We were primarily in Durango to ride the train.  We also did a few walks downtown along the river.  Since we had a few days, as it was very close, we went to Mesa Verde National Park one day.

I had been to Mesa Verde before as a child.  I remember there were cliff dwellings but that was about it.  It was only 30 miles to the park entrance but there was quite a bit of driving inside the park.  We stopped at the visitor’s center and found out about some of the ranger-guided tours that were offered.  The only one that was open at that time had a few obstacles to overcome.  One was climbing a 30-foot wood ladder.  This would not be an issue for me and Roxie said she could do it.  The second was an area you had to crawl through.  This ‘tunnel’ was 7 meters long, about 1 meter high and about 1/2 meter wide.  Oh no.  I could not do that.  I have some issues with claustrophobia and that would have been too much for me.  We were just going to go it alone.

At the first dwelling, we stopped at I noticed some caterpillars getting busy for the spring (it is a bit out of focus):

We drove to a couple of cliff dwellings.   Here is Spruce Tree House:

This is Cliff Palace House:

We also stopped at another location of ruins that were not under a cliff but it had a very interesting part of it.  In this complex, the natives created a reservoir to store water complete with a dam.  It is even recognized as a Civil Engineering historic landmark:

It was a very nice trip to Mesa Verde.  Next time we will have to camp at their campground there.