Photo of the Day

Soon I will be inundating you with some of the 800+ photos (!) I took at Monument Valley. But even after sifting through all of them, this pic from our sunset/dusk drive to our hotel in the middle of the valley is still among my faves.

I Want to Live in a Cliff.

From when I was little, I've always been obsessed with the idea of living in fantastical places -- in trees, underwater, on top of a cloud, you name it. So being at Mesa Verde was kind of a dream come true. The whole park has more than 100 vertical communities like Spruce Tree House built into the cliffs of the canyons:

Spruce Tree House

The main attractions at Mesa Verde are the cliff dwellings left behind by Pueblo Indians back in 1200-1300. It being the off-season, we were only able to tour one -- Spruce Tree House, so named because there used to be a gigantic tree in front.

Inside was an entire self-contained community, including private dwellings, a marketplace, food storage, kivas (underground ceremonial rooms) and even a dance plaza.







Me going down a ladder into a kiva!

Day 16: Mesa Verde National Park

This week we'll be doing a whirlwind National Parks tour here in the Southwest. For starters, we hit up Mesa Verde National Park. It's totally a must-see -- I highly recommend! The drive up the mountain was spectacular.





Wild horses!

Roadside Eats: Chinese Food in Cortez, CO

We're bunking for the night in the town of Cortez, Colorado -- quite the surprise destination since we were planning on staying somewhere else. But passing through Cortez, Kaii suddenly realized it's much closer to Mesa Verda National Park, which we'll be visiting tomorrow, so we pulled into a Holiday Inn Express here and booked a room.

For dinner, we were craving something different from all the Mexican recently and decided to take our chances with... Chinese! Yes, it could have gone very, very badly, but we had an all-around enjoyable meal at Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant: sizzling chicken, shrimp & scallops w/ vegetables and fish w/ garlic, soy sauce and ginger (a little dry but still tasty).

Four Corners

So, Four Corners pretty much rocks!

There is a little platform there, surrounded by flagpoles, and a bronze plaque on the ground indicating which corners belong to which states. Somewhat surprisingly, in the dead of winter there were about 10 other people there taking silly photos.

Day 15: Road Scenes: Leaving Santa Fe

This morning we headed from Santa Fe to Four Corners National Monument -- the only spot in the US where four states (New Mexico, Utah, Arizona & Colorado) touch.

The scenery on the way was beautiful as well as varied. Not far from Santa Fe, the flat desert land all of sudden turns into huge mesas and rock formations. Further along, snow starts to appear. It's incredibly striking -- the white on top of the red, against the blue sky.