Mesa Verde

My sister and I have been planning to take a trip together for a while we just had no idea where we were going. There are too many places out there we want to see! We got in the car on Friday at 2pm thinking we were headed towards some Utah Natuonal Parks but after two minutes of looking at the map and weather we suddenly changed our minds and headed toward Mesa Verde National Park instead! And let me tell you, it was the right choice!!! We took the route through Ridgeway, Colorado instead of the suggested Utah way and it was incredibly beautiful. On the way home we went though Utah thinking it would be less hilly for my zero powered car and perhaps a little quicker. Instead it took about half an hour longer, more fuel, and much less of a pretty drive. Needless to say, I highly recommend our first route!

We left town at 2pm and arrived at the park entrance at exactly 6pm with a short break in between driving. Not bad at all! I was a little worried about Darby not being able to handle the drive but she did great!

(Post bed flash photography and post sleep photos)

It ended up being a pretty chilli night(I desperately need a new sleeping bag) but it wasn't bad. Darby stayed really warm, maybe a little too warm, I was over concerned with her getting cold!

The drive from our camping spot to the actual dwellings is about half and hour but another beautiful drive. If you want to see all the dwellings you need to get tour tickets before you even enter the park. There are some amazing ones I wish we could have seen in person but we didn't have the money or time. There are so many places to stop along the drive and other places we could have gone too. You could literally spend three days there and still have stuff to see! At the main stop they have a museum, book store, and a few hikes. One leads down to a self-guided dwellings that you don't need a tour ticket for and another leads to petroglyphs. It was so incredible to see the "Spuce Tree Dwellings" and learn about how they used to live! It was a big-little village and they even had a little ladder you could use to go below ground and see some of their architecture. This trip was so worth it and I can't wait to visit again some day!

xo -Liz