After our week at Navajo State Park we headed back to the Mesa Verde area. We found such a gem of a park in The Views in Dolores!

It truly lived up to its name.

We thoroughly enjoyed the week here and had such a relaxing, peaceful time. Our spot was so perfect for us…. again.

We will really miss the peace and quiet of this area…. but we will especially miss our new best friend that greeted us the night we arrived and visited with us throughout the week:

We named him S’mores.

Can one travel with a horse in her trailer even if it isn’t a horse trailer? 😊

We. love.him

He had a particular type of grass that was his fave that he trained the kids to go find for him:

We could have gone on many hiking kayaking biking adventures in this area but instead we mostly enjoyed this beautiful park and the quiet days and nights together.

We visited the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument right down the road. The view from the Pueblo on site was gorgeous!

There was some really great information and learning opportunities at the museum and info center.

This monument area preserves the highest density of archaeological sites in the country. There’s over 6,000 sites in this area and most of them are in very remote areas that you can’t drive up to. We saw a special exhibit where a university from Poland had spent many months here studying and digging and recording certain sites in this area. Imagine that – others around the world interested in this area of our country that most of our citizens know nothing about.

Maybe many know people do know about Mesa Verde since it is a World Heritage Site… but this whole area is truly special for many reasons and I think it is still a hidden gem in many ways. I also read a sign at the museum that the oldest inhabited area in America is in Oraibi Arizona – which we passed on our remote trek from Monument Valley to Holbrook. Pretty cool!

Here’s a quick synopsis of the area:

And pics from our studies at the visitor center:

The kids were so inspired after completing their Junior Ranger books that they played “natives” that whole afternoon and night. They were grinding corn and building dwellings and kivas and making weapons and clothes… in their imaginations. It was awesome. I love when kids can just be kids. I can say that that’s honestly been one of the best parts of this adventure. I love that they can just be who they are without any pressures of “cool” or modern grow-up-too-fast culture. I love that they can just grow at their own pace.

We also went to the city (Cortez) pool one day while B worked and that was great! It was really a quintessential old school pool experience. It reminded me of many happy summers at Lake Shawnee and reminded the kids of many happy summers at the Mag Greens pool! Or maybe the sandlot or something haha.

Isn’t this a hilarious capture:

The boys went on a mountain biking adventure one night as well but they didn’t take any pics 😊.

And we did make one last visit to Mesa Verde so we could have the satisfaction of completing Point Lookout Trail that we all started on our last visit.

There was a controlled burn going on that affected the visibility but also was cool to look at!

And that was our week! Thanks for coming along with us. 😊

Bye S’mores! Bye the Views! We love you!

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. (Because it was that forgettable.) We also went to 4 corners so we could stand in 4 states at once. It was way too expensive and had the worst bathrooms of the trip. (And that’s saying something for all the wild places we’ve stayed at and visited.) I don’t recommend it 😂. But RR has always wanted to be in 4 places at once so there ya go: