Category Archives: Colorado

Cortez CO

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Our next stop after Durango was Cortez.  A whopping 40 miles but such a difference from Durango in the towns.  Durango was very mountainous and touristy.  Cortez is not in the mountains and has some tourist stuff but is a basic little town.  It, however, has quite a bit in and around it.  We were staying for 4 nights so we had some time.

Just north of the town is Dolores, CO that is a historic area in its’ own right and part of the loop road that contains the Million Dollar highway.  On up the road are Ouray, Telluride and then Silverton.  Since we had already been to Silverton, we opted not to take that drive, this time.

Instead, we veered a bit west from Dolores and went to the Canyons of the Ancients Visitors Center.  It was a very nice center and had lots of information.  We found out about a nice circular drive to take to see some Native American ruins, but not that day, the next.

We headed north and down some nice county roads to see the Lowry Pueblo.  They had a Kiva that was in very good shape and you are even allowed to go in an look at it.  The inside walls were supposed to be plastered but that has long since worn away:

Here is a view of some of the overall complex:

We got back on some of the county roads and headed to our next stop, the Painted Hand Pueblo.  This required a bit more hiking than the first one as it was farther away.  There were many ruins such as a tower build on an overhang:

But this is where the Pueblo got its name.  You should be able to see in these two photos, one bigger than the other, the ‘painted hands’.  I think someone put their hand on the rock and blew pigment/paint on the hand which created the ‘negative’ image.  Can you find them?

Here is a picture of my traveling companion near another set of ruins.  She has her extra legs with her:

We trudged our way back to the truck and were very tired.  We continued driving the loop and ended up in Hovenweep National Monument.  Now we were in Utah!  Hovenweep has their own set of ruins but the day was running out of daylight and we were running out of steam so we did a short, paved walk and took a picture of them.  They have a campground there so we might be back!

Cortez and the area turned out to be interesting in a number of other ways.  We went to Dolores one day to walk their hiking trail that went along a river.  We saw a Galloping Goose at a museum there.  A Galloping Goose, of which 7 were made, was built from a car chassis.

At the local grocery store, I saw an interesting sight drive up.  I saw some guy drive up on his riding lawn mower towing a trailer that contained his old lady.  Here it is in a senior citizen spot:

We saw an Airstream as a coffee shop (The Silver Bean), with another one behind maybe for remote events?

And finally, this shows what a classy town Cortez is:

Durango Part 2

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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.