On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
It has been a couple of weeks since we saw the first part, so here’s a link to Road Trip 2006, Part 1.
Origuy
This is the second set of pictures from my August 2006 road trip. After leaving Wyoming, I went to Denver for a couple of days of sightseeing and then on to Buena Vista. It is a small town in central Colorado, in the shadow of the Collegiate Peaks. I spent a couple of days there at an orienteering event and then started back west. On the way, I stopped at Mesa Verde and Grand Canyon National Parks. The first four pictures are just scenes along the way.
This is just a shot I took of a meadow by the road to one of the orienteering events.
A waterfall along the highway. Hard to say where this is, but probably somewhere in the Gunnison National Forest.
Further on the way. The terrain is drier and the vegetation sparser. I just happened to catch a rainbow from a passing storm.
Now I’m fully in the desert. This is from Highway 160, near Durango. There were formations like this all around.
One of the largest cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park. I believe this one is called Spruce Tree House.
I believe this is the largest cliff dwelling, the one called Cliff Palace. The people are a tour group looking down into a kiva. Kivas are round underground rooms used primarily for ceremonial purposes. The Hopi people still use them.
A closeup of a structure in Cliff Palace.
Looking down into a kiva. The hole lined with stones is a firepit; the small hole next to it is called a Sipapu, a Hopi word for “place of emergence.” According to Hopi oral tradition, this hole represents the place where Ancestral Pueblo people emerged from the previous world to this one. Source
ThresherK
Orienteering? Fun! I, under the guise of radio expert, have helped out the Boy Scouts in CT with their winter orienteering event.
The thing is, if you get lost in the woods in Conn. and walk 60 minutes in a vaguely straight line, you will encounter a Dunkin Donuts. In Colorado, under the same circumstances, you are much more likely to find a bear or wolf.
Dan B
One of my aunts married a man who had been the Superintendent of Mesa Verde. He was quite a quiet guy so we didn’t hear any stories about the park.
Origuy
@ThresherK: Have you ever tried ARDF, or radio orienteering? You get a map, but the control points aren’t marked on it. Instead, the places you are supposed to find have radio transmitters of a certain frequency, and you carry an antenna and wear headphones to try to find the direction of the transmitters. I tried it once and couldn’t get the hang of it.
No wolf encounters, but a few bear sightings during events in Lake Tahoe and up in British Columbia. In Sweden, they chase away the moose before big events.
JanieM
Love the pics. I’ve never seen such close-up pictures of the cliff dwellings — they’re fascinating, and now I want to go see them myself. They’re far more elaborate than I imagined.
Also, the mention of the Gunnison brings back memories of my last hiking trip out west. It was November 1984, and we spent a night somewhere above the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We were caught in a snowstorm, then got a flat tire on our van as we were coming down a steep road back to civilization. We were helped by “Big Bill McNeil,” a huge, jovial guy who lived along that road, who told us all about how he had been the only Democrat elected in that county in the recent election (Reagan’s second). Cool guy, great memory. He tightened the lug nuts on the spare tire so tightly that it took a machine to get them loose again. ;-)
Afterwards we saw his campaign signs still up along the roads: “McNeil for Real!”
Some of these must be in or near Navajo/Jim Chee/Tony Hillerman country, right? Gosh I’m tired of staying home….
Mary G
Love the rainbow picture. They all look so peaceful.
Dan B
My aunt and cousins lived in Colorado Springs. They all passed away or moved (the cousins) to places I had little interest in visiting: Chicago, North Jersey, and Carson City. I loved our one visit to my Aunt’s home on Cheyenne Mountain.
I’ve seen bears several time in the North Cascades. Once we encountered cubs near the trail in a steep sided canyon. Nerve wracking since it was late and we were hiking back to the car. Mama left us alone fortunately.
Origuy
@JanieM: Mesa Verde is adjacent to the Southern Ute Reservation. The Navajo Nation is a little further west; I passed through it on the way to the Grand Canyon. I could see Monument Valley in the distance, but I didn’t have time to stop that trip.
Many of the tribes in the area claim descent from the Ancestral Pueblo, or Anasazi, people. The Navajo are an exception; they migrated south into the area after the Ancestral Pueblo abandoned the cave dwellings around 1200 AD.
randy khan
Mesa Verde is really fascinating. I’d love to get there some day.
When we went to the Grand Canyon, we came at it from the east, and along the way we stopped at a Native American site that kind of made me think of Mesa Verde because it was tucked away in the landscape (albeit in a bit of a hole, not in the side of a big cliff. It was one of the more interesting stops on the trip.
JanieM
@Origuy: Thanks. Now that you mention it, I must have taken the same route, or close, because we went to the Canyon after the Gunnison adventure. But either I wasn’t thinking much about it at the time, or I’ve forgotten. Either is possible. Anyhow, I think my friends in Phoenix are overdue for a visit from me, followed by some (re-)explorations of that whole region, before I’m too creaky to manage it.
danielx
Traveled through that country on honeymoon, lo these many years ago. Totally gorgeous, and I’d love to go again. Although if that ever occurs, it will NOT be in an 84 Honda Civic hatchback. Great little car but not meant for transcontinental cruises. It was raining and misty when we got to the Mesa Verde entrance, and this rock or butte looked like the bow of the Titanic coming out of the clouds.
CaseyL
I do love the desert, aesthetically. Would even consider living there, in the mountains, if the water supply wasn’t going to be a huge issue within 10 years.
Speaking of ancient places, when I was visiting friends today (my bubble friends) we watched a couple National Georgraphic specials. One was about an ancient – and I mean ancient – city recently uncovered in China. A Bronze Age city dating back 5000 years. Chinese archeologists have a treasure trove of “Incredibly Ancient Civilizations Nobody Knew About” that they’re studying right now. One of those newly uncovered cities, Shimao, is surrounded by multiple tiers of defensive walls which are decorated with the most astonishing carvings.
What astonishes me about them is how similar they are in design and iconography to Mayan and Aztec carvings, which led me to wonder if the ancient Chinese shared common ancestry with pre-Columbian peoples. That in turn got me thinking about the human diaspora: it sure looks like there was a wave around 5000-6000 years ago of Asiatic people turning up all over the place. (There’s speculation that China made contact with the Americas millenia before Europeans did.)
Really fascinating, and I may have to subscribe to Disney Plus because the package includes NatGEO.
Origuy
@CaseyL: There’s an article in the latest American Archaeology magazine about Meso-American writing. They list 12 different writing systems; the earliest was the Olmec, about 500-400 BC. I think it’s much more likely that the people in Mexico and Central America came up with writing on their own.
jnfr
Thank you for the pictures! Your landscapes are all so very Colorado, and I love Mesa Verde.
J R in WV
We have not visited Mesa Verde yet, but Chaco Canyon has similar stone buildings, just on a valley floor rather than in openings in canyon walls. Otherwise lots of similar structures, kivas and very exact stone work, flat walls and sharp corners.
And the rainbow!
Thanks for sharing your trip with us, great pictures!
DaveOR
@ThresherK: Or, in Colorado, the bear or wolf will likely find you!