Day 5: September 22, 2001
Mesa Verde & Telluride, CO

Today our plan was to check out Mesa Verde National Park if we could see enough while having Libby (our dog) with us, and then take a leisurely drive to Telluride along scenic Route 145. Mesa Verde has ruins from the Anasazi people, and Walendo was especially curious to see them. So after picking up some sandwiches at the town Safeway (we couldn't find a real sandwich place in town), we headed to the park. It's just 10 miles from Cortez, or at least it is if you notice the exit to the park. We blitzed right by it and wound up at the next town called Mancos. Oops. At least we saw some pretty foliage just outside of the town. We turned around and found it this time.

Anasazi Dwelling, Mesa Verde

At the park entrance the woman said the ruins were right near the parking lots, so we went for it. Mesa Verde is up on a high plateau, overlooking the area for maybe 100s of miles around. After about 10 miles, we pulled into a short road that led to some ruins. The Anasazi people created homes out of bricks of sandstone held together with mortar of mud and water. The rooms were about 8 x 6 and each one shared a wall with the next, creating a kind of haphazard maze. They created long, thin rooms to store the grain, and they created a "kiva," a round room in the center for community events and religious ceremonies.

Kiva in Anasazi Dwelling

There were two sets of homes at this site, so we wandered around both. You could walk in through the doorways and walk around. It's hard to imagine people living there around 1,500 years ago. The brochure said the Anasazi people settled there in 550AD and lived there until around 1300 AD. At this site they had a picture of what the settlement looked like when it was found in the 1900s -- much of it was completely covered over by earth. They had to excavate most of it, which in itself was pretty amazing.

Cliff Canyon, Mesa Verde

On we drove to the main site, called Cliff Palace. This was the site you see in all the pictures. It's a huge settlement built into an outcropping of a cliff with a big stone overhang. They said there were over 200 rooms in the settlement and it looked like there were about a dozen large kivas. We viewed it from the overlook area -- very impressive. Again, it's hard to think about people being there so long ago. They take tours down into the area and let you walk around, but we didn't go mostly cuz of Libby. It was enough to see it from a few hundred feet above. The brochure said the Anasazi people left this area within just two generations after living there for 750 years, but they're not sure why -- possibly draught or soil that had been cultivated too long or political upheaval. Interesting.

Another good thing about this part of the park is that we picked up four or five new license plates, including Maine and Connecticut, which are tough to get in this part of the country. National Parks are good for that. Walendo's even been getting into the spirit of it, though he tends to lose track of which one's we've seen. For example, he pointed out Utah at least four times. It's okay, it's nice that he points them out.

Even though we had seen only some of the attractions of the park, we decided we had seen what we wanted to see and decided to head out. We stopped at Park Point, which was billed as having "spectacular views" to eat our lunch. The view was a broad vista for many dozens of miles around but it wasn't that beautiful. Still, it was pleasant to sit there and eat our sandwiches.

Lush fall foliage Rte 145, Colorado

We made our way out of the park and then headed back toward Cortez to pick up 145 north toward Telluride. About 10 or 20 miles along, we started to see some beautiful foliage. The hillside is covered in dark green pines interspersed with Aspen trees, and the Aspens that weren't light green were bright yellow. We pulled over the first spot we saw the bright colors, but we couldn't get a good shot. We noticed a dirt road going back near a pond, so we drove up a short ways and found that road. We crawled along it and then stopped so I could walk to the other side of the pond for pictures. I got a few good ones of the hillside, but couldn't get the pond in it. Still, they were nice.

Closeup of aspens & evergreen Colorado Rte 145

As we continued on, the hillsides burst into bright colors. It felt like we were back in Alaska when we drove the Denali Highway at peak foliage time. It's probably a little early, since the trees are mostly yellow with only a few turning to orange or red. Still, it was gorgeous. It reminded me of a giant crocheted blanket draped over the hills. Walendo was practicing his writing skills so he played around with describing the hills. He came up with something pretty good, but neither of us can remember it anymore. (We rejected the one about "fall draped over the hills like the top of a diseased dog's head." Apparently, some bare spots reminded him of his mom's dog's head when the dog had a skin disease.) We stopped a few more times along the road and I got some terrific shots. I love my new 80-320 zoom lens -- it allowed me to get some great shots of the patterns of color, some with the white trunks of Aspens in them. I was loving it. (You can see more of them on my photos page.)

Ellen taking pictures of stream along Colorado Rte 145

The road follows a stream, so we decided to find a place to pull over so that Libby could romp in the water. She's been loving it so much, we thought we'd give her a little fun. I wanted to find a spot where the colorful trees were in the background as you look down the river, so we stopped at the next place that fit that description. It turned out to be raised up from the river, but we scrambled down anyway. As I took shots of the river with the fall colors in the background, Libby paddled across the river and back again.

Photo Ellen was taking

The current was fairly strong, but she was able to make it without much trouble. She was so happy! (I wished I'd brought my polarizer filter with me so I could get a slow enough shutter speed to make the water look silky. It's unusual that I have too much light with Velvia. I really don't have a good setup for my camera stuff -- I keep finding myself somewhere without a lens or filter I wish I'd put in my camera bag, but it doesn't have much room. I should have brought my photo vest or something. Oh well.)

More fall foliage on Rte 145

After a while, the trees thinned out a little and not as many were brightly colored. This allowed us to keep driving without stopping a dozen times more. :-) It wasn't much longer and we were at the T that leads toward or away from Telluride. We took a right and we were in town 4 miles later. It's an interesting looking town -- it's sort of western but also upscale, with Victorian houses in the downtown and ski houses in the hills. There weren't many hotels, which is strange for a ski resort, so we stopped at one of the few we saw but they didn't take dogs. They recommended another one, the Mountain Side Inn, but didn't tell us how to get there. We decided to go back to the visitor's center at the entrance to town. There they told us of the same hotel that took dogs and made a reservation for us. (Telluride is a big dog town, so it's surprising that so few places take them.) It was $85 plus a $20 dog fee. We drove over there, and it looked like we could have gotten it for less if we'd just gone directly. The guy took $5 off for us, which was nice. It's a pretty nice place, the rooms have pine furniture and it feels like a ski place.

After dumping some stuff, we left again to walk around the town. The hotel clerk had mentioned that there was a free gondola and they allowed dogs to go on it, so we decided to take the ride up. It was about 5pm and the town was lit up from the late afternoon sun. As we walked toward the gondola, we walked by a woman who admired Libby. It turned out she had had a white shepherd and she was pretty knowledgeable about them. She asked us if Libby "hummed" and then she immitated it. It was just like Libby. I didn't realize other Shepherds did that too! It was nice to talk with her.

View of Telluride from gondola

They designate certain gondolas for dogs, and one for wheelchair access. A guy in a wheelchair happened to come along just as that chair arrived, so he and his friend went in. That's cool. We got in the next one (a dog pod) and we were joined by another couple. Libby was a source of entertainment for all of us, as we all watched to see how she'd react. She was a little uncertain and a bit excited, but she handled it well. At one point, she climbed up into my lap, maybe partly for the comfort and partly to see out. The other couple had their own dog (a Golden and Shepherd mix), so they said they were happy to see her. They were from Vermont, so we laughed about how they must find the fall foliage here ho hum, but they said they loved it here as well.

Path down Telluride gondola run

We got off the gondola and looked around. Instead of getting back on to ride down, Walendo suggested that we walk down. There's a road that winds its way down, and the guy said it would take less than an hour, so we went for it. (This continues our tradition of taking gondolas up ski mountains and walking down -- we did the same thing in Arosa, Switzerland.) It's interesting how much more steep the hills seem when you're not skiing on them. As we walked down, Walendo found an impressively macho stick for Libby, and she proudly carried it down the mountain.

Libby and Walendo fighting over stick

Occasionally she'd leave it somewhere, but then Walendo would tell her to go get her stick, and she'd trundle back up the road to pick it up. As we walked down, the town was becoming covered in shade, so it was hard to get good pictures, but I took a few anyway. We spent a little over an hour walking down. It was a nice walk, and even decent exercise as we kept ourselves from slipping down the mountain.

Once we got back to town, we went back to the room to drop stuff off and left Libby in the car while we went to get dinner. We walked into town and checked out the stores and restaurants along the way. It's a strange mix of New Age and wealth. It doesn't feel as welcoming as Sedona. We decided on a place called Eagle's Bar and Grill, which had an interesting mix of Asian and Italian food. It was a pretty nice place and prices weren't too high. We shared a thai pizza and pad thai, and both were delicious. I was just going to have a little cuz I wasn't that hungry, but it was so good I couldn't help myself. We decided that Walendo should look for a pad thai recipe that is similar to this one. (It wasn't all that authentic, it was more of a noodle dish with peanut sauce and veggies, but it was yummy.) After some hot tea to warm me up, we left and walked back to the hotel. Telluride is at about 8,500 feet high, so it's definitely chilly here -- even Walendo was chilly on the walk home. (Of course, he was wearing shorts.)

We brought Libby a slice of pizza so she wouldn't howl when we got back, and it worked. She happily snarfed it up. Then we warmed up the hotel room and Walendo snuggled in for some TV watching while I wrote up the day's events. Tomorrow we'll check out the town again and maybe take another short hike and then we'll continue along on the scenic roads in this area.

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