A Fantastic Time

It's been a long time since I've been on here, but this deserves much more than a simple Facebook post, so here I am!

I recently attended a conference in Denver, Colorado for work, and as it turns out a very dear friend who retired a while back lives in the state, and it was a wonderful opportunity to pay her (and her dear husband) a visit.  I only had a couple of days before I had to get back home, but we made the most of them.  Naturally, we took some time to catch up, including visiting several really wonderful local restaurants, including a great barbecue place and a neat farm-to-table place.   When we went out-and-about, our first stop was the "four corners" monument, where four states meet (NM, AZ, CO and UT) and you can stand in all four at once.  Technically, the monument is not exactly on the meeting-point given some interesting early surveying results, but it was still a lot of fun.

Look, Mom, I'm in four states!

Here I am with my friend Lillian.

After being in four states, we went on to visit the Anasazi Heritage Center.  This is a museum dedicated to ancient ancestral pueblo peoples.  The term "Anasazi" was briefly settled upon, but the modern-day descendants are a very diverse group each with different languages, and none really liked the Navajo word that was chosen (which may or may not translate "ancestors of my enemies").  So properly, the term is "ancestral puebloans," but by the time that was agreed, the Heritage Center already had a name.  There was a really neat wall showing a timeline of pre-pueblo inhabitants of the area, describing what we knew of their tools, their crafts, and their lives, and exhibits of recovered artifacts.

For our second day, we went to the Mesa Verde National Park, which includes several sites built by the ancestral puebloans.  Lillian and her husband both volunteer frequently at the park and knew a lot about it, so it was like having my own personal tour, which was awesome.  Our first stop was the visitor's center, of course.  It features a neat central atrium with a fun statue of a "storyteller":

Do we look alike?

After the visitor's center, we went to the on-site Museum, which had more interesting artifacts and exhibits.  These included a clay pot in perfect condition found mostly-buried, containing 900-year-old corn that had been preserved untouched.  

Then, it was time for our Great Adventure.  One major site, "Spruce Tree House," has a paved trail leading down into its canyon, so visitors can hike down and look at it up-close.

Spruce Tree House seen from the top of the canyon.

Now, while the hike would not be too terrible for an able-bodied person, an able-bodied person I am not (in case the pictures didn't prove this...).  Lillian and Jim, however, were kind and brave souls.  They didn't want me to miss this, and we saw this as a chance to act as "guinea pigs," seeing how accessible things really were (or weren't).  Though at the end of the day we did have a few constructive comments for the park about improving access, we made it to Spruce Tree House and (more importantly) back up and it was really incredible.  Sure, it's one thing to be in a museum somewhere that has a pot behind plexiglass that was found a zillion miles away, but to actually stand and touch a place where people lived hundreds of years ago was a unique experience.  

The other sites we visited, we viewed via overlooks which were nicely paved.  These included a pit-house (one of the earliest permanent houses built in the area), a site called Square Towers, and the largest site, Cliff Palace.  As I told my friends, some of the site names (invented by white men, of course) made me think of the kind of flowery names given to appartments or condo buildings.  (I can hear the radio ad now: "you deserve the Cliff Palace lifestyle!")

Looking down at Square Towers

In front of Cliff Palace

 I also got to see a lot of wildlife on this trip.  There were mule deer (in plenty), scrub jays, rock squirrels, chipmunks, prairie dogs glimpsed from a distance, and the respective caboosae of a grey fox and a coyote.  My favorite, though, was seeing about a million hummingbirds of three different species visiting the two hummingbird feeders kept by my friend.  I understand both feeders are emptied on a daily basis, and the displays of aerial combat could have kept us occupied for hours.

The final must-view sight, the evening before I had to depart, was a clear view of the Milky Way.  I've never lived anywhere dark enough to actually see it, so this was my first time to witness it.  Between cloudy evenings and my being an hour ahead of local time, we feared that it might not be possible to get a glimpse of it, but the final night was perfect, so we spent some time stargazing.  There was a meteor shower on, which wasn't as cooperative as we might have hoped, but I can't say I feel cheated--the whole thing was wonderful.

Of course, I am back home now and back to my regular daily routine.  This makes the kitties happy, since "mom" is here, which is all that really matters to them.  But I'll probably be dreaming of Colorado.