After hitting the gift shop we went up to the park for our 10:30 tour. It took an hour to drive to Chapin Mesa where we were touring Cliff Palace first. It was a hike down on uneven step stones and 5 ladders, but very cool and the largest of the cliff dwellings. The scary excitement was when a boy around 8 years old fell head first off the wall. He was okay. We finished that tour and went to our next tour which was Balcony House. We had an experience in the restroom over there, it was a little stinky and mommy was gagging uncontrollably. Apparently the walls are paper thin and when I came crashing out I had an audience. Kayla did better than I but when Callen went in she was letting out something between a shriek and a loud cry the whole time that was quite entertaining. When we started our tour we really had no idea what we were in for. They described steep stairs down, squeezing through two rock walls, a 32' vertical ladder up the cliff face, through an alcove, crawling on our hands and knees through a 12' long tunnel, up a straight ladder on another cliff face only to end up at the worst part. When we victoriously made it up the final ladder we saw what appeared to be tiny rock steps that were literally carved in the cliff boulder. Not only that but they curved around in a switch back sort of way. All you could hear was, "WATCH COLBIE!" "COLBIE, Hang on!" "Callen, Kayla BE careful!!" and of course, "click, click, click" of my camera. Even Colbie was relieved when we made it to the top saying, "That was exhausting!" We realized we had climbed up a 60' open cliff face with step stones and two 10' ladders.
After the excitement at Balcony House we rewarded ourselves with lunch and another gift shop. Colbie was so excited to find another penny machine. After eating and shopping we took a self tour of Spruce Tree House. It was a long steep hike but the house that has had the least amount of restoration to it. It is 90% in it's original state. The girls went down a ladder into a Kiva and Colbie thought that was cool. She wanted me to stay up top so she could describe it to me. After hiking back up we were pretty exhausted. We went through the museum where Colbie loved the dioramas and Callen loved it all. After Spruce Tree we drove the Mesa Top Loop. We saw pit-houses and many cool overlooks. Callen became quite the photographer. My legs were tired, daddy and Kayla had their afternoon crank and Colbie couldn't walk another step. So, I sent Callen on her own if I could see her the whole time. She reported back and probably thought her fam were losers:). It was actually only 2 or 3 pit-houses I sent her own, no overlooks.
We headed back to the campground and stopped at the Ranger station so Callen could become a Jr. Ranger. Colbie showed off her book and took her pledge yesterday. We came back to the site, had dinner at our picnic tables (pasta) and then Colbie set out the s'mores stuff. She was so excited she helped set up and encouraged me to start a fire since Kevin was gone running. I actually built a pretty good fire. After dinner we went for a walk and saw about 10 deer (bucks, does and a little baby). We were only 4' away at times and no matter how many times we "shushed" Colbie it didn't work. She had to say, Hi Deer!" It was a fun day. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:Mancos,United States
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