Colorado - Cortez & Mesa Verde National Park

It was again a great morning for riding when we pulled out of Montrose and headed south down the 550. Crisp, cool morning air and once again, awesome forested, alpine scenery. We turned on to 145 and passed many small communities with names such as 'Sawpit' (wonder how that town got that name?). We rode over Lizzard Head Pass - the road surface was very tricky with lots of grooves that could easily pull the bike off centre if you are not alert. I guess the roads get a real hammering in the winter months - hence why we see so many road works on our travels as roads are repaired/improved over the summer months before the snow comes again.

We briefly stopped at a small town called 'Rico' hoping to get a coffee at a cafe'. We walked inside and no-ine was around. Went out on the street and the whole place looked eirily deserted (apart from another tourist wandering around looking desperatly for something worth taking a photo of). It had that look of a town well past it's heydey with almost Wild West store frontages. It was a little bit creepy really - I almost expected to see Ma Bates walk out (Alfred Hitchcocks 'Psycho').

We connected with 535 and came out at the town of Dolores. It was then just a short hop down 145 to our destination for the day - Cortez (I can't get the Neil Young song 'Cortez the Killer' out of my head).

After we checked into our motel and unpacked, we jumped back on the bike and rode 16km down the road to Mesa Verde National Park. I had been looking forward to this visit - as this place fascinated me when I read about it.

Mesa Verde was home to the Anasazi (ancestral Puebloan people) who were cliff dwellers and made their homes in the walls of the canyon that ran through the mesa. The National Park is the largest archaelogical preserve in the USA. There are 4000 archaeological sites (including 600 cliff dwellings). To get to the sites you have to drive 21 miles up a steep winding road to the top of the Mesa. You can then choose to visit selected sites by yourself or have guided tours by a Ranger.

While at the information centre we met a nice couple (Chris & Blane) who were excited to meet New Zealanders as they had some good Kiwi friends in Wellington. I invited them to hop on the Harley for some photos. They were stoked with this and said they would send copies to their friends in NZ.

One of the sites we visited was 'The Spruce Tree House' (so named because the cowboys who discovered it in the 1800's had to climb down a spruce tree to get to it). The house was home to about 100 people around AD 1200 and had 114 rooms.

We also rode around a 10km one way road called Mesa Loop where you can pull over at selected archaelogical dwellings and digs (oven pits etc).

By this stage the weather was starting to look dodgy. I have learnt since we have been here that in summer you are most likely to get thunder and lightening storms around mid-afternoon. We made our exit from the park and got back to our motel in Cortez just before the rain and thunder came!