks to get to their living quarters. It is thought they lived in the cliffs because of the protection the cliffs offered from the harsh elements of heat in the summer and cold and wind in the winter.
We took these photos on our 20 mile drive into the park as we climbed from 6500 feet to over 8,000 feet. We were glad we did because while we were in the park, the wind picked up and these beautiful views were hindered by dust when we were exiting the park.
We ate lunch at the Spruce Tree House dwelling. I was adventuresome and tried a Navajo Taco - Doug tried a buffalo brat sandwich. Both were very good. On the patio where we ate, there was this beautiful vine in its red fall splendor. Then the following photos are of Spruce Tree House dwelling. This one had a path down our side of the canyon and up the other side so you could walk through the ruins.
Cliff Palace is one of the larger cliff dwellings. You can tour this one with a Park Ranger but we decided not to do that. I could never climb the ladder you see the lady doing in the last photo and both of us were suffering from altitude sickness from being at 8,000 plus feet.
This photo of one of the cliff dwellings called Windows because it had more windows than the others.
These four photos of Tower House are from an overlook on top of the mesa. It has the four story tower. The last photo in the group looks down the canyon from the overlook.
These photos show the beautiful fall colors of the low bushes. Unfortunately the photos don't really do the colors justice. They gave the appearance of velvet or velour on the hills which dwarf the road going down the valley.
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