On the Way to the Desert

We'll miss you, Ouray! We left this morning for 10 days in the road and in the California desert with my family. We woke up this morning, started packing, cleaned the house and car, found someone to watch the cat and water the plants, and were on the road by 11:30. We drove through Dorango and Mancos, and now we are in Mesa Verde National Park in our way to a tour of Indiana ruins. We will camp here tonight and continue on the adventure. Right now in the car all the kids are yelling at me about stuff that doesn't matter. Quinn wants to know which trash can I will use to throw away her apple, and Lizza is telling Kenna over and over again that I am her mommy too. Wow. 

Mesa Verde is pretty cool. The ancient pueblo Indians built their homes within naturally forming rock cliff shelters. The shelter protected the homes and left more remains than any other ancient sites in this area. Pretty cool. You'll be just looking at a beautiful sheer cliff and then notice a stone house tucked within the walls of the cliff. We went on a tour of cliff palace which is an area with about 21 family homes all connected. Each home has a family room under the front patio/courtyard. These round rooms have a fire place, and hole in the roof where people walked down with a ladder and a hole at the bottom that reminding that their spirit came from the under world and is always moving up. Our tour guide was crazy. No matter what question someone asked, it felt like he opened up the center of a book and started reading. When I asked, why did the people abandon this place, he talked in circles about all kinds of modern Indians tribes, and he talked about them as if i had already books on the subject. I was looking for, "These are indian ruins. They were built in 200 AD and the people left in 1200 AD because of dry soil. There were houses like this everywhere, but these lasted because they were shield from wide and rain for 800 years. Here is this room and here is that room. Indians rock. The end." Instead it started with, "one time that part almost fell, but a guy names Rick talked to man named Davies from that one place, and then they blah, blah, blah. " again, I think it is critical to start with "these are pueblo ruins. Pueblos are a kind of Indian" The third grade tour, please. Does it look like I have time to even google this place while I am handing kinds food in the car for the last 3 hours trying not to get car sick?!  But in the end, the ranger answered all my questions yay. 

Then we were told there was a cool presentation about the park at the campground stage at 9 pm. This seemed late for the kids, but we never like to miss a show. Well, show was the wrong word. We walked up to kind a ranger talking with no microphone to a large group of people with a PowerPoint present ion. The slides were all text. Black an white, 12 point font. Hilarious. We waited a few minutes for the singing and dancing to start. It didn't. he started in on some black an white slides about restoration. but that was it. Then we convinced the kids to skip that "show" and watch a Tinkerbelle  in the car instead. Great trade!! And here we are! 

It's morning now. We are packed and gone. Lizza cried all night. Poor Tim. :) On to the next adventure. Back in cell service. Amen!