Out West. Thursday. 7/1/2010.

Despite our late night last night driving in, we got up at around 8ish to go eat breakfast this morning, which can I just say was quite a step up from the last complimentary breakfast at the Quality Inn in Springfield. If nothing else, they had muffins and a waffle iron, which was more than enough to make me happy. Once we ate, we filled up all the nalgenes and headed over for a day at Mesa Verde. I don't understand what is with the United States Southwest and their obsession with road work this week, but it seems everywhere we've gone there has been some kind of construction going on. Mesa Verde was no exception, it tacked on an extra 40ish minutes once in the park to get to the visitors center. Luckily, the view was spectacular driving up, it seemed to look out over all of Cortez and the surrounding cities and mountains. If there's one thing I've definitely immensely enjoyed about this trip, it's the breathtaking scenery everywhere you go. Once at the visitors center, we got tickets for 2 seperate tours: Balcony House at 1:00pm and Cliff Palace at 2:30pm. It was supposedly a half hourish drive over there and we were already cutting it pretty close, so we had to leave pretty soon after getting tickets. There was however a minor setback though, we seemed to have misplaced my mom. We spent about 20 minutes after we got the tickets trying to find her until we finally saw her stuck in a crowd of people near the stairs to the parking lot. Needless to say we had to rush a bit getting to the first tour in time. Balcony House was supposedly the most adventurous with tall 38ish ft. ladders and steep steps carved into the cliff face. It was pretty neat. It's crazy to think of how these Pueblo cliff dwellers lived in such places, expecially how they even got up there and manuvered so close to such a steep drop in the first place. There were visible hand/toe holds in the rocks, but they had to be bloody well out of their mind to use those as their main means of getting around up there. As for the actual dwelling remains, they were incredible. It feels almost as if the Pueblos were just there. Huge, well preserved cities of stone, dirt, and lumber facing out to immense drop offs from the alcoves the the bottom of the gourge nestled in the center of the towering cliffs. Most of what we saw were community dwellings with these circular ritual rooms in the ground called kivas in which they would hold all of their religious ceremonies in. It was crazy for me to try to imagine what this place must have looked like in its prime. It was kind of the feeling I got at the Mauthausen concentration camp I visited in Austria, only quite a deal less grave. Reminiscent, full of memory, of lives retained in the stones that housed them. Overwhelming perhaps. The second tour was pretty amazing too, less adventurous for sure with only a few short ladders at the end, but mom seemed to have had enough adventure for one day. The heights of the first tour just about scared the life out of her. The second tour was also more of a community center given it's massive size, market-like set up, and amound of kivas. Apparently all the Pueblo's in the area would gather there as a market center of sorts. After the tours, we drove around to see the rest of the sites and stopped off at Spruce Tree House to climb down inside of a kiva. I have no idea how they fit so many people in those things. They're small, stuffy, and are saturated with the scent of stone. In addition, the rangers said it would be filled with smoke from a small bonfire at the center of the base. I can't even imagine what their ceremonies must have been like. Eerie for sure. After we had all had our fill of the Pueblo dwellings, we went to a restaurant in the park that overlooked the valley. Let me just point out that with the bread they brought black bean hummus. The food definitely did not disappoint. However, I have had to develop an immunity of sorts to the spices they use on their food out here. Nearly everything they serve you has some sort of burning spice to it and given my well reknowned low tolerance of spice, it's been a bit of a trial for me to get used to it. However, I am happy to announce that I'm growing more and more tolerant with each passing meal. Turns out progress can be made regarding such things. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at one of the most gorgeous overlooks I've seen yet on this trip. It looked out over the base of the Rockies and the town of Durango, Colorado. At first it was just me hopping out of the car real quick to snap a few pictures, but after I saw the view, I insisted everyone get out and take a look. It was beyond breathtaking. That 20 minute stop we took at that overlook was one of my favorite parts of the trip so far. Its times like those that I feel truly blessed to have the family that I have. I don't think they know how much I appreciate them, how much I truly miss them up in Boone, how much I love them, even if they can be a little dysfunctional at times. In those 20 minutes, I was the most content I've been in a long while. I don't think I'll ever be able to properly explain how meaningful these family trips are to me, how much I truly enjoy them. When we had finally had our fill of the overlook, we headed back to the hotel for an early night. Tomorrow it's up bright and early to hit up Monument Valley before we head over to Aunt Bev's house in the middle of nowhere. Goodbye civilization. Sweet.