December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas! Ruly Holiday Road Trip: Day 12, Mesa Verde to Santa Fe

Sunrise in Mancos. The view from our motel room window.

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

I feel like Santa has visited my blog. Comments are the very best present for any blogger and you have blessed me recently, particularly with kind concern for my purse, which went missing in the last post. It seems there might be a demand for a new genre of writing: organizational suspense. To ease your mind about my purse so that you can thoroughly enjoy your holiday festivities, I provide a present to you, the continuation of our road trip journey.

. . .

The next morning, I awoke early to the sound of my cell phone ringing. I answered it to find the cheery voice of the proprietor of the Sweet Cravings Bakery & Bistro in Moab, Utah. “Yes, we have your purse!” she informed me. “It’s exactly as you left it. We closed the bakery for the day shortly after you left and nobody else came in.” I was so relieved. This woman is one of the kindest people on the planet and if you had to choose a total stranger to entrust with the care of your purse, this woman would be the one. It was the start of a streak of excellent luck.

My husband and I had discussed the night before just about every scenario that might happen with regard to my purse. We decided that we could not turn back to get it and we would just have to have it mailed to our home. I discussed the mailing arrangements with my new dear friend and she was happy to help.

I was so relieved to know that I would not be spending the morning canceling my credit cards and driver’s license. There was nothing in my purse that I could not live without for a week. The only item in there that we knew would be better to have was an extra set of keys to the van. We decided to be extra careful about keys until the end of our journey. This near loss of my purse was a good organizational lesson that when you are constantly traveling from place to place, it is a good idea to develop an OCD-like check for your regular personal belongings every time you get up from a restaurant table, leave a public restroom or get in a car to leave someplace. “Do I have my purse, keys, phone, wallet, camera, sunglasses (etc.)? Yes? OK! Good to go!”

We got everyone up and ready for the day’s adventures.

First, a few words about Mancos, Colorado. We chose to stay in Mancos because the online reviews for hotels in the next largest town were not so positive. Nobody had a negative word to say about Mancos. The only catch was that all the hotels in Mancos were small, family-owned operations. They charged at most, the ridiculously cheap rate of $65 per night. I told my husband we were staying at the Mesa Verde Motel and that it would cost us around $65 and he was nervous. He thought $65 was far too cheap to be a comfortable accommodation. It was our only hotel risk of the trip.

The big surprise about Mancos, Colorado is that it seems to be a small business mecca. There are no large chains of any kind and every business there is a small business. Mancos has built an amazing community of business owners. I am pleased to tell you that the Mesa Verde Motel is a wonderful place to stay. It is clean, safe and well-maintained and located close to all nearby amenities. While I grew up vacationing in motels like this with my family, my own children have rarely stayed in drive-up motels. When we entered the motel room, my children took one look at it and said, “Wow! This is so fancy!” which made me smile.

"This is so fancy!" The interior of the Mesa Verde Motel. — “This is so fancy!” The interior of the Mesa Verde Motel.

For breakfast that morning, we went to the nearby Absolute Bakery and Café, which also had extremely positive online reviews. I told the woman behind the counter that we were short on time and we needed something to go. She suggested the savory strudel, of which there were exactly two left. We took them. For the children, our choices were limited. They ended up with cookies (gingersnap and chocolate orange chip) and milk for breakfast.

The gorgeous pastry case at Absolute Bakery & Cafe.

I wasn’t sure about the strudel at first. It wasn’t the sort of thing I usually eat for breakfast. But after one bite, I was amazed by this creation. It is the perfect thing to eat for breakfast on a cold, winter day. The pastry is the perfect combination of flaky and chewy—a texture I have never tasted before anywhere else, and the filling of eggs, potato and green chile was lovely. On cold mornings, I still crave this strudel.

Experiencing small businesses at their finest was a fun treat. Although breakfast was not included in our hotel stay, the cost of the breakfast and motel together were cheaper than our regular hotel stay and the quality of each was better. It also gave us the opportunity to heighten our travel adventure by plugging in with the local population. If only every town had an experience like this!

We drove on toward Mesa Verde National Park.

It was a chilly morning. There was a gorgeous coating of frost on the grasses in the park as we entered. We stopped briefly by the visitor center near the entrance to inquire about the 10:30 tour. It takes almost one hour to drive from the entrance to the tour point but it looked like we would just make it.

Dramatic clouds over the new visitor center at Mesa Verde.

Close-up of the dramatic cliff-dweller sculpture. Loved the emotion and movement of this piece.

The winding road from the entrance to the museum.

Much of Mesa Verde's forests are full of burned trees from recent forest fires. — Much of Mesa Verde’s forests are full of burned trees from recent forest fires.

Near the top of the road, it looked like you could just drive right off into the sky.

We arrived to the tour point just in time and were joined by tourists from all over the world. Our tour group included people from Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and Canada as well as four different U.S. states. We walked with the ranger to Spruce Tree House, the only ruins that are available for viewing during the wintertime.

Note the keyhole-shaped doorways, designed to minimize loss of heat.

Top view of an uncovered kiva, the community gathering and ceremonial place.

The ruins are amazing. The setting is amazing. The ranger explained that the general environment of the park is relatively similar now to how it was when inhabited by the cliff-dwelling Native American tribes. This must have been a difficult existence. The cliffs are so steep. Climbing them was part of daily life for the people who lived there. They could farm corn and hunt deer but there weren’t a lot of other resources. Water was the main concern.

Inside the kiva are two holes. The large hole is for the fire pit. The small hole to the left is the "sipapu," where spirits from the center of the earth can be born into this world. — Inside the kiva are two holes. The large hole is for the fire pit. The small hole to the left is the “sipapu,” where spirits from the center of the earth can be born into this world.

Spruce Tree House has a replica kiva that you can climb into. I was the first person to climb in. It is a bit scary descending into a dark pit. (The other tourists waited for me to tell them that I was safely inside and had not been attacked by wild animals.) Once inside it is actually quite bright and cozy.

The trail back to the museum, lined with Douglas Fir and Pinyon Pine trees.

The ranger indicated during the tour that while most people are fascinated with the question of “Why did the ~~Anasazi~~ Ancestral Pueblo (see comments below) leave the cliff dwellings?” Native American populations are not much interested in that question. In their culture, they believe that the ~~Anasazi~~ Ancestral Pueblo were never intended to live in the cliff dwellings forever. It was the natural course of things that they were supposed to eventually leave the cliffs and live somewhere else and they did. They also don’t like the idea of having their ancestors’ bones excavated and placed in museums. Recently, many ~~Anasazi~~ Ancestral Pueblo remains were reburied within Mesa Verde.

After the tour, we spent some time in the park museum. The museum’s exhibits appear not to have been updated in quite a while and they have a vintage feel to them with their glass cases and display tags. Yet, I found that I didn’t necessarily wish that the museum was modernized and updated. The information was fascinating and it stood well on its own.

Checking out some beaded items at the museum.

For the benefit of our Utah families, an interesting note about the Ute Indians.

An unappetizing recipe for "chewed bread." — An unappetizing recipe for “chewed bread.”

The cliff dwellers were extraordinarily creative with the materials they had on hand. They came up with hundreds of uses for yucca and no material was overlooked for its possibilities, even human hair!

A tender imagined scene of cliff-dwelling mothers and children from the Depression-era dioramas at the museum.

After the museum, we drove a loop trail to view several points of interest. There were overlooks of other cliff dwellings as well as many examples of adobe homes that were built on the mesa top rather than in the sides of cliffs. These were apparently the most common type of dwelling in this area. The cliff dwellings are the most unusual and get the most attention, however.

One of the short trails on the loop trail.

One of many examples of mesa top dwellings.

The Sun Point View allows you to see many cliff dwellings a one time.

Zooming in on several of the cliff dwelling sites.

We saw some park service employees performing repairs on the ruins. It was neat to see people among the normally vacant dwellings.

Interior of the Sun Temple, an unusual ceremonial structure.

After driving through many gorgeous overlooks, we made our way out of the park.

Another signature burned tree landscape.

Just before leaving, we came across some mule deer. They were relatively tame and did not skitter away when I took out my camera and even waited for me to change to the telephoto lens!

We left the park and headed toward Mancos.

We drove back into Mancos and stopped at Zuma Natural Foods & General Store. We picked up some fresh sandwiches packed with veggies. I would love to learn how to cook like this on a regular basis.

The humorous holiday decorations with a dummy hanging from the roof after his ladder slipped from beneath him while hanging the lights.

A delicious curried chicken sandwich packed with veggies.

For the rest of the day we drove on through gorgeous Colorado farmland and witnessed the best sunset of our trip.

We arrived around dinnertime in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We stopped at The Pantry, one of Santa Fe’s longstanding eateries. We noshed on delicious, Santa Fe-style Mexican food with made from scratch chile sauces. In Virginia, it is so hard to find great Mexican food so we thoroughly enjoyed this meal.

The amazing homemade chile concoctions. The red sauce is a bit smoky tasting and the green has a spicy kick to it.

The dessert was awesome! Everyone wanted a forkful.

The restaurant staff were so friendly and kind. They greeted us warmly, called us “amigos” and as we left, someone sweeping the floor called out to me with all sincerity, “You have a beautiful family.” That is about the highest compliment I can receive.

Everything in Santa Fe has a unique southwest aesthetic. Even chain grocery and department stores update their storefronts with adobe or southwestern architectural accents like blonde wood. I love the artistry of this approach. It gives Santa Fe a distinctive feel.