{"id":112,"date":"2006-09-05T10:43:29","date_gmt":"2006-09-05T16:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/new-mexico\/sunday-932006-mesa-verde\/"},"modified":"2012-08-17T14:16:58","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T20:16:58","slug":"sunday-932006-mesa-verde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/new-mexico\/sunday-932006-mesa-verde\/","title":{"rendered":"Mesa Verde"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, I decided to drive up to Mesa Verde. While I tend to visit Colorado fairly often, it’s in a part of the state that’s hard to get to. Of course, it was hard to get to from Santa Fe, too. I didn’t find that out til later.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\ni’m a nerd who gets excited about things like this.<\/em><\/p>\n

It took me at least 5 hours to reach the park, though it’s only 280 miles. There are a lot of narrow, winding roads involved, but it’s worth it because it’s very picturesque. I stopped in Durango and then rushed as fast as I could to the park entrance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I had contracted a killer cold on the flight out, and the vast quantity of medication I was consuming did NOT help with the hiking at that altitude. I felt out of breath very quickly. (I have a flask and shotglass from Denali with the geological survey marker for Mt. McKinley. These things excite me a lot.)<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nlooking south toward Shiprock<\/em><\/p>\n

I went to the visitors’ center to get tickets to tour the cliff dwellings. I picked Balcony House, because it was described as most difficult (for altitude and climbing through narrow passages). They had a little demo tunnel you could crawl through to see if you’d fit. Awesome.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nladder to balcony house<\/em><\/p>\n

The ladder-climbing wouldn’t have been scary if it weren’t for the fact that we were already far up on a cliff wall. The altitude makes you dizzy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The park ranger gave us a tour of the cliff dwelling. It’s kind of amazing to think that people could scramble all over the side of the cliffs like that, and live in such tiny compartments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nkiva <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nleaving balcony house; adults have to turn their shoulders at the end or they get stuck!<\/em><\/p>\n

I drove around the rest of the loop and stopped at the overlooks to see the other cliff dwellings.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\ncliff palace <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leaving the park, I decided to drive through Durango to see the town. It’s super-cute, and was overrun with motorcycles. Also, there was a very brief snowstorm on the way there. My first snow of the season wasn’t even in Minnesota!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The drive back to Santa Fe seemed to not take as long, despite getting stuck in long lines behind bikers. I wasn’t in a huge hurry, anyway.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nsunset near ghost ranch <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, I decided to drive up to Mesa Verde. While I tend to visit Colorado fairly often, it’s in a part of the state that’s hard to get to. Of course, it was hard to get to from Santa Fe, too. I didn’t find that out til later. i’m a nerd who gets excited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[18],"tags":[70,67,106,74,56,508,72],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"geo":{"latitude":37.24999619999999822539393790066242218017578125,"longitude":-108.5006484999999969431883073411881923675537109375,"description":"Mesa Verde, Colorado 80112, USA"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/09\/236514890_fbe52517a9_o.jpg?fit=3072%2C2304","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Z5R-1O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":113,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/new-mexico\/monday-942006-bandelier-kasha-katuwe-santa-fe-the-turquoise-trail\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":0},"title":"Bandelier, Kasha-Katuwe, Santa Fe, and the Turquoise Trail","author":"Jenni","date":"09.5.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I got up very early again, in order to get to Bandelier National Monument right as it opened. So early, I saw the sunrise. You have to drive through Los Alamos to get there, and you can see the lab at several points along the way, but can't really get\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"New Mexico","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/new-mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/09\/237954233_1be016ce5d_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C892&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":114,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/new-mexico\/tuesday-952006-petroglyph-national-monument-atomic-museum-albuquerque\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":1},"title":"Petroglyph National Monument and the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque","author":"Jenni","date":"09.5.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I checked out of my hotel in Santa Fe and headed back toward Albuquerque. On the way to Petroglyph National Monument, I saw many, many hot air balloons taking to the skies. I was the first person to reach the park, and the gates to the trails was still closed.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"New Mexico","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/new-mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/09\/238225078_bf91e9f3aa_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":111,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/new-mexico\/saturday-922006-taos-and-the-high-road\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":2},"title":"Taos and the High Road","author":"Jenni","date":"09.5.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I got up very early and headed up to Taos Pueblo. It's not very far, but it's a small two-lane highway through the mountains. You go through the town of Taos, and the pueblo is a few miles up on the right. san geronimo chapel The pueblo is amazing, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Mexico"","block_context":{"text":"New Mexico","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/new-mexico\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/09\/236343232_9d95661a39_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":161,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/west-coast-roadtrip\/west-coast-roadtrip-june-30-july-18-2003\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":3},"title":"West Coast Roadtrip: 6,000 Miles in 19 Days","author":"Jenni","date":"07.30.2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I drove, by myself, a total of almost 6,000 miles in 19 days. I saw most of the western U.S. for the first time, including the Pacific Ocean. Here's the map for the entire route. Read from the beginning below, or jump to each day: 6\/30: Minneapolis to Glasgow, Montana\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "West Coast Roadtrip"","block_context":{"text":"West Coast Roadtrip","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/west-coast-roadtrip\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":889,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/california\/california-september-30-october-2-2011\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":4},"title":"Orange County and LA","author":"Jenni","date":"10.20.2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We left Minneapolis for LA at 5:30, which meant we arrived there just in time to see a pretty spectacular sunset in the valley. We picked up the car and attempted to stop at In and Out Burger by the airport, but there were one million people in line. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2011\/10\/6207237555_607caaa887_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":123,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/denver-dalai-lama\/saturday-9162006-rocky-mountains\/","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":5},"title":"Hiking in the Rocky Mountains","author":"Jenni","date":"09.22.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday morning, we drove Poontang up to Estes Park to get our hikin' in the Rockies on. It was freezing there and we were unprepared, so we stopped at an outfitter so I could buy a fleece. There were elk everywhere, wandering around in people's yards and everything. We encountered\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Denver for the Dalai Lama"","block_context":{"text":"Denver for the Dalai Lama","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/denver-dalai-lama\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/09\/247842376_3c0bd46802_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}