Durango Trip

I have been angling for awhile to do another family trip down to Mesa Verde/Four Corners. 

Shortly after my separation from Mel, the girls and I did a low budget trip for the purpose of seeing Four Corners.  I mean, this was a pack-all-your-food, sleep-in-the-vehicle type of a trip.  I had no money.   The trip was a bit of a bust.  Sleeping in the short bed Ford Bronco was so uncomfortable that I was forced to put a cheap motel room on my credit card the following night, and we were profoundly disappointed with Four Corners.  It was out in the middle of nowhere, had just a small plague (though it was still cool to put each limb in a separate state), and was surrounded by Indian booths and Port-A-Potties.  BUT we happened upon Mesa Verde during that trip, and the beauty and awe of that place ended up making the whole trip worthwhile. 

So I have been trying to get the girls to go back with me.

The effort of lining up a family trip is somewhat ludicrous.  Of course, you have everyone's work schedules to deal with, as well as the very full schedules of the kids.  I think if I offered them a free trip to Fiji they might all find a way to get on the same page, but short of that it's pretty impossible to match it up with everyone.  The way this one worked out in the end was that it was me, Steph, Kaiya and Teague. 

We ended up staying in a condo north of Durango, a place I had not been to before.  It was pretty nice, though a bit of a drive to everywhere we were going.

We stopped by Four Corners "on the way" in to Durango.  I think that the combination of not expecting much, and time, made it a bit more enjoyable this time.  It's still out in the middle of nowhere (after all, that's just where the four states meet, in the middle of nowhere), and interestingly enough they actually shifted it's location a bit.  I guess with the advent of satellite and GPS they were able to pinpoint the exact spot where the states meet a bit better.  And they have made improvements; for example, the Indian shacks are still there but now they're not made of wood - they're made of cement.  And the plaque is much larger, probably to accommodate more people at once.

 

 

The next day we rode the Durango-Silverton train.  The girls and I didn't have the money to do this on that long-ago trip, and I have been wanting to ever since. 

I think the kids enjoyed it, but it was a long day and they were a bit sick of the train by the end.  But I absolutely loved it.  We even saw a bear.

Next up was a trip to Mesa Verde.  This park contains well-preserved cliff dwellings of what used to be called the Anasazi.  I guess now the correct term is "Ancestral Puebloans" since Anasazi apparently means "ancestral enemies."  At any rate, it is awesome to see.