Mesa Verde

Today's adventure took us out to Mesa Verde National Park and to two of the amazing cliff dwellings it houses. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and the dwellings were impressive and thought-provoking. No one really knows the whole story of the people who inhabited these structures or why they eventually moved on, but there is plenty of speculation. It's an interesting mystery to ponder. I do know that the inhabitants must have been physically fit and limber to climb up and down those cliff faces and to crawl and squeeze through the tight spaces we visited today. I also know that mothers of toddlers (and boys of all ages) must have never taken an easy breath!

Mesa Verde

Ready to explore the dwellings

32 feet, almost straight up

They made it, with smiles in place!

Time to squeeze

Balcony House

The edge of Balcony House

Time to crawl

Cliff Palace

An inward view of Cliff Palace

A tight stairway to the top
(The native people would have used only
toe and finger holes to assist with the trip
in and out of the of the pueblos!)