Mesa Verde was so cool that we decided to spend another day exploring the park and the cliff dwellings. We had already bought our tickets for a 10:00 AM ranger-guided tour of "Long House", one of the larger collections of cliff dwellings, so we got up in time to make the trek up the mountain and over to the second mesa in time. Wetherill Mesa is clearly the mesa less traveled, and you can tell that right away just by looking at the quality of the roads over there. They're not smooth and well-maintained like they are on Chapin Mesa. This meant, however, that there were a lot less people over on this side of the park, which is fine by us.

So we got over to the starting point of the Long House tour and loaded up on the free tram. As you can see, we love trams.

The tram dropped us and the ranger off at the trailhead along with the other twenty or so people taking the tour. We all had to walk a pretty long trail down around the cliffs to get over to the dwellings where the bulk of the tour started. Along the way, though, we did learn a lot about how the ancient Pueblo used the surroundings to survive, and that was pretty off-the-hook cool. They made moccasins out of yucca plants, for example. Cool.

When we got down to the actual cliff dwellings, I got the chance to shoot quite a few nice pictures. Here’s a sampling:

Check out the greenery popping out of the solid rock in this next picture. Apparently there's a seep spring in the mountain, and the inhabitants of Mesa Verde were able to tap into that and collect over a hundred gallons of water per day in little bowls that they carved into the sandstone floor.

The cliff dwellings are definitely too cool for words, so all I'll really say is that there's something magical and creepy about seeing the ruins. No one knows for sure why the people decided to live in the side of a mountain in an extremely difficult to reach location, or why they left after only 80 years. Maybe they were hiding or running from enemies. Maybe they wanted to save the flat land on top of the mesa for farming. I'll cheapen the mystique by guessing that, just like today, people just wanted to live "somewhere cool". For the same reason that rich folks build multi-million dollar mansions on the side of crumbling mountains in Los Angeles today, these ancient people might have just thought they had found some sweet Hollywood Hills of their own and they couldn't resist the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Who knows?

Oh yeah! And they have lots of lizards! I love lizards!

After we left Mesa Verde, we drove a couple of hours to The Royal Gorge. Who out there has heard of this thing? I never had, but a Colorado native friend of mine recommended it as a stop on out trip, so we stopped. It's a really deep gorge in Colorado that has an amazing engineering feat of a bridge crossing it. I'd seen the bridge a dozen times in books and on TV, but I never knew what I was looking at. Now I know, and I sort of wish I didn't. Here's why.

First of all, as we arrived at the Royal Gorge we found out that the toll was $21 per person. Yes, we're talking about 42 bucks for both of us. Well, maybe it's not such a big deal, because they have a whole "amusement park" spread out over both sides of the gorge. So we paid the toll and entered the park. Here's what they had to offer.

A non-petting zoo. They had all sorts of local animals in cages so that you could catch a glimpse of the area's natural wildlife without needing any luck. They just had deer and antelopes fenced in. They normally live right on the other side of the fence, but there they were, on the wrong side of the fence.

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The bridge itself was pretty cool. It's really high, and it moves quite a bit in the breeze. It was built in 1929, and it shows. The design is just a lot more elegant than modern bridges, and the driving/walking surface is wood! It’s pretty wild to drive or walk across (we did both) and hear the boards creeking and popping. Jenny did not love it.

We also tried to buy a funnel cake in the sort of carnival section of the park, but when we got up to the counter, we could see lots and lots of flies on the funnels and in the bowls of batter. This prompted us to turn around and leave, and also prompted me to coin the term "flynol cake". I'm proud of that one.

They had a free train to take you down into the gorge and back up again. It's really more of a slanted elevator. Here’s the view down toward the bottom:

And here's the view up from the bottom:

Jenny loved the train.

Maybe not.

We checked out the rest of the attractions at the Royal Gorge, but it wasn't really worth the time. There was a sort of hanging tram thing that we rode way up high across the gorge, and that was cool enough. Overall, the gorge is deep, the bridge is high, and the price is even higher. Back on the road we go.

After beating ourselves up climbing mountains and crossing bridges, we hit the road and stopped for the night in Durango, Colorado. This is a seriously beautiful mountain town! If it weren't for the fact that it gets buried in snow all winter, we'd be moving there tomorrow. We found a great health foods store and had some lunch. Then we found a campground and set up camp for the night.

I’ve been told that we're making the camping portion of this trip seem like a bummer, and that's certainly not the impression we mean to give. Actually, it's quite the opposite. Most of our campgrounds have been incredible, and the KOA in Durango was no exception. The setting was gorgeous and the weather was amazing until 3:00 AM when we had to jump up and put the rain cover on the tent to thwart a few raindrops.

Our tent, by the way, is working very well. Jenny can easily stand up inside.

And check out the view from inside:

Jenny also wanted me to post this shot of me "camping" like the real outdoorsy type that I am.

Check me out. I'm a mountain man, pretty much.

And I can't forget to mention the dinner that Jenny cooked up in Durango. She really outdid herself by coming up with some amazing vegan biscuits and gravy! All made on our practically free propane stove! I ate way too much. Shocking, I know.

So to sum up, while Royal Gorge wasn't all that hot, our entire visit to Mesa Verde National Park was a stellar experience. This is certainly THE national park to go to if you can only pick one, as everything about it is a step up from the others. Even the employees seemed a lot nicer. On one tram ride we struck up a conversation with the driver, who turned out to be a retired manufacturing manager who now lives in his RV year-round. He immediately reminded us of Bob, and we both think this is exactly how he should "retire". This would be what I'd call an active retirement. Walt, our driver, drives the tram in his favorite national park four days a week all summer, then in the winter when it gets a little too cold, he drives his home down to Arizona. "I tried Florida, but it was too humid!", he said. "I prefer Arizona!" We couldn't agree more.