Colorado

• Traveling eastward in the state, our first Colorado destination was Mesa Verde National Park. While the Park entrance is an easy drive from Cortez, the cliff dwellings are a long 21 miles of mountain road away --- hurrying not recommended. At Chapin Mesa we toured the Museum, the Spruce Tree House ruins and the Cliff Palace.
  
  Spruce Tree House is the best preserved of all the cliff dwellings and not hard to reach. It is neatly tucked into a sandstone cavity:
  

  

  Protected from the worst extremes of summer and winter, the site had farmland and hunting available just “upstairs” on the mesa top.
  
  According to archaeologists, these dwellings were occupied from about 1200 to 1300 AD:
  

  

  No one knows for sure what drove the inhabitants away but drought remains the likely culprit.
  
  Smoke-blackened walls and ceilings bespeak the fires needed for cooking and for heat:
  

  

  
  The village housed 60 - 90 people in 129 rooms. There were also 8 kivas, underground rooms reached by ladders:
  

  

  One of the kivas was open for inspection, so inspect it we did:
  

  

  These rooms were primarily ceremonial, we read, but they also served as social gathering places. Bench seating was built into the curved wall. The roof was of timber and mud. A ventilation opening is visible behind the ladder.
  
  Cliff Palace is more challenging to reach and to return from. It is accessible only by ranger-led tours. This was the largest of the cliff dwellings with 150 rooms and 23 kivas:
  

  

  Its size was probably due to the enormous cave in which it was built:
  

  

  
  It could have been a short hop from Cortez to Durango, our next overnight stop. Instead, we chose the scenic route. Telluride is famous for its fall foliage and the “Million Dollar Highway”, US 550, is dazzling. Both can be experienced on a 4 or 5 hour drive from Cortez to Durango:
  

  

  
  Tucked into a box canyon and surrounded by lofty peaks, Telluride has an enviable location. Sadly, by the time we arrived, the fall foliage we had hoped to enjoy was mostly at ground level. Free parking is hard to find in this popular, squeezed-in town but we found it as well as good food. Fall colors will have to await our return:
  

  

  
  While the origin of the name, “Million Dollar Highway”, is disputed, there is no question about its grandeur. In particular, the stretch from Ouray to Silverton is characterized by steep cliffs, narrow lanes, hairpin turns and substantial dropoffs. If driven slowly and carefully, though, its beauty is easy to appreciate.
  

  

  Just south of Silverton (the town pictured above), we paused to admire Molas Pass at nearly 11,000 ft:
  

  

  

  Nice, huh? Vistas like that put us in a great frame of mind for arrival in Durango.
  
  Why Durango? For us, it was biking. The Animas River Trail follows its namesake from one end of Durango to the other:
  

  

  

  Although a few sections of the trail could have been better, others were truly outstanding. The structure below is designed for bikers, skaters and pedestrians! It is not a roadway:
  

  

  It felt great to be on a bicycle on such a sunny, bright and breezy day. If it just hadn’t been so chilly, it would have been perfect:
  

  

  
  Outside Alamosa is Great Sand Dunes National Park, a place neither of us had ever seen before. The mountain range in the background, Sangre de Cristo, wraps around the Park with a dozen peaks having elevations between 11,000 and 14,000 feet. In fact, they are why the dunes are here:
  

  

  
  The most persistent winds in this area are southwesterly. Tiny grains of sand have been carried by the wind to the northeast, bit by bit over centuries, until, encountering these mountains, they simply piled up.
  
  Beautifully sculpted, the dunes are the highest in North America, rising about 750 ft above their base:
  

  

  
  Naturally, one popular activity in the Park is scrambling up the dunes. It is no small feat to reach the top though:
  

  

  
  Other Park activities --- perhaps not readily apparent --- are hiking and backpacking, camping, star gazing, playing in nearby creeks, sandboarding and sand sledding or rolling down the dunes (especially recommended for kids). Some folks, lovers of picturesque places, are content to look, to wander about and to photograph ... or be photographed:
  

  

  
  Another bike ride beckoned to us in Pueblo. First, however, we tried to fill a total gap in our education about the town’s steelmaking industry. Not being locals, the Steelworks Museum of Industry and Culture was a revelation. We learned that for most of its history, the main industry in Pueblo was steelmaking! Although blast furnaces have been quiet for decades, the town still produces fences and nails, rails, rod, bar and seamless tubing. The things one can learn by traveling!
  
  Prior to biking along the Arkansas River, we took a different trail into town to see Pueblo’s Riverwalk. It is well done, indeed:
  

  

  Though not intended for bikes, there were almost no pedestrians, so we maneuvered along on two wheels with care:
  

  

  At this time of year, fountains are shut down and trees are generally leafless. Still, we could easily imagine how pleasant a summertime stroll on this Riverwalk would be:
  

  

  There are even imaginative statues such as these playful bronzes:
  

  

  Judging from the pipes, water actually squirts from these hoses in summer and Patty would be elsewhere.
  
  This photo of the Arkansas River was taken from a bridge before we rode upstream. That section was a flood control channel and not particularly charming --- although, admittedly, some of the graffiti showed promise.
  

  

  In the future, we will remember to avoid this stretch, not because of the graffiti but because of puncture weeds that flattened all four of our tires. Luckily, the deflation wasn’t noticed until after the bikes were packed.