IN to UT, AZ, CO in a stock JK Unlimited

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Day 10 Part 1

After a quick continental-style breakfast (why do they call it that?) we hit the road for Cortez, Colorado...

I love my GPS!

Even though sometimes what it's telling me is already pretty obvious..

We arrive at the Cortez KOA fairly early and unpack..

Nice view, and clean...

Mesa Verde is a place we've wanted to see for years, so that's our destination for today...

Picnic time, prior to taking a scheduled 3 pm tour...

The tours are fairly in-demand and require reservations. Arriving shortly after Noon, we snag the last tickets for the 3 pm Balcony House tour and an evening Cliff Palace tour. If you decide to visit (which I heartily recommend), get your tour tickets early in the day...

After lunch and having some time to kill, we take a self-guided tour of Spruce Tree House...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 2

Fantastic...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 3

We take a little drive and eventually show up in time for our tour...

Queueing up for the ladder..

Our tour guide...

Looking down and back is a little intimidating...

Then some squeezing through cracks and small openings...

At last we're inside (so to speak) Balcony House at Mesa Verde...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 4

Again many of my photos are out of order.. Please forgive..

Little bit of a dropoff...

The EXIT...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 5

This was the original entrance to Balcony House. The ladder entry was a Park Service addition for convenience and one-way visitor flow. Built into the space between the slabs of rock is the passage...

Once inside the passage, there is a big round rock that you have to somewhat straddle-across (if that makes sense) under a low ceiling. It is suspected this served to slow *visitors* enough to identify them before they could make themselves a nuisance..

This would be tough for a large person..

I'm reasonably certain the iron gate is not authentic..

More steep ladders to get out...

Again, don't look down. The fence probably isn't authentic either, but was a comfort when paired with the little pocket-steps carved into the cliffside...

Then ANOTHER ladder.. These people liked their privacy..

Colin seems to like Mesa Verde, and I'm pretty sure he's starting to get tired of the hair in his eye(s) by now...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 6

The mesa up-top has gone through a couple of forest fires over the last decade, and is sloooooowly coming back..

When you consider just how little water this area recieves, the point becomes clear that it make take a hundred years or more before it's fully "green" again... But there are signs..

Nintendo DS wins over spectacular scenery about half the time...

We queue-up for another set of ruins...

Along this beautiful canyon...

If you look closely, there's stuff squirreled-away all along these canyon walls..

It's about time for our tour, and Colin is chosen as the honorary tour assistant..

And with that, we're off...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 7

I so would have enjoyed this when I was a kid...

About to recieve the exact information we recieved at Balcony House a couple of hours earlier.. I guess if I had to figure out what this place was about from looking at what's left, there might be some limits to how much info I'd be able to provide. This guy was good though, and entertaining in clever, subtle fashion...

He also gave me some latitude for collecting images. I didn't do anything or go anywhere I wasn't supposed to, but he let me move ahead just enough to grab some clean stills...

I'm a huge YES fan, and couldn't resist snapping this "Homage to 'Leave It'" when I saw it...

John

 

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Day 10 Part 8

I knew you'd understand, and I thank you for the indulgence..

I find the masonry fascinating. I couldn't stack a set of square bricks if I tried.

Stone-in-stone chinking..

John

 

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Day 10 Part 9

Imagine looking across and seeing your neighbors' fires lining the next cliff over, and smelling their cooking...

A bit of an exciting egress if you're not expecting it, but nothing compared with Balcony House earlier...

Once back at the campsite...

We are pathetic creatures...

John

 

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Day 11 Part 1

When we first pulled in to Cortez, we stopped at the Visitors Center to find out where the KOA was and to generally get the lay of the land.. Visitors Centers have been pretty good to us in the past (although that coffee shed in Moab unbeatable) and this one should be no different.. We walk in and are greeted by what surely must be retiree volunteers who have been doing this for awhile and are somewhat unfamiliar with the needs/wants/desires of the modern travelling family...

I inquired about climbing in the area (we brought our gear but hadn't used it so far) and was greeted with a chorus of "there's nothing like that here" instead of the expected recommendation to go a little East to Durango and look up.. There was a fellow there to drop off brochures or something who did provide useful direction. He suggested we go a little East to Durango and look up, or ask at any of the several outdoors shops in town..

We drove a little East to Durango, stopped at an outfitter on the main North-South drag (just West of Main Street) and were promptly and with great kindness directed to a selection of top-rope routes on the North edge of town.. We left some of our hard-earned cash money as a momento of our visit and headed to the crag with some nifty new and slightly-used things in our gear stash...

$40 on consignment, very lightly used. I'm happy with them.

My protection...

John

 

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Day 11 Part 2

Everybody got to climb...

Not a whole lot to hang onto...

Best part was Colin got to schlep gear in his new backpack!

John

 

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Day 11 Part 3

Colin is a Boy Scout, so he volunteered daily for campfire duty...

I hope he's holding that thing right.

Some much-needed parent-child time...

We had a cabin next to a nice guy who it turns out is a cowboy shooter (competition cowboy-style shooting) and one heck of a nice guy.. Tracy asked him about his dog, and an hour later... Well, he was a terrifically nice guy who had been on the road awhile without his wife and just needed to talk to anybody who'd listen, because he hadn't spoken to anyone for days.. He went to sleep that night listening to old cowboy music, letting it waft softly through the campground. It was actually a very very nice way to close out the day...

John

 

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Day 12 Part 1

Things are winding down and today is pretty much just a travel day for us to reach Pueblo for the night...

We did stop at the Continental Divide and Colin threw a couple of snowballs..

Feigned innocence..

The creek passing under the bridge flows East, and the beginnings of a stream further up the path flows West. Cool.

East-flowing creek..

West-flowing beginnings of a stream...

Tunnel! Weeeeee!

Road Construction! Weeeeeee!

John

 

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Day 12 Part 2

Is this the end? Or is it only the beginning?

Tracy had developed a pretty severe headache from the altitude, so we had beat feet back to the lowlands...

Home of the 75 mph Speed Limit!

We checked into the Pueblo North KOA, adjacent to the racetrack (hadn't known that) and out on the edge of the windy prairie (suspected that). People were great though...

It had been a long day..

One would almost think they've been getting along... (they haven't been)

John

 

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Day 13, Day 14

Home at last...

I hope you folks have enjoyed the pictures and narrative, and maybe saw something you hadn't seen before or had your curiosity piqued. I enjoyed the trip, and looking through the pictures to string this thing together..

I must add as a postscript that Colin elected to lose the hair after spending a couple of days back in humid Indiana... Me? My hair doesn't get in my eyes... :victory:

John