Wednesday 2nd May 2018

We have had a great time exploring more Ancient Pueblo areas .  Hovenweep National Monument on the Utah Colorado  border has some awesome structures.

Most of these buildings are from the 800’s

This boulder cracked and the house has mostly toppled off the cliff.

The Ancients did a great job of rounding corners on some structures.

Nobody knows why many of these houses were built on top of rocks.  It was a lot of work moulding around the contours of these irregular boulders.

Where is the elevator?

Mesa Verde National Park is famous for its Cliff Dwellings. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in the USA  with about 150 rooms.

All of these dwellings are tucked under overhangs high up on the cliffs.

Most of the living rooms are very small as social activities took place in the communal areas.

Finally a little flower goodness. I saw just a few tiny patches of Balsam Root.

I was looking for horns on the head of this Horned Lizard until Dean explained the horns were all over his body. Duh!!!  He stayed nice and still for this picture although he was giving us the evil eye.

Our last stop before heading northwards was Great Sand Dunes National Park.  This year we are planning on snagging several more National Parks on our list.

These sand dunes are the tallest in the USA with the highest about 750 feet.

We hiked a couple of trails around the base of the dunes.  It was very nice until the wind picked up and our legs got sand blasted.  Goodbye Great Sand Dunes.

Onwards….