Mesa Verde and the Million Dollar Highway

Today we started our travels in Mesa Verde National Park. (Mesa Verde Means green table). At Mesa Verde we saw many intersting things. We saw the Cliff dewllings and took a Ranger Guided tour. Our favorite part was the Kiva. These were thought to be worship and trading places. The Ranger said that it was like "Going to church then to Wal-Mart." While there we saw some Mule Deer. Sarah and Christopher earned their Junior Ranger badges. We are going to try to get one for each park. After Mesa Verde we drove 230 miles to Telluride over the Million Dollar highway. Which Mom would pay a Million not to drive again ;> She did not like the drop offs with no guard rail. Along the way we saw many snow covered mountians. We went to almost 11 thousand feet in elevation. We saw the town of Silverton, named for the tons of silver found there in the gold rush. In Telluride we rode the gondolas from Mountian Village. We found out the gondola travels at 11 miles per hour. Then we drove into Utah along the Ancient Highway. Tomorrow onto Canyon Lands and Arches NP. :>

Tonight's Blog By Sarah.

Change of scenery

Today we traveled through northern New Mexico north of Santa Fe to Cortez, Colorado. Santa Fe's building were all very diffrent from home as they were all square and brown or grey. Along highway 84 we saw a natural ampitheater that was really neat(I added a pic). We stayed there for about 1 hour and ate lunch. It was amazing to see the change from desert and highway to red clay mountains. I also added 1 pic of a mountain we saw along 84. We went through an indian territory named Chama and then traveled to Pagosas's hot springs and felt the water(it really stunk). Once we reached the Colorado border there were pines and firs everywhere. We also went through a national forest before we reached Cortez. Tommorow we will go to Mesa Verde to see the cliff dwellings the will go north to Telluride to ride the gondolas around the mountains.

pics

Here are the pics that were suppoosed to be on last night's blog(us outside of Carlsbad, stalagtites in the "Big Room", and White Sands).

Carlsbad and White Sands

It is now 7:55 mountain time(we are looking at mule deer as I speak/type) and we have gone arond 400 miles today. We are around 2 hrs. from stopping in Santa Fe for the night. We got to Carlsbad park around 8:30 when the it opened. We spent around 3 1/2 hrs. in the caverns looking around. We all had a great time there(the pic I added of inside the cave is in the "Big Room" which spans 14 football fields). Then we drove 150 miles to White Sands national park and ate dinner there. When we climbed to the top of the dunes, we couldn't see the end of the sand. The pic in white sands is the best we could get, but wasn't from the highest dune we walked on. The mountains in the distance are the Sacromento mountain range. We will be going to Durago/Cortez tommorow and are hoping to see some of Mesa Verde that night and the next morning. By the way, when we were in white sands we saw clouds that had rainbows in them. I know, it sounds wierd, but we couldn't get pics where you could see it :( We think it is from the sun reflecting on the sand, which is gypsum and talc. sorry if the pics dont work were in the middle of nowhere and are getting excited when we see a car or a light.

Day #2

We left Arkansas at around 7:30 central time and crossed the state line into Texas within an hour and learned some new things there....1-staying in the left lane without passing anyone is illegal in Texas. 2-going 83 in a 70 doesn't make the cop any happier! 3-being a city fireman does help;) The pictures of us in Dallas are us in front of North America's largest ferris wheel and in front of the cotton bowl. We saw thousands upon thousands of windmills, oil wells and what we are calling the vast untundra. After 12 or so hours driving in Texas we reached New Mexico. We arrived in Carlsbad and went to the national park to see an estimated 400,000 bats leave the cavern (sorry, no pics allowed) and got free rootbeer floats from Sonic on the way back home:)682 miles in all today. We have seen lots of cacti and found out that any rest stop with 4 picnic tables and a port-a-potty isn't a rest stop.

Driving....and driving....and driving..

We got the van at 8:30 and were packed and leaving by 9:30. It is 7:30 eastern time and we are around 1 hour from arriving in Hope, Arkasas. We hope to be to Carlsbad, New Mexico by the end of tommorow. Here are 4 facts about Arkansas.1)the highest piont is Mount Magazine(that's not a typo) 2)the Hammond-In-Hollow waterfall is 202 feet 3).the water from the spring in Hot Springs has reached 143 degrees(f) 4)there is a 202-foot cave along the Buffalo national river(the largest in the state). The picture of the big pyramid is the Memphis Grizzlies' basketball arena. The bridge is over the Mississippi River.