Rocky Mountain high... Colorado...

Our first 14,000-footer... more about this later...

The Fort Collins Budweiser Brewery opened in 1988. It was the first brewery in Fort Collins because it was a dry town until the mid-1980's.

This is by far the largest brewery I have ever been in. The tour is free and if we had been lucky we could have seen the West Coast team of Clydesdales that reside here. They are the same ones that do the Rose Bowl, but unfortunately they are on tour all but 50 days a year. Still we enjoyed seeing the bottle of Bud and Bud Light whizzing around the track. The funny thing is that up until the eclipse I had never had a Budweiser. It took a Belgian to give me my first.

Here we are in Estes outside Rocky Mountain National Park. We just randomly chose this pull-off and there was a sign in it for the big hike that we have planned here... oh, and that is Longs Peak in the background, just to give you an idea of how big the mountains are here.

Of course we did not start out with Longs Peak but went to a lovely and more remote section of the park called Wild Basin. We are on our way to Bluebird Lake. There were a lot of people on the trail up to the waterfalls, 1.5 miles in, but after that we only passed 2 couples on their way to the lake and back. I like to hike quietly so it suited me well.

Please allow me just a moment to get up on my soapbox... DON'T feed the park rodents. They get fat and unnaturally friendly. I mean have you ever seen a double-chinned chipmunk in the wild? I mean they are so cute and easy to photograph.... but then you know what happens! Mike and I walk up on two kids trying to pet and pick one up as their parents look on and shoot photographs... idiots...

Luckily the view makes up for the bad parenting and it really was an amazing trail with cascades, three waterfalls and an alpine lake at the end.

Here is waterfall one. We just sat on a rock and enjoyed the view.

One of the amazing features of Rocky Mountain National Park is that it has snow on its peaks year round. There are also true glaciers in the park. Hopefully we will show you pictures of one of them later on if we do the long hike in the Bears Lake area.

One of the things about being more than 2 miles above sea level is that it is Spring again. I'm not kidding; it was in the low 60°F and plants that had long gone to seed in Estes were blooming here.

There are also a ton of alpine streams that feed and connect the alpine lakes. In the water there is a very cool endangered trout species, the greenback cutthroat trout, Oncorhynchus clarkii stomias. It was once widespread in Eastern Colorado but today occupies less than 1% of its historical range. It has been reintroduced into Rocky Mountain National Park and in an effort to help conservation efforts was adopted as the state fish of Colorado in 1994.

Everywhere you look in the Alpine there is something beautiful to see. For example these Fly Agaric, Amanita muscaria, were growing in a big group right off the trail. Also the predominant evergreen Lodgepole Pine, Linus contorta, and the Engelmann Spruce, Picea engelmannii. They tower over the path but are in danger of destruction from the native Mountain Pine beetle whose eggs are not killed off as they should be in the milder winters and the diminishing snow melt water.

The last 100 meters of this hike were interesting. Mike threw yet another snowball at me. This time it was at the end of August, and I couldn't wait to slide down on the way back.

When we came over the top of the hill, Bluebird Lake was waiting for us. It was the first alpine lake that Mike has ever seen and I was so impressed with the more than 180°s of sheer granite cliffs around it.

We were warned that after 1:00 p.m. storms can roll in quickly and without much warning. Unfortunately we saw the clouds headed for us so we had a quick snack and left just as the first few drops hit.

The way down was a blast. it was just like skiing: lean back to control your speed and let gravity do the work.

Just to be clear, I did not take the photo above (thank you, NPS) but I did see a Pika doing exactly this on the hike. I was so excited I did not get my camera out in time. Pikas are adorable rodents, related to rabbits, who only live above 11,000 ft and need to collect 50 lb of grasses to make it through the long winter. I would think that by May they would be dying for the snow to go away so they can have some fresh grass to eat.

Here is my best Pika photo from our Mt. Gary's hike. Again there is a YouTube video of this guy.

Mike is staring at the sky in disbelief because it is August and there are large pellets of sleet falling on us. The tree cover from evergreens is not great so we were worried that we would get wet. The infrastructure in Rocky Mountain National Park is very good. We crossed lots of streams and they all had serviceable walking bridges across them. It is nice to know that you may get sleeted on in August but your feet will stay dry crossing the stream.

On the way back to our parking spot we saw this rainbow. Unfortunately it was not our good luck rainbow, as a cop told us to move the Beaver Lodge. He was really nice and strongly suggested two other locations that we could go to if we wanted. The crazy thing was that we had looked at one of the spots and thought No, we'll get kicked out of there for sure, it's next to a lake. But lo and behold it is one of the few legal places to park in the very touristy town of Estes.

We left from the Lawn Lake trailhead and chose to hike to Ypsilon Lake because it is much less popular than Lawn Lake, for which the trailhead is named. It was 200% the right choice. The trailhead parking was quite full but we saw few people on our climb up.

Because of this we saw tons of birds. A hummingbird flew up to check us out and then squeeked at us from a nearby tree. We watched this Gray Jay, Perisoreus canadensis, eat a Fly Agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria, which is semi-poisonous and mildly hallucinogenic to humans, with no issue at all to the bird. Time for a Woods 101 lesson... just because the rodents and birds eat it without harm doesn't mean you can. Be sure you know your plants before going wild foraging.

Before we got to Ypsilon Lake we passed Chipmunk Lake. It was stunning. We sat on the rocks and looked for invertibrates in the water. We saw Water Boatmen, Backswimmers, Black Water Beetles, and Dragonfly larvae hunting them all. It is a fairly shallow lake so no fish that we could see. We spent time lounging and napping, well I napped, before finishing the hike.

On the way back we spotted this tree. It is amazing how different the same path looks on the way out and the way back. For instance we missed this super cool dead pine tree that is a home for chickadees.

Next we ventured up the Trail Ridge Road, to the Alpine Rangers Station. To do this requires a 9 mile drive up a one-way dirt road that is not recommended for vehicles over 21 feet... Luckily we are 19 feet and just fit. You can see Castor and GS looking a bit worried about the potential drop-offs.

But as road drives go it was very exciting and there was a lot to see. If you can't tell already, there are a lot of waterfalls in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Here is another shot of the Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest road in any national park, and the valley that we spent the morning hiking in. The road is very well groomed... though I wonder how they maintain it with all the snow and then snow runoff?

For the last hike of the day we did the Alpine Tundra hike. It was a lovely out-and-back over a landscape that I had never seen before. Obviously no trees but tons of lichen, grasses/sedges, spagnums, cushion plants and dwarf varieties of other plants that grow at higher latitudes. Many flowering plants have dense hairs on their stems and leaves to provide wind protection, or red-colored pigments that enable them to convert the sun's light rays into heat.

On the way out of the park we saw a herd of elk. This park is so well protected and managed that the wildlife is abundant and I get so excited to be able to see and photograph them.

I can't believe that we have had such a nice spot for two days looking out over Mary's Lake. It is so close to the park, very flat, and gives me a lovely view as I fall asleep. I enjoy watching the sun set as I cook dinner and then watching the moon set as I fall asleep. Even though we are in town, sort of, there are so many more stars here.

Today we opted to go to the Bear Lake area in the park. This is by far the most popular and well traveled area in the park. Many of its trails have low elevation change with big things to see. I mean some of the trails are actually partially paved! The first lake that we saw was Dream Lake. You can see Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain in the background. What makes this area cool is that it gives so many people access to the Continental Divide, of which Flattop Mountain is a part.

It is an interesting experience in hiking for me to come across a pond like this right on top of the last attraction. In PA, as well as most locations, you must hike many miles to see something this lovely. Yet at this location in Rocky Mountain National Park you can see so much.

Yet even in this location we saw twenty Elk at close range, less than 10 ft. If you would like to see more of our encounter please head over to YouTube, and you can see them come down the trail at us.

We then continued on to Jewel Lake. Going to this lake was a happy mistake as it is under the shadow of the jagged eastern ridge known as the Keyboard of the Winds. The wind was low here so you are able to see these peaks reflected in the lake itself. If I were an Elk, this is where I would want to live in the park.

Of all the days we spent in the park, I think that this view over the gorge back down to The Loch is my favorite. You come up a long set of switchback, "stairs" and rocks to make it here. Mike and I usually skip lunch but today we had packed PB & J to have. Lucky, because I was enjoying watching the Pikas and Marmots play on the rocks.

After lunch we took a look at Timberline Falls which cascades over 100 feet to land on rocks and then continue down the gorge to fill The Loch. Just to the right of the falls is a fun section of trail which climbs roughly 200 feet in just 0.15 miles. So many people crowded into the same section, following whatever the person ahead of them did even if it meant getting wet. Of course I made my own path up a more difficult section to avoid the water.

Once you climb up the rock scramble, you come out at Lake of Glass. This beautiful lake has the dominating Talors Peak (13,153 ft) and glacier at the foot of the lake.

The water here is so green in the sun and it houses enormous Brook, Rainbow and Cutthroat Trout. I know you can't see them in this shot but there are several fly fishermen taking advantage of the excellent weather.

Framing the water on either side, Lake of Glass and Sky Pond, is Thatchtop Mountain, 12,668', and The Sharkstooth Peak 11,691'. I know you can't see them, but there are three climbers of The Sharkstooth formation pictured above. See, I do have limits! I did not spot them up there and immediately demand that Mike find a trail up so I could see what it is like too.

For those of you who find long distance hiking confusing or odd, there is an unofficial badge or status that you can earn called the Triple Crown; see map above. The total length of the three trails is about 7,900 miles, vertical gain is more than 1,000,000 feet, and a total of 22 states are visited.

See if you can tell which one Mike is standing on right now... it is the first time he had hiked any portion of this trail.

Today we are on the other side of Rocky Mountain National Park. This is the portion near the Grand Lake entrance.

You can see that the Green Mountain-Onahu Creek Loop hike has vastly different views from the other side of the park. Gone are the iconic Rocky Mountain views, and they are replaced with lower hills and hidden meadows. This is by far the less hiked section of the park, which is a shame because it is very lovely to hike in to. Big Meadows is the largest mountain meadow in the park. You can see Mike leaning on a horse hitch and trying to see if there are any Elk or Moose out grazing. Along the meadow on the trail side you will pass the remnants of an old homesteader's cabin from the early 1900's. Unfortunately the cabin is in poor condition. Both the roof and the back wall have collapsed, and it is filled with dead pine trees. One of the worst parts of this hike is seeing how much damage the pine beetle has done here.

After this we headed to Golden, Colorado to see the Coors brewery... unfortunatly it was an hour wait to get on the bus for the tour so we skipped it...

The Buckhorn Exchange, which has liquor license Number One in the State of Colorado, and is the State's first steakhouse, was founded on November 17, 1893 by Henry H. "Shorty Scout" Zietz. When you enter this iconic restaurant you are greeted by the stares of hundreds of taxidermied eyes.

There is a video tour of the restaurant on YouTube.

Normally I do not put up bar photos but this one is different. Five Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, drank at this bar. As have hundreds of Hollywood legends, such as Bob Hope, Jimmy Cagney, Charlton Heston, astronauts Scott Carpenter and Jack Swigert, Great Britain’s Princess Anne, Roy Rogers and Will Rogers. The restaurant has photos and memorabilia from most of them. One thing that is not on display is the military saber taken from the vanquished General George Custer in the Battle of Little Big Horn. In 1938 Sitting Bull’s nephew, Chief Red Cloud, and a delegation of thirty Sioux/ Blackfoot Indians rode into town in full battle regalia, and ceremoniously turned over to Shorty Scout Zietz the sword. What an amazing sight to see.

For dinner we started with Rattlesnake dip and Rocky Mountain Oysters. We then moved on to Mike's dish of Quail and Elk and mine of Elk and Buffalo. The food was very good, service was pleasant and overall it is the best meal we have had since leaving.

So when Paula and I were on our trip out west in 2012 we stopped, by accident, in Georgetown Colorado. It is a super cute town near Loveland Pass. You can ride to the top of the pass and then take the harrowing 18 mile downhill ride to Georgetown. It is the best ride. Eventually there will be a video of the ride on YouTube.

I know that this is an odd photo for us to add, but it comes with a super cool story that will be continued on Mt. Evans. In this area, car companies do high-altitude product testing. We saw this black truck twice and are fairly certain it's a Dodge. This means we are seeing the truck that will be out in 2019 or 2020.

Here is the start of the ride along the Continental Divide.

After our ride I was also able to go back to the Alpine Restaurant. I loved their Italian fare and to be honest I never thought that I would be back, so it was fun to finally get to share something with Mike that I had experienced out west. So far he has been the tour guide and expert.

We found a perfect camping spot in front of the Georgetown Steam RR. I love hearing it cross the tracks and blow its whistle.

Another fun fact is that the river that is flowing right past the Beaver Lodge, under the train bridge and into Georgetown, is the same river that Coors uses for its Rocky Mountain brew. We need to go to bed fairly early because we're getting up to do our first two 14,000ers (called Fourteeners in Colorado) tomorrow morning. In Colorado there are 53 mountain peaks above 14,000 feet. In the lower 48 this is as high as you can go without a plane.

The road you see in this photo is 4 wheel drive only. The Beaver Lodge made it .3 of a mile before we gave up, drove back down and walked. This is the first view that you get... yes we are walking all the way up there.

On the way up the road you pass a lot of private residences. They ask you to be courteous and stay on the road so that the landowners continue to be friendly to the hikers who come here. This cool abandoned barn is on the road up.

Of course I had to go in to try to get the iconic Colorado picture of mountains and trees through a dilapidated door.

Here we are at the trailhead. At this point I am super excited, and also nervous about altitude sickness. No way to know if we will get it... just have to go and monitor for symptoms.

Here is the split-off to make a loop of the 2 peaks. We did Grays first, but in retrospect I would do Torreys Peak first, come across the saddle and then summit Grays coming back to this point on the easier grade downhill trail.

Either way we both made it, safe and happy...maybe even a little bit of Rocky Mountain high?!

Now of course at the top of Torreys I wanted to try to take the Kelso Ridge trail back, without knowing that it was a Class 3 scramble. Here is Mike coming down a section...

And here is a picture of the Kelso Ridge. Needless to say we turned around and went back the way we came. Guess I finally hit my limit.

When we got back we went into town to celebrate with beer and the best poppy seed ice cream at the Georgetown Valley Candy Company. Then we went back to the Beaver Lodge, talked to family and friends, and chilled.

Today we are going to drive the scenic Guanella Pass through the Arapaho National Forest. Here the Aspen leaves are changing, at altitude, to their famous yellow hue. After this we are heading up the highest road in North America. When they started this project, the road was meant to go up and over the mountain. I am glad they never got it finished.

Now there are some really cool things on this 14-mile drive. Every mile you drive up is like going 600 miles north in latitude. This makes the alpine, sub-alpine, and tundra accessible to so many people. Also it gave us the chance to see Mountain Goats!! Mike has been on the lookout for these guys since we arrived. Technically we saw them after summiting Grays Peak but they were so far off they looked like white cotton balls.

Here is a view from the summit of Mount Evans. We drove and hiked in an August snow squall. Love it!! You can see the Beaver Lodge in the parking lot below. You can also see the end of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, the ruins of the Crest House and the Meyer–Womble Observatory.

Here we are at the top. In case you can't read the sign, it says:

MT. EVANS

14264 FT * 8/30/17

* The fourteen thousander where you do 1% and your car does 99%. 😂

The view was great. If you look in the back right you can see Grays and Torreys peaks. Very cool to get to look back on them.

On the way up and down the Mt. Evans road we kept seeing more test vehicles.

The drivers were from Germany, which helped confirm Mike's suspicions that they are VW's. If you want to see a video of of future VW run, head over to YouTube.

After Mt. Evans we came back to our spot to just chill. Here is Mike listening to Music and writing his journal.

On our way out of town, going to Breckenridge, I insisted on on one more poppyseed icecream before we left. I figure that perhaps this may be my last trip to Georgetown. So glad to have been here again even if it was lacking in hummingbirds... this time 😅

If you are ever here this is where you too can have the best icecream and popcorn.

So we are so excited to say we have rim-to-rim-to-rim permits for the Grand Canyon! We just got our permits today for November 26th!

So today is a BIG mountain day. We are planning to do four 14,000-footers....

We made it! In addition to summiting, we saw such views and had a great day.

Here is our early morning climb. We got lucky and met a local on the way up. After my slight disaster with the last route I thought we should ask someone what was the best way to go. He was so right.

After our first summit we saw this incredible ultralight craft flying... hey we'll have to go to Alaska to get that high by foot.

This is our 2nd summit. So many mountains don't have this medallion so you are never quite sure when you get to the summit.

Off the edge of the second mountain you can see these two lovely alpine lakes. In retrospect the two lakes were on the map but the summit was not... I think two birds with one stone for us.

Now as you look out across this expanse you can see our last two summits. Now the downside is the bathroom...

The second peak that you see in the previous photo was the hardest of the three. We really had to work hard for this one, which makes me feel oddly satisfied despite the possible altitude sickness and sore legs. Oh, and Mike got to throw another snowball at me in September. He is now four for four on the months and snow.

Here is a view from the top of Democrat Maintain down the valley. The silence is lovely and the view perfect. We had some nuts and just relaxed before attempting the way down. Can I just say again... up twice is better than down once. Too bad that mountains don't work that way.

On the way down we ran into this. For those non-Pennsylvanians, this is acid mine drainage from silver mines in the region. This area has been National Park for years. Still all of the Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead and other heavy metals pour down. This just shows how long it takes for mining damage to be mitigated even in an area that was lightly prospected.

After these 4 summits we passed through Alma. Highest Incorporated Town in North America. We skipped the very touristy Highest Saloon in North America.

In retrospect, this ends up being the last 14,000er of this series. Though the interesting thing is I didn't know it at the time.

We hiked up through beautiful evergreen and Aspen forest. It had been quite a while since we did a hike in the woods. I didn't know how much I had missed it.

Then we ran into this Aspen stand of trees. We know that in Pennsylvania fall would never come quite so early. We had seen the Aspen trees changing at altitude since August. I spent a long time trying to figure out what the shot was here. Up close you can see all the leaves and back further you can see how many trees are changing.

This is Aurora the Adventure Dog. She was so incredibly cute and posed for me as I took her picture on the way up the hill; and by hill I mean mountain because this amazing husky and I were both going all the way up.

If you look at the URL in this photograph, it may not mean anything. To us it is an amazing resource. These people have worked really hard to take all the 14,000 ft mountains in the United States and track every known route up them. It really helps us to be safe as we try to do our very basic climbs. Also they do an incredible amount of volunteer work to make sure that the routes up the mountains are as they are stated to be. When we were climbing we saw enormous baskets of rock, clay and silt that they were placing at strategic points on this well-used summit trail.

Because of this organization and so many others like them, we were able to make it to the top safely. Here is our summit photo... this Fourteener tops at 14,265'.

We were not entirely sure what to do next so we headed to the Colorado desert... oh with a stop in the National Forest on the way.

I knew nothing about this National Park. When we were there it seems as though it's one of the least visited in the United States.

This National Park works hard to make it accessible to the visitor. I was shocked when I found out that we could ride boards down the dunes! They also have a huge 4-wheeling area that exits a National Park and goes into neighboring Preserves and National Forests. We rented the board for $20 at a private company just outside the National Park. It was really a wonderful experience. Only later would we realize that you can only access a small amount of the dunes as a day area visitor. If you want to have the real experience, you need to stay overnight in the dunes. This sabbatical has allowed me to avoid the big public holidays, which meant that when we were in the dunes there was no one there but us.

We started out by walking down the river toward the dunes. You are mandated to climb over 2 ridges before you're allowed to camp. This might seem incredibly simple but the dunes here are not small. They are the largest in North America. Star dune is over 700 ft tall.

After we exited the meandering river bank we were faced with this prospect. You simply have to go toward the Durhams and then attack them one at a time. You keep thinking that you can see really far ahead but then you get there and there is an enormous dune valley or an impassable ridge. Mike and I made a lot of jokes about The Sarlacc. If this is not familiar to you, you should absolutely watch all of the Star Wars movies immediately. I mean for heaven sakes how have you become an adult and not watched all the Star Wars movies!

OK so I have to say that we did wish we had a hovercraft that took us to the edge of the dunes, like they have in Star Wars.

But we did end up making it.

By the time we got to camp we had both spoken to our parents on the top of a dune, which was extremely exciting. Do I have to say setting up the tent was a little less so. Unfortunately when I had the tent pad down, the tent up and the fly in hand, the wind decided to misbehave. I got completely eaten by the tent as I was trying to secure it. The magical thing is I managed not to lose any of my stakes. I know this seems silly but it's sort of a point of pride that I have had this tent for several years and never managed to lose one of the stakes .

Once we'd managed to get it anchored in the valley, we climbed up the nearest dune to see the sunset.

After the Sun went down, the real fun began. There were so many animals that came out almost immediately. This is a mole cricket. Mike and I had only seen one before, on the Appalachian Trail, and he's very fond of them. We also saw beautiful Sphinx moths being chased by Brown bats. The one thing that we didn't see that we really wanted to was a kangaroo rat. Unfortunately lots of holes but no actual live rodent.

Our sleep was questionably good. It is amazing how much a tiny slant and sand in the face will make your sleep minimal . When the Sun came up we got up as well. This picture was taken as the sun came over the ridges, with the sunrise on the dunes. When you only see the day-use area you never see a dune that doesn't have any footprints on it. Being in the backcountry, incredibly alone, gives you a moment to ponder what it's like to be in a bigger desert where there are no maps, no water and no visitor center.

I love this photograph because walking downhill on the dunes is a magical experience. When you run or walk or do any sports, there's always a mantra that says let gravity do the work for you. I'm not entirely sure I knew what that meant until I walked down a dune. The sand is so soft and you are able to bounce and bounce all the way down. Just make sure you know where you're going, because if you end up in the wrong valley you have to walk up the other side. Luckily we were very vigilant and managed to take a good path both in and out.

After I spent a night in the dunes we wanted to see the rest of the park. Not very many people take this route. The National Park works hard to try to mark the path, but as you can see the sand has a mind of its own! In this park you're welcome to spend as many nights in the backcountry as you want as long as you register. This means it's an incredible bargain !

In that country we saw so many lovely species. Of all of them, Mike has been wanting to see the Velvet Ants. The scary part is that there is NO water at this time of year. When we left the Ranger Station they were not not sure about the water in most of the creeks. Remember this is a lightly visited park so there are not a ton of park staff to hike the trails.

We hiked through to a camping spot called Aspen. Named so for the fact that it has lovely Aspen trees that are probably in the neighborhood of 60 to 80 years old. It also gives you a beautiful view of the dunes as the sun comes up and goes down.

On the first night, Mike wanted to walk down and take some photographs of the dunes. I stayed back to cook dinner while listening to my iPod. It's so easy to just relax when you're in this environment. On the other hand I guess it could be very stressful, but we ran into two guys who were on their way out and told us that there were a lot of running streams past this camping spot so we would be fine.

In the evening we watched the sun set over the dunes and mountains.

In the morning we hiked to the end of the trail. Sandy Creek is the last camping spot in the park and it is a 10 mile round trip from Aspen campground. This would not seem like a big deal except that the entire trail is loose sand, which is like hiking in wet concrete. We also saw a whole lot of mountain lion prints in the sand. This is not the kind of thing that I might normally be worried about, except that there were no people footprints over them. We were absolutely certain that there was no one else in this area because on our walk in, the couple that we met told us we were the first people they had seen in days. This meant that the mountain lion had been down at the trail less than 12 hours ago.

To make things a tiny bit easier, we decided to hike in a dry river bed.

It might seem that nothing could possibly survive here but on this particular rock, just past the river bed, we saw no less than four species of Evergreen.

We made it back to Aspen Campground that night and enjoyed watching the moon rise.

On the way back to the Beaver Lodge we took the 4-wheel drive route just to see if we could have made it to the next parking lot in our van. Luckily we did not try it. The sand was so soft and there were so many ruts in the road that there was no way we would have made it all the way through.

After the National Park we decided to head towards New Mexico. I was on the phone with my mom and I said I really wanted to see this particular community called the Earthship Community. I told her I wasn't entirely sure where it was and then we got cut off. Right after that we drove past it! These are amazing houses that do water reclamation, passive and active solar collection, grow their own food, and at times even have aqua culture that allows them to raise fish. All of this is paired with very forward-thinking architecture that matches with the landscape. I wish that we had been able to stop and meet anyone who owned any of these houses. I guess I was just nervous that they were tired of people knocking on their door being nosy bodies.

When we were in New Mexico for a very short period of time, we decided to stop and sleep overnight in San Juan National Forest. It was a really magical place to sleep. Then we went to see Chimney Rock. It is a landmark that both native peoples and early explorers used to navigate in this area. After that we made a different decision, decided to go to Southern Utah and turned in that direction. On our way there, we ended up in Durango, Colorado. At Ska Brewing we met a local businessman who changed the course of our stay here.

He told us to go and check out the Durango railroad. Here is the main building. It is a lovely puffing-billy railroad that also works hard to promote the local community. We found out that there was a 10K race the next day, which of course I wanted to run. I was able to sign up at the community center before we went to dinner at this incredible Mexican restaurant.

We had ceviche to start, then I had 5 incredible tacos: tongue, cow cheek, cactus, intestines and carnitas. This is some of the best Mexican food I've had ever! I'm not sure it was the best idea right before a race but I'm hoping for the best.

The race went really well! I have to say that Durango is an amazingly cohesive town where people really come together for a cause. I have run only a few races but never one that was as much fun as this. It was an incredibly difficult race. We went directly up and down one of the Colorado mountains in the area. I guess I'm just glad that we have been around for weeks, so I am somewhat acclimatized to the elevation change. After that we went through the sponsors who set up tents and saw everyone get their medals. In so many races people leave long before that happens, but everyone stayed around for this ceremony. It was really lovely and clear that the organizers of this Alzheimer's race have deep ties to the Durango community.

You start analyzing your life choices when you're in Walmart and the most exciting thing you've ever found there is a company that does discount, bulk, freeze-dried food!! Going up to the checkout with my 2 enormous boxes of Ramen and 5 containers of freeze-dried food made me feel like I was prepping for the dismemberment of the federal government, the arrival of the aliens, or just another apocalyptic story. Can I tell you it might be possible that there is as much food in the Beaver Lodge now as there was when we left home! Oh, and a couple more growlers too.

Mesa Verde National Park is a National Park and Unesco World Heritage Site. It protects and displays some of the best preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States. There are about 5,000 ruins, 600 of them are cliff dwellings, and of course 99% are not open to visitors. This is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States, and Mesa Verde is Spanish for "Green Tableland". An interesting thing is that the mesas for which the park is named is geologically incorrect. They are actually Cuestas. This may seem like an odd and silly distinction to make, but the fact that it is 7ﾟslanted towards the sun made these areas extremely good for farming. It of course formed the backbone of the Pueblo society here. In the photo above you can see some of the earliest building styles. The park does an amazing job of leading at the visitor center from the "Basketweaver" culture to the Ancestral Puebloan cliff culture. Now it is understood that these two distinctions are actually a progression of the same society. This is truly an ancient site that was seasonally inhabited by a group of nomadic Paleo-Indians known as the Foothills Mountain Complex from about 7500 BCE. Later, Archaic people established semi-permanent rockshelters in and around the mesa. By 1000 BCE, the Basketmaker culture emerged from the local Archaic population, and by 750 CE the Ancestral Puebloans had developed from the Basketmaker culture. What you will see now is from 1,000 CE to 12,000 CE.

The first set of dwellings that we went to was on Wetherill Mesa. It is known as Long House and is the second-largest Mesa Verdean village. The vast majority of what you see in all these photos is original. All the wood beams that you see sticking out of the house have helped archeologists to date the construction and habitation periods.

On this tour there were only 6 of us! It was incredibly lucky. We were the last tour of the day and it meant that we got a very personal look at this incredible Ancestral Pueblo village. Our tour guide for this was amazing. Not only did she take lovely photos of us but she gave a wonderfully informed talk asking us to put ourselves in the place of the people who once lived here. You would think that you wouldn't need to take all the tours because the buildings on the surface look similar, but you really do if you want to get a real understanding of this culture.

There are also wild horses in Mesa Verde! We were incredibly lucky to see this one. I guess it's the fact that we took the last tour of the day and drove out almost at sunset.

Here is the sunset that we watched in Mesa Verde.

On the next day we went back to do the largest and most popular tour in the park. We were smart enough to do it as the very first tour of the day and we had a wonderful tour guide. It may not seem to matter that we were on the first tour, but it means that you get a look at the entire ruins without anyone else standing in it! Cliff Palace is located in the largest alcove in the center of the Great Mesa in the park, and provided greater warmth from the sun in the winter. This site dates back more than 700 years, and the dwelling is constructed of sandstone, wooden beams, and mortar. You will see a closer photo of this, following below.

Cliff Palace display has unbelievably beautiful examples of tower structures made by the Ancestral Puebloan people. Also, if you notice, some of the windows are more T-shaped. This is a feature that they believe helped to minimize heat loss during the Winter.

We are now at Balcony House. As promised, here is a much closer view of the beautiful mortar work, colouration of the stone, and window work that is so prevalent in all of these structures.

Here is a better photograph of Balcony House. What we didn't tell you is that you have to go up a very long ladder to get into the house and then you have to climb through a tunnel to get out! The Rangers try to scare you when you start on the tour. But this is extremely wise because as far as we know, no one has ever fallen off the longest ladder in the park which takes you to this structure.

Here is a photograph of the other side at Balcony House. There is a round structure that I haven't really covered up until this point, and I'd like to do so now. It is called a Kiva and it was the center of their religious life, as well as serving as a place for the people to sleep during harsh weather conditions.

Here is a view of the inside of one of these structures. Going from the top to the bottom you have a clean air shaft, a windbreak, fire pit and a Sipapu. This small hole reminds the Puebloan people of their connection to their creation myth. They believed they were born out of the center of the Earth, and thus this hole is a way to access their ancestors.

Here is the last photo of Balcony House. One of the most important duties that would have been undertaken in this area was the grinding of maize. It would have been a communal job done by women and these stones represent the work space that they would have had. It would not have been lonely work because it's clear that people would have surrounded them, talking and laughing while they did their work.

After seeing the place where Puebloan people lived, Mike and I wanted to go out and see their metaphoric newspaper.

The trail is absolutely exquisite. It gives the visitor time to walk along the cliffs, see some non-Ranger-led sites, and if you follow along with the brochure available at the trailhead you get to see a lot of the flora and fauna and learn more about the ecosystem that you've been visiting. Also an amazing feature is that they had modern-day scholars decipher the petroglyphs that you see on the wall. I guess it gave me a sense of authenticity.

This is one of the last images that we had of Mesa Verde. Just out of this photograph is a beautiful museum which was created to look like the ancient Puebloan dwellings. It has mostly older exhibits, but you do get a feeling for some of the pottery pieces that you can't see on site. It also does a nice job of trying to explain how the ancient people caught and snared their food.