Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, May 30, 31, and June 1, 2009

Saturday - Rosemary drove over this morning, and we went over to Mesa Verde.  The entrance is only six miles from here, which is awesome.  Woo woo warning:  I lived there in a previous lifetime, so it's good to be back in the same neighborhood!

We walked down to see the Spruce Tree House ruin first, and from there started the Petroglyph hike from the bottom.  When I took the hike earlier this year, I started and finished from the top, because the bottom was still closed.  After we had hiked quite awhile, we found some fresh scat on the trail.  It was flat and black and kind of diarrhea.  I'm not as good at recognizing scat as I once was, but thought it might be a small bear.  I didn't have the nerve to stick my finger in it to see how fresh it was . . . something I later regretted!  We walked on along a beautiful trail, and found more of the same scat every once in awhile.  

After walking what seemed like forever, we came to the beautiful petroglyph panel.  Then, onward we went.  Shortly after the petroglyph panel, we had to climb upward on some rocks.  I had done this the last time I took this hike.  Rosemary was in the lead.  She starts climbing up the first rock, and all of a sudden lets out a yell, and comes tumbling backwards over the rock.  I thought it might be the bear belonging to the scat!  Poor Rosemary landed on her tailbone.  I asked what it was . . . I could still run for it!  She said it was a snake . . . I am so bummed that I wasn't in the lead so I could have seen the snake.  It took her awhile to get up, but she did, and with a little pain we finished our hike.  I decided that the scat was much too small to be even a small bear, but we never found out what it was.  We found older identical scat on the trail back.

After that, we went on a tour of Balcony House ruin, which was incredibly cool.  You have to climb up a twenty or thirty foot ladder, and then crawl through a small tunnel.  The ruins are awesome.  I forgot my camera!  Sorry!

Back at home, I put more stuff away.  Time is running short before I leave.

Sunday - I continued cleaning and putting stuff away, with a short break for a walk through town.  It is such a nice town!  I am so happy and so lucky to be living here!

Monday - I drove to Durango today for last minute errands, including getting my oil changed.  Back at home, I put more stuff away.  Getting close now.