Mesa Verde is a most unusual national park. It preserves cliff dwellings and petraglyphs of the Anasazi, who were ancient pueblo people living in the area from about 700-1300 A.D. Upon arriving at the park, we took a tour of Cliff Palace, which is pictured here; it is perhaps the most well-known of the dwellings. It was a tougy for Beth, who had trouble making her legs cooperate on all the stairs from the overlook down to the site. But it was worth it, especially for Beth, who 
was an anthropology major, as we stared into the past and saw the rooms, blackened rock from fires, and round kivas, pictured here, which are believed to have served some type of ceremonial purpose.
The way out of the site was up five, count them, five, 8-10 foot ladders. With Deb and me helping place Beth's feet on the ladder rungs and pushing her up from behind (and of course Jennifer and Allyson taking photos of us from above), we finally exited and took a breather. The altitude was about 8000 feet, and those of us from lower elevations were sucking air! So now all things were measured against the difficulty of climbing 5 ladders. Price of gas? Not a five-ladder issue. Bad traffic? Nope. Not as tough.We went to eat dinner at the Far View 1906 restaurant. The view of the surrounding area was just phenomenal, and I swear we could see at least 100 miles, all the way to New Mexico. We were able to watch the changing colors of the canyons and plateaus as the sun set. I decided to get brave, and ordered a cactus dip appetizer to share. My reasoning was that if I didn't like it, I could share... It was absolutely delicious! Bummer! Now I had to share!
As we ate, we enjoyed the Native American flute music of David Nighteagle, who was just a few feet from our table. He invited the girls up to help accompany him with N.A. percussion and drums, and eventually Deb and I took a turn, as did many other diners. He was very interesting and gave us quite a bit of information about himself and his flute-making trade. He knew where Ocala was, as he visits pow wows in Lady Lake. Small world...We eventually headed to our hotel room, #142, and were dismayed to find that the key (an actual key, not a key card) didn't fit in the lock. So we tried it upside down, tried it in the door handle and the dead bolt, and as I was fiddling with it the door suddenly opened from the inside by a big ugly man! I must have screamed, as it scared me to death. He politely suggested that we had the wrong room. Deb headed back to the front desk and discovered we should be in room 242, even though the key envelope said 142, so we headed up the mountain. It is now dark, the girls
are tired from a very long day, so it was a relief when the door opened successfully. But we were immediately hit with a blast of hot air. The room had no A/C and had been closed up all day. So we opened the door to the little balcony, left the front door open, raised the one tiny window and then watched Ally freak as moths invaded the room. Jen's shoe was drafted and the war against the invaders was on. We had to decide between heat and bugs, and chose the heat. We dubbed it a "five ladder day."Deb and the girls tried to go to sleep, and Beth and I sat out on the balcony and watched the moon set and the stars come out. There are very few lights in that area, so the stars were especially pretty. The next morning, I got up early and hit the patio with my homework, and the guy in the next room took a leak off his balcony. We decided to try to get out of the 2-night minimum. When Debbie told the front desk about our unpleasant experiences, they didn't seem too upset about our woes until she told them about our "neighbor." They let us out of the contract. So we packed up the car and prepared to spend another day exploring other cliff dwellings. Let's hope our "neighbor" wasn't the beginning of another five-ladder day!
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