Mesa Verde

A family picture!

Last Saturday we took a trip to Mesa Verde.  It is an amazing place and we look forward to returning many times.  We were able to tour Spruce Tree House.  It is amazing that these cliff dwellings were built so many years ago (probably about 1100 AD or earlier) and they are all still standing in pretty good repair. They were discovered in the 1880s by ranchers looking for lost cattle. Image coming over a hill and seeing this.

Looking at the pueblo in the cliff.

Spruce Tree House is built under a cliff to protect them from the elements.

The ladies working in the "kitchen" area.

Our cute kids indulging mom and posing. 

We were able to go down in a real kiva and look around.  Caroline enjoyed climbing out.

Another kiva. The large hole is for the fire pit and the small hole behind it is where you enter the underworld.

Inside the kiva with our ranger tour guide sharing his wisdom. 

The boys take a turn doing the kitchen work.

Another amazing view of the ruins.  Probably 60-80 people lived in this pueblo.  At one time 40,000-50,000 Ancestral Puebloan people lived in our area at once and then mainly moved away.  The current population of our area is about 25,000.

The hike down to the ruins (and back up like in the picture) is pretty steep. Luckily for us, they have trails.  The people who lived in the houses so many years ago had to climb out of the valley each day to hunt, gather wood or tend to their crops up on the mesa.

Another look of the house in the cliff. It is named Spruce Tree House because a giant spruce used to be directly in front of the house.