6/16/10: Mesa Verde

We got up good time, ate some breakfast and hit the road. We got a good glimpse of what the Grand Canyon might have looked like when we stopped at the Navajo Bridge to snap some picks. Back on the road, 20 minutes in Rach is asleep and Ali rocking out to Taylor Swift. We were surrounded by beautiful red cliffs and amazing sweeping views. We drove up, down, back and forth, against the wind, with the wind and through a dust storm.

Ok, so the first, and only might we add, bump we had for this day was to pull up to the Four Corners National Monument (which is the first BIG DEAL thing we’ve seen in a while, besides a dust bowl) and read the sign that said CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION . . . who does construction during the summer? So, we decided to just follow the crowd. Some people had walked into through a crack in the fence and headed down to the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG road to the monument. OK, we’d driven a long time and we were GOING TO see our four corners. So we made it half ways down and a lady in a red car came ZOOOOOOOMING bye yelling at us about how we were NOT suppose to be in there. Well, what else would we do after she drove away, keep walking. WE WERE SO CLOSE TO THE END WE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE!!! We made it to a sign that might not have been the ACTUAL monument, but it was close enough for us. We got pics which will have to suffice because we saw that dreaded red car heading our way again. Crap, we made it out alive.

So we drove and around 5ish we made it to Mesa Verde – cliff dwelling pueblos, here we come. It MUST be noted, this was one of Rachael’s most anticipated sites. And, being the nerd that Ali is she was OOOOOOOBER excited to see the cliff villages that she learned about in her Native American West Class. She even bruoght her class text book to read us history of the civilzations and was sickly proud to follow in her professor's footsteps. Of course, they’re doing road construction in the middle of June. So in true Rachael and Ali fashion, we cranked the jams and waved at all the construction workers all 20miles up. We took a guided tour up and down to the Cliff Dwelling Palace, which was an amazing site to see. Did you know, that girls around 12 and 13 would be married and starting a family. Also, the people of these communities were all about Rach’s height – yay! She found her civilization!!!!! Fun and good!!!

Then we headed back and checked into our oh so lovely KOA. Actually, it really is lovely and we’re excited to try out sleeping in the car tonight.