The Visitor's Center is closed for the winter, so we drove up to the museum, which was built by the CCC in the 30s and is a beautiful example of that era and southwest architecture too. They used small sandstone blocks just like the Anasazi did 800 years ago, but there are dark, rectangular timbers inside and round wrought-iron chandeliers that really say 1930s lodge to me.

The Anasazi (the ancestors of the Hopi and Pueblo indians and others I think today) came to the area around 450 AD. By 1100 they were building the elaborate cliff dwellings, and you can see them in every arch in every cliff in the park. There are turnouts everywhere so you can stop--and remember your binoculars, we didn't--and see them. By 1300 they had moved on, to where their descendants live today, and around 1890, two brothers who had permission to have their cattle out in that area "discovered" the cliff dwellings after a snowstorm frightened some of their cows near those canyons. In one day the two cowboys found all the easy-to-find, famous cliff dwellings. Apparently the Native Americans knew they were there but weren't broadcasting it, but the cowboys did.

Soon there was a German archeologist excavating the ruins (600 years of rainfall over the cliffs had knocked down a few bricks) and folks were advertising that this was a great place to come and find Indian pottery laying around. There was a lot of pillaging, but a really good thing that came out of that was that Teddy Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act making it illegal to pillage, and also worked some sort of treaty with the local tribes to take the land away, I mean, trade it for something worse, I mean nearby, so it could be preserved (which turned out to be a really good thing, although the natives were doing a fair job of preserving it without our help for 500 years). Enough babbling, here are the pictures:

Here's one of the main canyons filled with cliff dwellings.

Here's one of the cliff dwellings. You can see that there was a fire on the mesa above. They had a series of big fires between like 2000 and 2002. Burned half the park. It may be that the native americans left after fires like these destroyed their crops and pine trees too many times. THey did leave after an extended drought.

I apologize for the poor job of lightening the dark part of this picture (especially to Judy Culver, who may be shaking her head right now. Well Judy, if you have an hour to work on my original, I'll send it right to ya.) But it allows you to see the tall structure still standing. This might be one that was originally 80+ feet tall.

Katie took this one.

This is the place on all the postcards: Cliff Palace. You can tour it during the warmer months, but you might not want to be here then. They get thousands of people a day and there are monsoons in the afternoons during the summer, and everyone jostling to get their pictures and see stuff. We were told again and again by the ranger that this is a much better time to come (if you think you'll come out to the park, it might be worth asking if that stuff is open in October. The crowds are higher, but not as bad as when the kids are out of school.)

We took a tour of Spruce House, one of the ones the cowboys discovered. Here are pictures of that cliff dwelling.

Here's Spruce House, which housed 100 or more folks in 1200.

The holes that look like windows are doorways (for once I was among a race as short as me--four-and-a-half to five feet tall)

Here's the kitchen--where the young girls ground corn. Those are the original implements (I'm glad we have Crate & Barrel now).

Kivas are round rooms dug into the ground for ceremonies (and also they are the warmest places in the coldest weather. Here I am heading down.

Katie wanted to go too.

Mesa Verde was Soooo neat I could have stayed for days and explored. They have 600 sites, many of which (500) were discovered after the big fires burned away all the underbrush in half the park. Believe it or not, there were more people living in that part of Colorado in 1200 AD (appx. 30,000) than live there today!

After checking out Mesa Verde all day, we drove into Durango, but didn't explore (I'm getting spoiled by neat little towns, and Durango wasn't as neat as some we've visited. Katie slept for hours while we drove around, though, finally getting a good nap (first one in a week).