Day 8 & 9

(Side note: you can click on the pictures and some computers will let you see a larger one.)

We left Taos on day 8 and headed for Mesa Verde National Park. The weather was still cooperating and was actually a cool 57!

We took Route 64 out of Taos and drove through the Earthship Area. All of the homes are built mostly underground and are self-sustainable/green homes. The part of the homes that are above ground are all different and individual. Very artsy, if you catch my drift. They are all just out in a big (what we would call) field and face in all different directions.

From there, we drove through the towns of Chama and Durango and arrived then at Mesa Verde National Park. This is a very interesting area because of the cliff dwellings. This is a larger cliff dwelling settlement than the one we saw last year in Gila National Park in New Mexico, but both of us decided to forgo the tour of the Cliff Palace because we did not stop at the visitors center to get tickets (it is park ranger guided). But we did see four windows that were actually doors at the time of the cliff dwellers.


On day 9 we woke up in Cortez, Colorado. We visited Canyonlands National Park. This park has completely different rock formations than the others we have seen. These rocks were like round discs piled on top of each other. There were other formations as we drove into the Park that were similar to formations in other parks. We pulled over to observe the Newspaper Rock near the entrance. This was a rock face that had hieroglyphics, with the rock appearing red with a black coating, and where the hieroglyphics were scraped into the rock they showed up white, so there was distinct contrast.


We stopped early today to rest because the temperature was getting pretty high. We are in Moab, Utah. Tomorrow our goal is Arches National Park and beyond. We plan an early morning to get a start on the day.