From Red to Green

The front of the truck’s a bit buggy.

Mesa Verde is kind of weird. It’s not the cliff dwellings — although there are some mysteries as to why they were built and why abandoned — because we haven’t seen them yet. It’s not the landscape, which is incredible. Our drive was short (two and half hours), but we left the dramatic red rock of Utah behind and entered rolling plains of green with big mountains in the distance. We are now high on a green mesa (hence the name) with views of snow covered peaks in Colorado and the vast, rolling plain to the west and south. Four Corners is out there some place. That four states meet there is less remarkable than the land around it.

What’s weird is that while the park is lovely and rather popular, the campground facilities are unkempt. It has well over 400 sites. The facilities are here: a big store, gas, laundry, showers. They are just old and a bit decrepit. The store seems understocked for its size. The gas station didn’t seem open. The campground is one of the roughest we’ve stayed in. The roads haven’t been paved in awhile and many of the sites are grass only because it has grown through the gravel. The restrooms are old and in disrepair. Perhaps the Park Service spent all of the extra money on the Yosemite movie (lots of helicopter shots). Or perhaps all of the money goes directly to studying and preserving the archeology in the park. I’ll let you know tomorrow.

The history of this area and the ruins are intriguing — there are hundreds of cliff dwellings. The people who built them were once called the Anasazi. I love the sound of that name. Unfortunately, it’s a Navaho word that means ‘ancestors of our enemies.’ They are now called ‘ancestral Puebloans.’ Their present-day descendants include the Hopi and Zuni.

We have lots of questions about the history here, as well as when and how severe the fire in the park had been — the evidence of it is everywhere — and whether the horses roaming about are wild. I’ll fill you in next time.