Saturday, April 11
It’s twenty three miles to Mesa Verde," said the ranger at the entrance taking our ten bucks. "Be careful, there might be ice."
I’m driving up the mountain."Yipes, the road drops off into infinity, I won’t look down. It’s snowing, but the road it clear. I creep at about 20 miles per hour, curve after curve, no other cars. There’s a snow plow parked at the side of the road–that’s reassuring. It is foggy off those precipices, but we can see the road okay, and the center is cut like a wash-board, so if it is slippery I can drive on the vibrating bumps.
We continue uphill. With each advance in altitude my respect for the Native Americans drops. Why did they live up here? Were they hiding from enemies? What possessed them to carve their houses into cliffs? Well, I admit, it’s impressive. The idea of it. The architecture. I figured the reason the Puebloans left was that the women said, "I’m not spending another winter in this house!" (Did you know the weather got well below zero in those houses, and they probably hovered in the Kivas with fires to keep warm.)
I thought we would drive through a dessert and look up and see beautiful cliff dwellings. Whoops. Think again! As we arrive at the visitor’s center it is hailing and the road is becoming slushy. Daughter D says "Why don’t you go into the visitor’s center and see what the story is." I inch a U-turn in the middle of the road, afraid to turn into an off road, but I do park in the visitors lot.
Okay, there are a few other courageous souls here, and a few cars followed me up the road.
I go into the visitor’s center and discover it is another 5 miles to the dwellings–downhill. Nope, I’m not doing that. "You can go on your own," said the ranger, "but the tours might be canceled when you get there because of the weather."
We both agree that leaving is a good plan. And going downhill we joke and talk about life and how if it doesn’t work out as you planned, you change direction.
I said this day we would go to Mesa Verde, "Good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise" I didn’t consider blizzards.
It’s fine, we’re fine, we survived the mountain and drove out to Four Corners where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada come together, and spread our toes over four states and ate delicious Navaho fry bread with cinnamon and honey and came back to the same motel as last night. Happy day! We feel good.
