Amidst 1000 year old ruins

Last long weekend enroute Santa Fe, we picked up brochure of things to do in Durango, CO. The one thing that stood out was the Durango Silverton train.

Chandler to Durango is 7 and a half hours via Gallup and  491. A zoom showed  Mesa Verde National Park and Chaco Culture National Historic park in the vicinity. I guess one shouldnt take vicinity in the map too seriously. Plan evolves to 491 for Mesa Verde and 377 for Chaco culture. Return would take up 2 more hours.

A friend said that he missed taking the train all the years he stayed in Colorado. Youtube videos of the train with Animas  river following the track, make it seem worth the day.The train lets you off only at 6.30pm in the evening assuming you cant wake up early enough to catch the 8.30 am train.

Another friend who had mentioned of his ride along with a trailer, from Denver to Phoenix, helping his sister move came to my mind for directions. He suggested the Flagstaff - 160 route to Durango. On the way are Monument Valley and Four Corners. These landmarks join the trip. Feature creep happens. Somethings gotta give. We didnt catch the rainbow at the Monument Valley but made up by catching a double rainbow at the Mesa Verde park.


A closer look at the trip planning revealed campgrounds at both Meas Verde park and the Chaco Culture parks. One thought - how would it be to stay the night close to such old dwellings or office space. That marked the run to the store for a tent braving the dust storm warning. A look at the weather showed lowest 50s and few drops of rain.

Upto flagstaff, the route is "kottina pindi" (well known?, an idiom that I learnt from my husband.) . As we approached the Monument valley, there were some huge landmarks like Weavers Needle but in black. Later, the brochure at the Monument valley called them Volcanic plugs 
This mouse pad has the picture of Shiprock which is very close to Cortez and visible from the 160. But it being a tribal sacred place, I left it alone.

On the way to Monument valley, we had learnt about the display of Navajo codetalkers at Burger King. You must have heard that last of the Navajo code talkers dies at 93. BK also had the display of plants used for various colors of the Navajo rugs

Next stop Mesa Verde Park. On the way at The Mexican hat, we had seen the San Juan River. The moment before casting my eyes on this Cliff Palace, my heart pounded. These dwellings were found by cowboys. When I read this out loud, my husband chimed in that Ajanta Ellora Caves were found by goatherds.The park has a very good topographical representation of the area. If you camp there, dont miss the Twilight tour, which needs reservation as it has limited places.

Since it rained a little, the cold didnt seem to be a good time to kick off camping. We headed to Mancos for a place to stay. The streets were busy with parked cars and the sky with fireworks. No Vacancy seemed to be haunting us over the mountains into Durango. The only place that would let us in was for an amount easy to calculate and hard to accumulate. This major budget black hole crushed the train plan. we had to be happy with a huge, bed wide train picture in the motel.

Twist in the plan. Forge on to Chaco park. But we had to do something in the beautiful city of Durango. We spent time at the Animas River trail. We met some rafters who had started at 32nd st and took an hour to get to the river road. If you were to raft from Silverton, it would take about 3hrs to get to Durango with a stop for fruits in between. The rafters had some water guns to along with paddles.

On the way to Chaco on 550, we took a turn onto 64 by mistake, but that happened to be a good thing. A sign said that 2miles away is Salmon Ruins.  Ancient puebloan artifacts discovered by hwy 64 road. Even though it is a small place, it is a good link between the Chaco culture and Mesa Verde, in that it has the brains of the former and the brauns of the latter. This is the aha moment oIf the trip which connected the trip upto then and what lay next. It also happened to be a place where we got the information about the road to Chaco. I had read on the net about a washerboard road, but hearing it from the lady at the Salmon ruins, that going as slow as 10 mph is the key, made it less shocking.
The drive into the Chaco Canyon was laden with the weightage that comes with a World Heritage site that is far from the living. We reached the park after the visitor center was closed but the camp allotor was sweet and suggested that we could see the trails up until sunset and informed us of the amphitheater program about the Chaco culture. It might have been this program that made me think of camping. She foreshadowed that the windows of the ruins were passing on the information of solstices and equinoxes.
The Pueblo Bonito stretches your imagination of the times of yore, the plaques around make sure you dont miss the info of the corner windows and kivas.

At 8.30 the presentation by a park ranger, showed a US map with night lights. She even referred toThe End of the Night book and shared how proud she was that the Chaco park had dark night sky designation from IDA

If anything stood out in the whole trip, it was the time of the habitation of the places. I had seen and admired Montezuma Castle. But after learning that Chaco and Mesa Verde people migrated downwards because of climate and drought. The whole Pueblo culture started falling in place. When I asked the park ranger about a book that had the timeline of the Pueblo Culture, she pointed me to Those who came Before. It is in the library.
Gallo campground has some ruins right by it. You are surrounded by cliffs, light yellow and green.
I chatted up with a fellow visitor who is a Glass Insulator collector. A point that I realised talking to her is how with time, a collector has enough knowledge to look only for rarer stuff.

GPS suggested route 377 back home in a shorter time. I was in suspense until the next morning of which route we would take. A Bia-5 which is an Indian reservation that connects 377 to 491 never showed. The one minded GPS was going to add another 18 miles to take us to that platform no 9 and 1/2. Since I-40 wasnt very far, we passed up another chance to join 491 just a little short of the I-40. 377 is as desolate as the US-60 from Socorro into AZ. It is a very different landscape with yellows and greens and as you near Gallup, you can see the reds becoming prominent. Horses abound.