Mesa Verde

Mike and I left Denver Saturday for our sight seeing tour. We drove down the scenic highway thru the San Juan mountains towards Durango. This is a drive Mike has been itching to take since we arrived in CO. The weather was perfect and we had a great time being “on the road again”. After a few hours of driving we realized how hot the sun was and stopped to buy sunblock. The lady at Target told us it was too late as we were both lobster red.

We stayed just outside of Cortez which is were Mesa Verde is. We got up and went to the National Park and was so pleased that our America the Beautiful park pass worked.  We bought it in September went we first went to Rocky National Park for $80. We got our use out of it in by going to Rocky NP and also all the other NPs on this trip.

“Mesa Verde, Spanish for green table, offers a spectacular look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made it their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300.” (website)

We took a guided tour to Cliff Palace (the largest dwelling) and learned a great deal about the way of life for the cliff dwellers. “Ancestral Puebloans began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms.” (website)

 

“Sandstone, mortar and wooden beams were the three primary construction materials for the cliff dwellings. The Ancestral Puebloans shaped each sandstone block using harder stones collected from nearby river beds. The mortar between the blocks is a mixture of local soil, water and ash. Fitted in the mortar are tiny pieces of stone called "chinking." Chinking stones filled the gaps within the mortar and added structural stability to the walls. Over the surface of many walls, the people decorated with earthen plasters of pink, brown, red, yellow, or white -- the first things to erode with time.” (website).

A sunken kiva, a ceremonial room, was consistently 50 degrees all year round. The Ancestral Puebloans, used it too keep cool in the summer when not being used for rituals and only needed a small fire to warm it up in the winter. Bits of pottery and “kitchen” tools were found when the excavated the area.