Cortez, Colorado Part 1

On Sunday July 19th it was time to leave Durango; next stop was Cortez, Colorado.  We must admit we are enjoying our short travel days. Even stopping to get fuel on our way out of town, it only took us 2 hours to drive to Cortez.

We stayed at La Mesa RV Park.  A great park and we will stay there again when in town.  The lady that owns the park was a wealth of information and super friendly.  The WiFi was amazing.  They also take most discounts, which always helps.

The nice thing about short travel days is that it allows us to check out the area when we get to our destination.  We drove over to the Anasazi Heritage Center Museum,  They had a nice museum and a trail that led up to a Anasazi Ruin at the top of the hill overlooking Dolores Lake.  Dolores is a man made lake.  Before they dammed up the lake they sent in 500 archaeologists working for 7 1/2 years to recover all artifacts that would be covered by the lake.  Their findings are what you see in the museum.

View from the top of the walk at the museum

Ruins at the top of the hill 

We then drove over to the town of Dolores to see the Galloping Goose (actually there were two made) the other is in Telluride.  They were used during the depression so they did not have to run the full train.  They are still used on occasion for historical events.

Monday we spent the day at Mesa Verde National Park. Link to Mesa Verde National Park   WOW !  We will be making another trip to Mesa Verde because we saw less than half the park.  We started in the Visitor Center.  Because we only had one day we decided to concentrate on Chapin Mesa.  We saw the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum.  For safety and to preserve the ruins, three of the ruins are now done by tour only.  We took the tour of Balcony House and Cliff Palace.   We also took the Mesa Top Loop Tour.  Stopping at the overlooks and a picnic lunch and our day was full.

Balcony House required climbing two long ladders and crawling through a tunnel to see it.  It is the only Cliff dwelling that faces the East.  Most face the south to take advantage of the sun.

Cliff Palace as seen from an overlook.  It is the largest of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

Cliff Palace from the tour

Square Tower House as seen from the overlook, we will see it up close on our next visit.  They were doing some preservation work so it was closed to tours.

Spruce Tree House as seen from the overlook.  It was getting late and about to rain.  Wayne quickly did the hike and saw some of it.  I will see it when we go back.

After dinner we went to the Cortez Cultural Center where they had members of the Ute and Dine' Indian Tribes who performed dances, played the flute and told stories.  Fun and informative.

Her dress was called a Jingle Dress - the silver ornaments made a jingling sound as she danced.  Her mother hand sewed the dress.

Charlie explained all pertinent details of his costume.  It was also made by his mother.

He had made all of his flutes.  He had played a flute at the opening of the 2002 Olympics. The songs were good but we enjoyed the animal and bird noises he could make with them.