This past weekend wen went on a trip with the Vocana cousins to Mesa Verde National Park in Southwest Colorado. This is where the Ancient Puebloan (formally known as Anasazi) people used to live in cliff houses.
It is the only National Park whose purpose is to perserve ancient history. They have Park Rangers at all the sites to answer questions. This is Spruce Tree House.
The have reconstructed the roof of a "kiva" and they let you down inside. Here is Seth making his descent. Since they left no written record, we really don't know much about these people, or why they picked up and left their homes. I was a little frustrated by this, but it is an opportunity to imagine.
Brad, Sophie, Seth
Long House- this was our favorite. There were only two other men in our group, so it was like we got a personalized tour. Our ranger was good with kids and Brad even thought up his own question to ask and had the courage to ask. We got to climb behind the housing to see the spring that provided water to these people.
Cliff Palace
On a tragic, but certainly memorable note. On Sunday night about 3:30, the woman at the campsite next to ours came running over and woke us up saying "Help!! My husband is unresponsive, we're in site 44, call 911" I woke up Dan and he went over to start CPR. Luckily Robby had awoken and came with me to make the call. We had no cell phone coverage and all I could think was to find the resident campsite couple, figuring they'd have a radio, in the dark we couldn't tell, but Robby remembered where some payphones were at. We had 911 on the phone within 5 minutes, but being at the top of the Mesa which requires a very windy rode to access, it was 20 minutes before the ranger arrived with a defibrilator and 5 more minutes for the ambulance. Dan did CPR this whole time with Kyle and I giving him a short break. Unfortunately, too much time had passed and the man didn't make it. Later that morning the rangers came to pack up the tent and through them we were able to hear the rest of the story. She was grateful for our help and we felt good about what we were able to do, she wasn't alone, we did CPR and called 911 and everyone was really calm. The whole thing seems a bit surreal.
After that experience, we packed up and went to Four Corners.
Brad being cuddly.
We spent the night in Monticello and visited the temple. We stayed in a motel that Brad deemed "the nicest hotel ever!" and went swimming that night and morning. We ate at an awesome outdoor family style grill/dutch oven dinner. The kids each got a full steak. It was a great trip and nice to be with family.
