We arrived at our hotel in Cortez, Colorado eleven hours to the minute after driving off from good ol’ SA. Between Cimarron and Taos we encountered falling snow but the skies cleared and we enjoyed driving into the setting sun from Durango to Cortez. Though it was Joyce’s birthday and we’d thought we would have a nice dinner somewhere to celebrate, we were just glad to get off the road and settled for salads at Wendy’s.The next evening we had that birthday dinner at the Destination Grill next door to the hotel, if hamburgers qualify for a birthday dinner. They weren’t average hamburgers so maybe it was OK.
That morning we drove the 10 miles to Mesa Verde National Park and spent a day of sight-seeing. It started out chilly but there wasn’t much wind and it warmed up to be a nice day. We saw many of the dwellings from a distance, which was fine. They don’t look that much different up close. We only walked down to one, a short walk. We had binoculars so we could get a better look, if needed. The pictures available do the sights justice so, really, we could have just stayed home and wandered through the website but there is something to be said for being there. The experts say the Puebloan culture lasted from about 500 AD to 1350 AD. They theorize that at one time there were more people living in the area, though not necessarily the Park, than live there today. Could be the cliff dwellings were the better real estate of the day. I wonder if people a thousand years from now will stand around gawking at our humble dwellings and marvel at how we could live under such circumstances.
We broke up Canyonlands National Park up into two days. There are three areas: the Maze, Needles and Sky Island. The Maze can only be reached by four-wheel drive vehicle or on foot or bicycle. Though we were driving the Pathfinder, I didn’t consider myself to be an experienced 4-wheeler nor did I want to subject the vehicle to the exigencies of backcountry exploration. Just as well, too, because we got about all we could stand from the other two areas. There were lots of cottonwoods in fall color along the route to the Needles area of the park and there was also an interesting feature called Newspaper Rock along the way. It is speculated some of the petroglyphs date back 2000 years. Others just went back to the Eisenhower administration but the whole thing was interesting.
We mostly stopped at overlooks but we did venture on one “moderate” walk called Slick Rock. We never did see rocks that were any slicker than the rest so maybe the name refers to the whole hike because it was just about all on rock. We met a German couple on the way and had a brief conversation with them. Nice people. One of the interesting sidelights for me of travelling around is the people we meet. Most of the time there is a just a greeting in passing but occasionally, maybe only one on the entire trip, we have a chat with someone that leaves an impression. Though we don’t know their names, we know they live south of Frankford and were touring the Midwest. Of course Utah isn’t in the Midwest but we make allowances for foreigners.
After getting our fill of the Needles we drove on to Moab which is north of the park. The Needles is the southern part of the park. The northern part, Sky Island, has a separate entrance and roads so Canyonlands lends itself to breaking the visit up into at least two days. October is the high season for Moab, Canyonlands and probably the rest of the national parks in Utah. Consequently one takes it in the shorts for hotel rooms, gas and just about everything else. Moab was packed with people, mostly of an outdoorsy type. Lots of hikers, bikers and 4-wheelers.
We got to the Island in the Sky area early. It was windy, no doubt because the Island in the Sky is a big plateau and is higher than areas closer to the canyon floor. We managed an easy walk around one area of the rim that gave a nice view of the canyons. Easy is a relative term and we were happy when it was over. Lunchtime was spent at a pullout affording a nice view. Joyce had provisioned our lunches with all kinds of munchies and we enjoyed them all through the trip. By early afternoon we were tired of seeing the sights and headed for Durango to spend the night.
Durango is an interesting little town. I wouldn’t mind spending some time there although I found their streets and street signs confusing. There is limited parking in the downtown area and parking meters. I was steadily inserting our life savings in one trying to get it to give us enough time for dinner when a woman passing by pointed out that parking is free after 6 PM, which it clearly states on the meter in six point type. She knew because she had also tried to get a meter to work before she happened to notice the, um, discrete message about free parking after 6. We had dinner at The Living Tree where we had a nice Vietnamese salad. Joyce didn’t care for it because it was too spicy, however. The young man that served us was an expatriate from Coppel.
Next morning we hooked em for home taking a shorter though less scenic route and pulled into our driveway about 4:30, which gave us just enough time to change and make it to Abigail’s volleyball game. We got to watch her score a couple of points as the Rebs took care of Friendship in three. It was good to be home.