Sand Dunes!

Last Monday we were supposed to camp overnight at Great Sand Dunes National Park. Then we found out the temps were going to get to 32 degrees.

That is way too cold.

Last time we went to the Dunes, it was a bust. It was cold, windy, and miserable. I have absolutely no desire to be cold, windy, and miserable again.

So, we did not camp on Monday night, and instead decided to stop at the Dunes on our way home for a few hours.

This was the best decision! It was 70 degrees with little wind. The river was still flowing, and it was only an hour out of our way.

My camera did all kinds of updates while we were gone. That's why my pictures are somehow all tall and skinny instead of regular shaped (I have now changed the ratios). There is now a new Panorama feature, so I tried that out, too.

Obviously, as you will see from these pictures, I have a lot more to learn about how to use the camera.

There was a stunning waterfall off the freeway where we could stop and take pictures. It was stunning!

 They decided to play "shoemaker" where they made each other mud shoes.

This trip was a TON of driving- we did well over a thousand miles. And it was so, so worth it! I'm so grateful my parents made the trip with us. I'm so glad that we just did it. I'm so grateful to make memories with these girls and show them the beautiful things in this world! They are Colorado natives- they should know the beauty of their state and this wonderful country. I want them to know the history of the Native Americans- the beauty that they created in the desert and wilderness.

I just love this world and LOVE sharing it with these sweet girls of mine!

Four Corners

 Another place I have always wanted to go to: Four Corners! Yes, you do drive out to Timbuktu for 30 seconds of standing on a plaque, but I'm still glad we did it. It was really cool!

Then, we totally got lost and drove for a couple of hours to nowhere. We were trying to get to the Monument of the Ancients. Turns out, the "monument" is a massive land mass with really nothing to see except for at two distinct points that you would only know about if you stopped at the museum. It was very, very frustrating. Eventually, we stopped at the museum and figured out that our wandering into nowhere was useless.

So, we stopped at a park where the girls climbed trees:

The girls LOVED our "hotel." There is an actual hotel, and then in the back there is a vacation rental, which is actually a double wide. It had 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms which was great. The space really was fantastic.

The girls set up an "epic game of croquet."

We teamed up. Claire and I were a team, and we won! Audra and Mom as a team provided the comic relief, but Dad and Camille provided some stiff competition:

Aren't these views the best?

We went to Moose & More for ice-cream. It was delicious ice-cream! But, even better: The gentleman in the back wearing a black and white plaid shirt insisted on paying for our ice-cream. He said, "It's so sweet to see a family together spending quality time together." It was so completely unexpected and so kind of him. He made kind-of a rotten day (after the driving all over Timbuktu fiasco) into a beautiful ending. There really are some kind people still in this world!

Mesa Verde: Day 2

We were very excited to head back to Mesa Verde!

We had two tours today- we started with The Long House, then had The Balcony House.

The Long House is the remains that are most intact. The Balcony House is called the "adventurous tour" because there are super steep ladders and a narrow tunnel you climb through on your knees. It looked so intense after looking at YouTube videos, in fact, that we opted to have Mom and Camille stay back. I'm so glad we did! Camille is really, really brave in some areas, but then gets pretty nervous in others. She would have sobbed and sobbed and been so scared if we made her do it.

But, she and grandma had a great time at the Long House.

We started out by stopping briefly at a short overlook:

Then we did a self guided tour of the Step House.

They were so excited to help hold up this cliff dwelling:

A recreation of a pit house on the site where a pit house was:

The round homes are called Kivas.

More pit house pictures:

This tour was fun because it was the first time we ended up being able to climb inside the ruins. Very cool! But, wow, it made me so incredibly grateful to not be a Puebloan Iindian in the 1200's! I know it was normal for them, but this seems like a really, really harsh lifestyle.

At the Long House, you have to hike a mile to get to the site. We saw this beautiful gecko- do you see it?

 Camille really wanted a picture with these flowers:

It did have some long ladders, which scared Camille out a little bit, but really she did fantastic. Audra and Claire were rock stars:

Here you can see corn remnants again. The corn back then was super small- a little smaller than the size of my finger.

This is called a seep spring. Water seeps through the rock and supplies a small but continuous flow of water. It is possible that the seep spring is why they built the cliff dwellings, even though they still had to grow their crops up on the mesa. So, they would commute to work by climbing the cliff to grown crops and then carry them down the cliff back home.

Maybe they just wanted these great views!

Isn't this amazing????!!!!!?????

They did the Junior Ranger program:

Then, The Balcony House:

Here's the narrow tunnel. This is what kept my mom from going, and she was right- this wasn't great, but we actually thought it was fun.

 Coming out the other side:

Then, there was a super steep ladder and you had to climb up a rock face. It was pretty scary.

Then we did the Mesa Loop Trail. Claire and Camille were NOT happy about this, but I LOVED it. It showed the progression of engineering from pit house to the cliff dwelling. It was pretty cool to see how they evolved and improved over the decades.

I loved this quote, "Pueblo people live as a community. We are not orientated as individuals or individual family groups. We're groups of clans, societies, and extended families. As a group, we're a community. Pueblo people are about us and we, not about me, I or myself." Such a beautiful thought!

"People should come to Mesa Verde with the thought of accepting differences and accepting the fact that there's something to be learned here. Our people, our forefathers, were pretty sharp in figuring how to make tools from animal bones, how to make tools from stone, and how to build structures that last for centuries."

It was simply incredible. Everybody should go here!!!