Wednesday, April 23, 2008

A beautiful, sunny day at Mesa Verde

Last week Traci and the boys came to visit for a few days for spring break. We met up at Mesa Verde national park, and had the best time. It was the warmest, prettiest day this year and I loved being outside. I have never been so excited for spring to come. Mesa Verde is a huge area full of different Pueblo Indian dwellings, dating back to 1200-1300 AD. They are spectacular and the architecture is amazing. We had a great time hiking around, taking tours, and seeing the sites. It was too bad that the rest of the time they were visiting it was cold, windy, and everyone was sick!


This is the "Cliff Palace". It is the most famous site and it's huge! It is incredible that people that long ago could make such an amazing structure, with their own handmade primitive tools. The blocks and walls are perfectly level, and the columns completely circular...AMAZING. The nearest water source was 8 miles from this spot....including a climb up the cliff. No wonder the people were only about 5' tall and 90 lbs!


At the lookout spot.

It was fun to have Gabe and Connor along...too bad Connor just wanted to sit in the car and read his book!



It was so fun to take a few little hikes through the beautiful sites. I was quite impressed how well Matt did with all of the hiking around. There were tall ladders to climb, and a few areas with really steep, narrow steps built into the rock, and he did great. I think he loved it too.



Matt with Gabe and his mom.

Climber man.

There is a dwelling across the canyon behind Gabe. It's a little hard to see. The whole plateau used to be covered with trees, but there have been a lot of tragic fires there over the last few years. The park is still beautiful though.

Matt with his mom at the lookout.

What a BEAUTIFUL day!

3 comments:

Kara said...

That's fun that you guys got to meet up with Matt's family and enjoy the beautiful spring weather! I haven't been to Mesa Verde since girl's camp when I was 12!! Every time we come home we say that we're going to go, but we never make time. It's so close and yet, so far away sometimes. Maybe next time- that's what we say every time!

Jodi Jean said...

wow how beautiful, i've never heard of mesa verde, but now i want to go! how fun for traci and the boys to come and visit.

Brooke said...

I love that you 2 still hike and do fun stuff like that together. Mesa Verde, I've heard of it and it sounds so neat--thanks for including interesting facts! Kaden is so cute, I just want to sqeeze him!