Masters of RVing Adventures

Can you be in four states at once? We’ll see…

Day 6 – State 6 – Colorado

We left our New Mexico Beef Cattle Co-op to head to Cortez, Colorado – about a five-hour drive to the area known as Four Corners. While most of this land is Native American tribal territory, the small town of Cortez is not. There are 27 indigenous ancestral tribes here, including Pueblo, Ute, Hopi, Navajo and Apache.

One of the co-op ranches at our Harvest Host stay

We arrived at Cortez Campground on the outskirts of town and were very delighted to discover they had a three-acre fenced dog park that sits adjacent to the town’s four-acre fenced dog park. Timber was in doggie-land heaven the entire time of our visit! The campground manager, his wife and daughter were very welcoming, and we arranged to have the teenage daughter walk Timber several times the next day while we explored Mesa Verde National Park.

Day 7 – Mesa Verde National Park

We left at 8:00 AM for the nine-mile drive to the entrance to the Teddy Roosevelt established 8500-acre National Park. We then had another hour’s drive to reach our first ranger-led tour destination at the Mesa Top Loop. We left early so we would have plenty of time to pull off at several scenic overlooks for pictures, take a short hike to one of the fire towers, and visit the museum and visitor center for our stamps.

We reached the gathering spot for our 10:30 AM tour of the Balcony House Cliff Dwellings. It was toasty outside at 101 degrees and the Park Ranger warned us all to carry and drink water during our tour. Right off, we had to ascend a 34′ log ladder to reach the first section of the dwellings to learn why this area is called ‘Balcony’ House… they built walkways off the second and third stories to connect the dwellings (think of the walkways similar to elevated sidewalks). They were supported by logs and made of their version of concrete. At its peak, the Mesa Verde region which included the mesa-top villages and the cliff dwellings was home to almost 40,000 people (more than the number who live in the area today). It was a thriving vibrant community of agriculturalists who grew the “three sisters” of corn, beans, and squash. They were also hunters and gatherers who thrived in the area for hundreds of years. They possessed many skills, from food preservation by making functional storage pottery and baskets with intricate designs to weavers of yuca fibers and down turkey feathers into beautiful blankets. Perhaps the most visible evidence of their advanced engineering skills is the precise brick work forming the cliff dwellings.

To exit the dwellings, we had several more vertical cliff-hugging log ladders and a tiny space in the rocks to crawl through. We then proceeded to our next ranger tour at 12:30 of the Cliff Palace – the largest cliff dwelling in North America and much more accessible with only one log ladder! Each tour lasted an hour which was needed with amount of ascending and descending necessary to reach the dwellings! The research suggests Cliff Palace was an important cultural and ceremonial center that was at the center of trading paths between the canyons and mesa top. After this tour, we stopped just a few hundred yards down on the Cliff Palace Loop at an authentic tribal-designated area. While most of the stalls were closed, we enjoyed a pleasing snack of blue-corn fry bread and refreshing dandelion tea.

After driving the hour to exit the park, we decided the fry bread snack wasn’t enough. We headed into town and had a late lunch on main street called The Farm Bistro. Quirky kind of place but the waitress was friendly and recommended an excellent pork green chili soup to accompany by black bean sandwich. Mark chose a brat smothered in cooked onions and green peppers on a pretzel bun.

Timber and Elizia, Timber’s most favorite dog walker thus far, greeted us upon arrival back at the campground. He had just as an exciting day between being guest dog greeter in the office and running with other doggies in the dog parks. Timber, Mark and I, all three, promptly took a long afternoon siesta!

Day 8 – Four Corners Monument

Mark and I both worked the morning. I did two loads of laundry and laid out a container of frozen chili beans (which I had prepared before leaving home) to thaw for our lunch. The afternoon was consumed with visiting the Four Corners National Monument, so named because it’s the location where four states meet: New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah. The location is on Navaho land and thus they operate all visitor traffic. The entrance fee is $8 per person. Around the geological marker are outward radiating quarter pie-shaped sections of each state. Each state also proudly flies a flag from a flagpole located nearby. Surrounding this inground display of each states’ designated corner are stalls where Navaho merchants sell hand-crafted goods. We bought a rabbit fur-covered, leather, and horsehair display spear, a pair of hammered silver earrings imprinted with a rug pattern, and a clay-thrown and meticulously etched ‘seed pot’ by acclaimed Navaho potterer, Bob Lansing.

Being another scorcher of a day with temps in triple-digits, we couldn’t resist stopping at the local brewery once getting back into town for a quick quench to our overly parched throats. We returned to the rig, fed Timber and then allowed him to play most of the hot early evening in the dog park (no fears, the dog park had plenty of water to cool him off).

Day 9 – Travel Day to Moab, UT

We only had a two-hour drive from Cortez to Moab, so you guessed it – Timber had all morning to play in the dog park before heading out. Moab has been one of my most anticipated stops – can’t wait to do some very easy, safe trails in Cheeto!