Welcome to Colorado. On paper it seems like we had all the time in the world to play, but we were really rushed to try to get back home so that Joey could make it back to work. So, our next stop is Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez, Colorado. 
Mesa Verde is where Native Americans lived in cave dwellings along time ago. It was really awesome to learn about how they survived by living in the side of a mountain. 
There are several cliff dwellings in the National Park, but the Cliff Palace is the most famous and the largest cliff dwelling in North America. 
We took a tour of the Palace. We got to walk down these stairs, but the people who actually lived in these things used little tiny toe holes to climb up and down to their homes. 
Jeremy liked the ladders...
The holes in the sides aren't windows... they are doors. 
Inside that door, if you look up three "floors" there really wasn't floors, but just pretend. This is an original cave drawing. They think it has something to do with stars. 
This room/hole in the ground is a Kiva. It normally would have a roof with a whole in the middle for a ladder. This room was used for weaving baskets and ceremonial stuff. Also, there was a fire in that whole in the middle. They couldn't have a big fire though because the ladder would go over the fire and you'd have to climb down through the top where the smoke was going out. 
At the top there are some rooms that were used for food storage. 
When we were leaving we saw this mule deer. 
1 comment:
Super cool! I'm surprised that people are still allowed to walk all around on them when so many historical places are banning that kind of thing to "preserve" the material and all that.
Post a Comment