Friday we slept in and then after stretching our legs, headed South to Mesa Verde. The national park showcases, cave dwellings, early housing and spectacular views. The drive from Telluride to Mesa Verde is striking both in beauty and the rapidly changing environment. We had seen the rolling plains of WY, the Granite mountains and then off to Colorado for the towering 14,000+ foot forested peaks.
We were heading down through the foothills which back East would be towering mountains to the plains. These plains were unlike the Wyoming ones with the thin grass cover. These were more high dessert plains studded by mesas that long ago people crafted into houses.
Mesa Verde is huge, you drive 20 miles past the entry booth before you get to the first house. The park offers tours of the cave dwellings but you need a reservation and because of COVID, they were not offered. Right now the park is a self drive self tour.
You start on a loop road with pull offs every 500 yards. They range from an archeological site of pit houses to views of the cliff side dwellings. They are actually houses built into the cliff face. I think we would have been more disappointed about not getting up and close with the dwellings if we had not visited Bandelier where you can climb the ladders and enter the cave.
We had also been to Walnut Canyon where you can’t enter the dwellings but you can go to the front doors and look inside.
After completing the loop we started to head back the 20 miles. On the way in we had skipped all the extra stops and overlooks. This was strategic. We wanted to get to the popular stuff before it got too crowded and hot.
On the way out we visited a tower or what was left of it and then an area of ruins. Unlike the earlier area, one set was designated for you to enter. We also saw a reservoir, other houses and some more advanced structures.
We then stopped at all the overlooks which broke up the 20 mile drive nicely. While we were touring, a thunderstorm had formed North of us. Each stop it was creeping closer and by the last stop the lightning was getting too close for comfort so we were happy to finish up and head for Durango.
When we got to Durango we grabbed some food and then dropped by the plane. We had flown 10 hours and the engines looked like they had used a bit of oil. I put a half quart in each just to be sure I would not need to add any on our flight home. We also dropped a few things at the plane we would not need overnight and I did a preflight to hopefully forestall any morning surprise. All looked good but the sky once again had turned dark.
We took a leisurely drive to the North of Durango to see a park. It was quite nice and had cows grazing across the river. The rain started to come so we headed for our hotel. On the way we spotted 5 stags crossing the road and stopping to graze for a bit before bolting off.
Dinner was BBQ we picked up on the way back. I spent some time reviewing the plan for our return, filing flight plans and checking weather. The forecast seemed too good with the only issue being hot temperatures at our fuel stops. So far we have stayed relatively cool on this vacation while it was roasting back home. Saturday was looking like a scorcher though.
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