Trapping Bears and the Big Dipper

Day 9: Ridgeway State Park, CO to Mesa Verde National Park, CO. Trip Total 3,028 miles.

Another night survived in a tent without a bear eating us, and for the second night in a row I manage to get my sleeping bag rolled up first try. My brother moisturizes, we manage to get everything into only two of the wheeled bins to get them back down the steep hill to the car, (which is a lot easier than going up) and Katie makes sure her name is clearly visible in the tent pad before we leave.

By lunchtime we are in Cortez, looking for somewhere for lunch that caters to vegetarians and that is not Subway. After driving the length of the town twice, we go to Subway.

After lunch we stop at a Native American gift shop, which apparently welcomes coaches according to the massive sign outside. Katie’s favorite color has now changed from purple to turquoise, so we go in looking for something turquoise for her, expecting to get fleeced. To my surprise, a very happy Katie leaves 10 minutes later with a little turquoise ring for only $4, and a huge grin on her face.

Then into the Mesa Verde National Park. This is somewhere I’ve wanted to come to for many years, but never quite got round it before. The park is pretty big, and we were pushed for time, but it was well worth the visit, and somewhere I’ll definitely go back to when I have more time.

The landscape:

We actually got to go down into some of the cliff dwellings:

Katie thought she was Dora the Explorer:

Since touring the park took much longer than expected, we decided to camp in the park overnight. More bear warnings as we register at the campsite, then just to reinforce the point, at the entrance to the campsite they park the trailer they use to transport caught bears:

The tent goes up, and Katie sees some kids and asks if she can go play with them. I tell her yes, but only if she stays where we can see her. When she’s offered s’mores, she comes back and asks permission. When the other kids get too close to the road, she stops them and moves them away from the road. I’ve never seen her so well behaved. She comes back as the sun goes down, and surprises me again: she locates the Big Dipper in the night sky. I asked her how on earth she knew about that – it was on a cartoon (either Dora or Franklin, I forget exactly what she said).

We are sitting there under a perfectly clear sky, having just seen a couple of shooting stars, when a very large deer wanders slowly into the middle of the road near the tent, and just stands there in the dark. It stands there for a couple of minutes, until a car comes round the corner. It bolts at full speed, straight towards us, missing my brother by mere feet – they are a lot bigger and more impressive close up.

This is the warmest night we’ve had, so just sat there watching the stars until it was time to sleep. Mesa Verde surprised and impressed all three of us, definately worth another visit.