Cliff Dwellers

Mesa Verde National Park was not at all what I expected it to be.  For starters, despite it's name translating as "green table," I really didn't expect it to be so green.

 

I also didn't really expect it to be so interesting in terms of archaeology. I figured it would be cool to look at a few cliff-dwelling ruins. But instead I found an entire mesa-top's worth of excavated dwellings from different times in the ancestral Puebloans' history.

I was too chicken to climb down the ladders into any of these cliff-side ruins, but the park movie that talked about it helped me visualize. There's also a really fascinating museum up on the mesa with tons of artifacts.

The best part, though, was the campground. Mesa Verde has one of the darkest night skies in the country, and I have never seen anything so amazing. I could see millions of stars. I must have laid out watching them for hours. I want to go back just for that!