1640 miles later.... day 2 at Mesa Verde

On Monday we were still at Mesa Verde for the 2nd day. We stopped at Far View Sites first that day. This was a self guided tour through a mesa top farming community, with five villages and a reservoir.

These houses weren't made for tall people like us!

Our next stop was the Chapin Mesa Museum (tons of artifacts and information) and then to Cliff Palace. This is the largest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde. There are many view points to see this one from but that's not good enough for us, we took the tour to get up close!

This is from one of the view points, from up above.

This is another overlook to Cliff Palace from across the canyon.  You hike down to the ruins from the left side and exit on some ladders to the right.

Those circles are Kevas.

Because the other pictures aren't enough proof we have to put a picture of us in there :o)

After Cliff Palace we went on a short little hike real fast to a view point that over looked Soda Canyon and had a view point to see Balcony House. Balcony House is a much smaller cliff dwelling. It was kind of a fun one to go to. It was right on the cliff. After hiking down a little ways we had to climb a ladder that was probably about 15 feet straight up. At the very end we had to crawl through a little exit tunnel. I tried to get a picture but didn't get the camera out fast enough :o(

This is Soda Canyon. It amazes me that these Indians would hike through this and then hike up to find an alcove to raise their families in.

Here is Balcony House from the view point we hiked to. You can hardly see it.

We didn't get a whole lot of pictures of Balcony House but this one is to show how close to the edge it was and how step the cliff is. That is our tour guide in the picture as well, he was pretty cool. Usually they have about 50 people at a time to take on the tours but I think since it was lunch time we didn't have to many come on this one with us. There were only about 10 of us so the tour guide would stop and tell us about the different plants that were around and had a little extra time to tell us more things.
The next stop was Spruce Tree House. This was another self guided tour. They say this is the best preserved cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde. All the cliff dwellings and all the pithouse areas and all the other places that there were any houses there were always Kevas. Kevas were usually in the ground a few feet. This is were they would hold their spiritual rituals. Here at Spruce Tree they had one we were able to go down into.

Here is Spruce Tree House as we approached it.

This is what the top of a Keva looks like.

And here is the inside of a Keva. It was pretty cool to go in and see what it actually looks like.

The next picture is of Square Tower House. This one you can only see from a view point but still pretty cool!

As you can see there was a ton to do at Mesa Verde and we stayed busy the two days we were there. If any of you ever have the chance to go we would suggest you go! Even though all the pictures start to look the same after a while it is still worth it! It is such beautiful country and there is so much history there. It still amazes me that these people lived the way they did, I sure have it easy compared to them!

This is the sunset from our camp! Until tomorrow!