April 2007.........

Mesa Verde National Park: The park is located on H-160, East of Durango, close to the town of Cortez. We traveled there on a day trip from Gallup New Mexico. The park was created in 1906 to preserve the archeological heritage of the Pncestral Puebloans, both on the mesas and in the cliff dwellings below. There are 4,500 archeological sites, and 600 of them are cliff dwellings. Cowboys first discovered the cliff dwellings in the 1880's, and archeologists have been studying them since. The museum is 21 miles from the park entrance, it serves as the visitor center in the winter. The trip takes about an hour, and then you start viewing the cliff dwellings, so don't plan to make this a quick stop. You can hike to some of the ruins and walk around them.

July 2007.........

Garden Of The Gods: Just outside of Colorado springs, it's a 1340 acre free city park. It contains red sandstone rock formations, as well as plant and animal life. Some of the rock formations are over 300 million years old. One of the most famous is Balanced Rock, a layer at the base of the rock has more shale formed from mud that wore away faster and left a small support for the huge rock. We took the Rampart Range Road out of the park, we didn't know how far it went or how bad it was. Drove for quite a while, chickened out and turned around. While in this area be sure to visit Woodland Park and the areas surrounding the Springs.

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