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mesa verde

By Sunday afternoon, we'd pretty much figured out that we were going to make it to Kansas City well before Thursday night and would not make the baseball game. Without that event to extend our trip, it turned into more of a "we're tired, how quick can we see all these things and get home?" sort of attitude. Not to mention, though it was fine while we were hiking, as soon as we got in the car, especially if I was driving, my ankle, rolled on Friday, was killing me.

So when we got back to the car a little after 6 on Sunday afternoon, we decided to press on to Colorado rather than camp that night in Canyonlands. We stopped at some random grocery store just west of Mesa Verde and bought an ace bandage for me. We got to the campground at Mesa Verde just before the concessionaire closed for the night and set up camp in the dark. Definitely the highest elevation we'd been at during the night since Santa Fe and it was chilly!

The next morning, we headed to the visitor center to figure out what we were going to do. My ankle was not feeling so hot and as heights are generally not my thing, we eliminated any cliff dwellings requiring climbing up 50+ foot ladders. Instead, we drove to Spruce Tree House and toured it. The only ladders there are a few rungs and that was doable.

From there, we decided to take a short hike into the canyon by Spruce Tree House on the Spruce Canyon Trail. My ankle was wrapped and I was wearing my hiking boots, so I figured I'd be fine. WRONG. Near the bottom of the canyon, my ankle began to burn and ache. And as we climbed slowly out of the canyon, that intensified and I could hardly walk once we got to the rim and had to walk back to the car. Laura was a super-star though and regaled me with stories the whole way out, trying to get my mind off it.

Feeling like we had not given Mesa Verde the time it deserved, we drove the Mesa Top Loop Road. We got out at a few of the Ancestral Pueblo dwellings, mostly pit houses, but after 3 or 4 they all seemed to look the same and I was still in pain and we hit the road, bound for Durango.

Labels: roadtrip '10, travel

posted by CP @ 10:28 PM 0 thoughts