The Road Trip, part 11

Day 10 -- Durango to Bedrock, stopping by Mesa Verde National Park

As is customary, we got off to a pokey-slow start. Best Western had a complimentary breakfast bar, which served our needs well, and afterwards Val and the kids went for a swim, having been denied the night before by an early closing hour. Of course we had a checkout deadline, so I clock-watched while they splashed about -- Amalie particularly liked the adjacent hot tub. I called the time, they piled out, and we packed up and got ready to move on.

Our first stop, though, was a mere walking distance -- the D&SNGRR depot, to explore the gift shop one more time. Val had wanted to get some posters (a very good value at a mere dollar each), but they were out of stock on Sunday. The promise of Monday re-stock was fulfilled, and posters in bag, we walked back to our car, still at the hotel. On the way, in front of the depot, I spotted a bright red parking meter, which obviously was not metering a parking space as it stood some ten feet back on the lawn. Inspecting closer, it was a collection box for a help-prevent-homelessness concern. I thought it was a novel enough method for contribution collection that I dropped in a quarter. The meter granted three hours. And, at last, we were on the road out of Durango at the crack of noon.

Our stop for the day was Mesa Verde National Park, just outside Cortez. This is vast tract of canyonlands, where about a millennium ago a native people now known as the Anasazi built various cliffside dwellings, storerooms, and temples. Getting to these ruins, however, is no short hop. The park entrance ($15 for a car) is over a mile off the highway. The visitor's center is another 15 miles, of the usual insanely twisty, mountain-conquering, Coloradan roads, though at one point the road designers, possibly in a burst of rage but more likely for general aesthetic purposes, got sufficiently annoyed with one peak and, rather than wind up and down its shoulders, simply punched a tunnel through the damn thing (and then included no lights). I applaud this decision (the tunnel, not the "no lights").

Signage along the way is woefully inconsistent -- landmarks and distances are given in apparently random pattern, and sometimes different names are used for the same destinations (sometimes the geographic feature, sometimes the ruins group, sometimes the specific ruin). Carson fell asleep, and when we got to the visitor's center, we trundled him inside and planted him and a pillow on an out of the way bench. Val took a hungry Amalie on a walkabout to find something to eat (which was indescribably frustrating; again, signage failed to provide any useful information; Mesa Verde has had several serious fires in recent years, and perhaps all the good signs have burned down), while I monitored the sleeping boy. Not our best afternoon. Val and Amie eventually returned, hot and flustered and unsatisfied, Carson woke up, and all the good tour tickets were long since sold. A ranger suggested our best chance at seeing interesting ruins with the least out-of-car time, and we followed the map she highlighted. Another six miles down a ridge, and finally we came to the ruins, though the best feature of this drive is seeing ruins on the opposite side of a canyon. We alighted, took in the sights, shot some pictures, the usual, and hopped back in the car, mollified that our trek had not been entirely in vain. Another 21 twisty, uphill miles got us out of the park, during which Carson felt ill -- so, while it is a good park, we didn't get nearly good value from our visit. It just seems a very long way to go to see what an ancient people left behind when they got fed up with the place and left.

With still a long way to go on the day, we headed off again. A gas stop in Cortez brought a very strange sight -- super, 91 octane priced lower than mid-grade 88 octane gas. I suppose the super supply had not yet sold out from the previous delivery, gasoline prices being as volatile as they are in recent weeks. I topped off with super.

Rather than take yet another scenic mountain drive, I opted to head into the lesser hills nearer the Utah border. This is horse country -- I cannot recall seeing another ranch animal the entire way. There were also some crop fields, the most unexpected and attractive of which were acres and acres of sunflowers, in full bloom. Wow. Our route went basically north, with few towns and all of them small. Finally the road led into red rock land, hills and valleys, like Mars with scrub brush scattered about, land with no apparent use in farming, ranching, or mining. Were it not for the actual road, there would be no signs of civilization for miles. Stark, demanding, beautiful country. We saw maybe half a dozen other vehicles over a 65 mile stretch, and one balancing rock (erosion having eaten the bottom more deeply).

The sun set and there was but twilight gleaming when we re-entered Paradox Valley, the last 20 miles to the ranch. It was dark as we turned on to the gravel approach road, but then -- firelight. Surprise! Jenny and Dickie Joe were still in residence, sitting out enjoying a bonfire before bedtime. The storms of last week had crimped their field work schedule, and they decided against going to Lake Powell in order to catch up. We were all glad to see each other, and lucky me -- there were a few leftover pork chops, which went down a treat.