The Taylor's US RV Trip: Day 45 : A visit to Ancient Hi-Rise Apartments

Today we made our way through New Mexico heading towards Mesa Verde Colorado. The drive through New Mexico was wonderful with some views of very colorful mountains from Red to White. It was some very nice scenery very similar to our drive through Wyoming. We arrived at Mesa Verde National Park around 1pm. Colleen decided the 32 step ladder tour was not for her so we settled for the Cliff Palace tour. The Cliff palace tour only had 4 ladders all under 10 feet tall and she handled all 4 very well. The cliff dwelling Pueblo indians were quite amazing, not only did they build some amazing structures they built them in cut outs in the sides of cliffs hundreds of feet off the ground. The Indians, men, women and children had to be quite strong to climb in and out of their dwellings. The tour guide said they were quite short also with the average male being 5'4" and the average female about 4'9" and they had an average life expectancy of 29 for females and about 38 for males. So even though they were quite fit they still had pretty short lives. They build these dwellings around from 1100 - 1200 so with very basic tools available at this time for such amazing buildings. Tonight we are hanging out in Cortez CO before we head off for Four Corners and Williams AZ tomorrow. Also today was our first full day on blue skies. We have not seen that in probably 3 weeks.