Mesa Verde and Durango

Camping. Why do we do this to ourselves? Because it is worth it. Sure, it takes days of preparation (mostly from Katy), hours of packing, and is virtually guaranteed to be unbearable at some point, but this is camping with kids and they LOVE it. This time we decided to head a little further south. Down to Mesa Verde National Park. Why? Because this way we could finally spend a little time in Durango, Katy’s College town. Believe it or not, Katy has not been back this way since she graduated many, many, many years ago. So after a week of packing and slamming everything into (and on top of) the car, we headed down to Golden, picked up cousin Kelly and hit the road for the next 8 hours, hoping to pitch a tent before night fall. On the way we saw lots of wildlife, road, mountains, road, prairies, and road. Actually it was a nice drive. We stopped along Wolf Creek Pass and took a hike right up to Treasure Waterfalls and enjoyed the local cuisine in many a random podunk town. Oh yeah, and we stopped a LOT to go pee (I am not sure having Molly potty trained has bought us anything).

Once on the site, deep in the National Park, we set up our brand new 8 person Costco mega tent in a plot that simply was not designed for anything this big and unpacked the car for the first of a billion times for a fire and dinner. Campsite was beautiful and had close access to the camp store which, note to selves, was stocked well enough for us to just go buy our meals to cook each day instead of packing 10 coolers and boxes with everything we would need up front. The first night was okay. Caden slept with Kelly on one mattress and Katy, Molly and I snuggled up on the other (which had a leak and had us sleeping on the ground all night). The next day we had two tours booked for the cliff dwellings which Mesa Verde is famous for. This of course is sort of a drag for the kids to get the history and culture lesson, but they did LOVE climbing the ladders and steep cliffs of these awesome dwellings. With Molly in a back-pack on my back and Caden making his own path (and scaring Mommy to death), we had a great time touring the sites. Brought us a picnic lunch for between tours and made a full day of it. Second night at the camp ground re-shuffled the mattresses and led to a “better” nights sleep (there is not good sleep to be had with Molly...much less Molly in a tent). Day two (Saturday), we headed to the Dolores River Festival to meet up with Katy’s college friend, Emily and her family Jeff and kids Kaia and Kelter. Had a great time there. Music, parks and food and even better, Jeff and Emily gave us a ride on there boat down the river. Kids, Mom and dad all loved it. Afterwards we headed back to Emily’s house for a visit then back to the campsite where we learned the most unpleasant fact that Molly can NOT HAVE LEMONADE (after a day of sucking it down in the heat, she was up all night screaming bloody murder because of her acid reflux) poor kid.

Sunday morning we packed it up (barely) and headed into Durango. Actually we went to another ruin site and took a tram tour, but I honestly don’t remember when we did that. Anyway, we got to Durango intact and to our NICE hotel on the bank of the river. First item of business was not to shower, but to un-pack the almost impossible to pack tent and extract my wallet so we could check-in. Then on to the business of showering (and having a drink on our patio over looking the river). After we made ourselves presentable, we took a long walk with Emily and family again down the river to watch kayakers bail and play in a park. Then we met up with even more of Katy’s friends (Kelly & David) and had a nice dinner together.

Monday was tour Fort Lewis day. Katy had not been back there since graduation (which I find stunning seeing how I have been back to Cal Poly at least a dozen times). First thing in the morning, Katy sent my on the Rim run which was a run up a long hill to Fort Lewis which sits on top of a hill above Durango (the idea here was to get me running at altitude ahead of my race in a couple of weeks). Next we had a lovely breakfast in the hotel and hit the streets of Durango. The campus, according to Katy, is seeing much better days then when she was slumming it there. Old buildings gone (on of her main one’s was gone) and many new buildings up. It was a beautiful campus. We hit the bookstore and stocked up on all things Sky Hawk then hit Main Street for a leisurely stroll. Then, it was on the road again for the 7.5 hour drive home...which must have been down hill cause it took us 3 hours less time to get home than it did to get here fours days earlier.

A very exhausting trip to be sure, but a really good time. We will keep camping no matter the hassle as long as our kids love it like they do. Lots of pictures....click here and enjoy!

Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde