Mesa Verde

We really wanted to go camping while we were in Utah. Lyndon and one of his cousins started reminiscing about a trip they took to Mesa Verde as children and bam! That is when the decision to go camping in Mesa Verde was born.

 It's about a five hour drive to Cortex, Colorado where the National Park is located. Being from the South  and the kids growing up back east, we are not used to the desert landscapes that we drove through. That made it an adventure from the beginning! It was kind of exciting.

Somethings we found out about Mesa Verde once we got there is that it  is the first National Park established that preserves works of people. The people in this case are the Anasazi or Ancestral Pueblo. The Ancestral Pueblos lived here from 600 AD to 1300 AD eventually building up the communities in the cliffs that we can see today. 
First camping trip with the kiddos. Our fingers are crossed and prayers were said that all went well cause you never know with kids.
Daddy's little helper.
Our Dutch oven dinner.
We had several deer sightings in the camp site. Cosette really wanted to follow them. 
Cosette of course made friends while we were there. We ended up going around the Mesa top loop with our new friends. 
View of the Square Tower House.  Some fun facts about the Tower House is that 60 of the 80 rooms remain. there is a spring below the alcove that provided water to the Ancient Pueblos. They would climb in and out of the dwelling by using hand-and-toe holds that were in the cliff walls! 

View of the Cliff Palace from the Mesa Top loop.


There are several cliff dwellings that you can hike down to. We only hiked down to the Cliff Palace. It is the most famous of them all. You have to hike down stairs and then climb up ladders at certain points just to get to them. This was the least treacherous of them all and we decided to avoid the anxiety of hiking a more dangerous one with Cosette.
The view of the Cliff Palace as we hiked/climb down. It is pretty aweinspiring to think that people built communities like this. 





This was their family room back in 600 AD.
We are ready for our Mesa Verde adventure! Henry wore a bandana to protect his head instead of a hat. It made him look hard core and extra cute.
A highlight of the trip was seeing wild horses! Cosette was ecstatic!

Along with deer, we had a little tiger come visit our campsite.

Reading around the campfire.

The Big H.

We survived our first major camping trip. I call any camping trip with kiddos more than one night a  major camping trip. Cosette did roll out of her sleeping bag several times a night and it was really cold, but she woke up happy. It was a more rugged adventure than we have taken, but something we will always remember. This trip did not scar us so happy to say we will go camping again!

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