Colorado Vacation

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Four Corners National Monument

We started out by going to the Four Corners National Monument. This is the only place in the U.S. where four states meet: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The kiddo thought (and ok, let's be honest, I thought so too!) it was cool that you could be in four places at once. The monument is on the Navajo reservation, and around the edges you can buy goods from Navajo sellers. It was very cool, because while they all spoke to us in English, when they conversed with each other, they spoke their native language. It's neat to hear, since so many Native American languages are on the brink of dying out.

Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park

Next we headed into Mesa Verde National Park. Very cool place. Totally mind-boggling as to why anyone would settle there though! The thought of having to climb down the cliff face for water and game, etc. just amazes me. And there is clear evidence that the Ancestral Puebloans farmed as well. Where they farmed is unclear to me, since I don't like to look over the edge so I didn't see what was in the valley, and the mesas didn't look real fertile to me.

One interesting thing I learned was that these peoples used to used human hair to make knotless netting, using a looping technique. This technique was later replaced by knitting and crochet. ;)

Durango Silverton Railroad

After spending a few days in the Four Corners region, we headed to Durango, Colorado. Durango was founded by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in 1880 and initially existed as something of a base camp to the gold and silver mines of the San Juan Mountains. It's still a lovely town and the steam train is very cool to see. Next time we go we are riding the train from Durango to Silverton, which is supposed to be a fantastic scenic ride.

I really liked Durango (part of that had to do with the fact that they had a Starbucks and I'd had horrid coffee that morning, lol) it was a nice, pretty town. Very obviously a tourist destination, but it didn't have the junky stores a lot of tourist traps have. And some of the buildings are absolutely gorgeous!

Great Sand Dunes National Park

From Durango we headed to Alamosa, CO. Just outside of Alamosa is Great Sand Dunes National Park, one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Sand dunes is like a desert in the middle of Colorado. To suddenly see this sandy beach-like stretch and then huge dunes at the base of the mountains is very amazing. The tallest dune rises 750 feet from the plains below.

I must say, I could never live out there. It is so incredibly desolate. You go for miles and miles seeing only scrub. The amount of work it must have taken the few farmers to clear enough land to grow crops on is astounding. Even cattle would have a hard time living out there.