Mesa Verde, Colorado

Snow on the mountains in Colorado.

From Four Corners, we drove to Mesa Verde National Park.  The kids have read stories in school about the Indians who were cliffdwellers, so we wanted them to see the real cliff dwellings.

Inside the park, we saw horses grazing in open areas that were not even fenced off.

These houses were built in the side of the cliffs.  We hiked into the canyon to see them in the Spruce Tree House area of the park.  The trail was about a 1/2 mile long.

They got ahead of me when I was taking pictures, so I took this to show how far down they were.

We climbed down a ladder into a Kiva, a pit house that is built under ground.  The roof is even with the ground.

The girls with the grinding stones.

Inside the museum, we saw pottery, clothing, weaving, basket making, food, types of houses, weapons, etc.

In this picture, you can see forest land in the front, plains in the middle, and mountains the snow  in the distance!   

Four Corners

We left Holbrook and drove to Four Corners today.  We kept seeing these huge rock formation in the middle of the flat plains. 

Four Corners is on Indian land.  It is where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. 

All four children are standing in a different state in this picture!  I was standing in the Colorado section with Jack, but all three girls can say they have been to a different state without their parents.  HAHA!

The seal reads, "Four states here meet in freedom under God."

The sand blows everywhere out here and sometimes makes it hard to see.  It was piled up along the fence rows in some areas, and it was piled up really high along the cliffs. 



The Grand Canyon

We drove from Sedona to the Grand Canyon today.  I took this photo upon top of the mountains.  Check out the temperature: 48 degrees!!!!

We stopped at an overlook to take some pictures.  This shows the road that we just traveled to come up the mountain.  There were Indians with tables set up selling jewelry, pottery, etc.

We saw about fifteen Lamborghinis following each other up the mountain.  These cars cost between 1/4 to 1/2 million dollars each!

The Grand Canyon was beautiful!  It is amazing how far down the canyon goes.  They said that some parts are ten miles across.  We were on the South Rim.

The Lamborghinis that we saw earlier on the mountain were also at the Grand Canyon.  They said they were in town for a factory rally that they have once a year.

We stopped at an Indian trading store on the way to Holbrook.

Snow on the mountains just outside of Flagstaff. 

We traveled for a little way on Route 66!

More Sedona Scenery

I took these pictures while we were shopping in downtown Sedona.  Sedona is such a pretty place.  I would love to come back again sometime.

Slide Rock

We went swimming at Slide Rock State Park between Sedona and Flagstaff.  The scenery, waterfalls, natural rock waterslides, etc. were beautiful!  We weren't expecting the water to be so cold though.  It was even too cold for Richard.  We kept getting in and out to warm up.  The water comes from snow melting off the mountains.

The girls talked Richard and Honey into going down one of the rock waterslides with them.

We saw this blooming cactus on a trail beside the swimming area.  We also walked through the apple orchards.

Look how tall this blue spruce tree is compared to Richard!