Mesa Verde National Park is a way cool place. We went in June on the way home from Albuquerque. It was awesome to go see, but it has to go in #9 because it is absolutely NOT a place to take children. We were practically the only people with kids there at all. There is a lot of hiking in the mountains and lots and lots of steep drop off on the sides of the trails. So, we really had to watch the kids closely. Max was in a stroller, which helped, but even that was a lot of work to push up and down the hills.
But, it is really an AWESOME place. Mostly what we saw are cliff dwellings that the Anasazi Indians built and lived in thousands of years ago. It is incredible that they even still exist. It is also amazing that they were built at all. Most of the cliff dwellings are on the side of the cliff and are incredibly difficult to get to - and that is with marked and paved trails. I can't even imagine how they were built to begin with.
One day, when our kids are older, it would be awesome to go see again. It's really a great place for camping and backpacking.
This is called Cliff Palace - it is the largest dwelling there. We didn't get to go see this one up close. It had a 15 foot ladder to climb, so there is no way we could have taken Max. You can tell how huge it is compared to the group of tourists. The bottom picture is the other half. All of the circles in the ground are called Kivas. They think they were some kind of religious room because they all have an altar on one side.
Wow! I've seen photographs of places like that, but I didn't know you could actually go hiking there. I would love to see it some day!
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