Rocky Mountain State!

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We drove away from four corners and new mexico and into colorado. This was to be our briefest state visit on our trip. While I had considered other routes that would have taken us into durango, we really couldn’t afford even a 2 or 3 hour detour from our primary destinations. Some other time for sure.

We passed through cortez and made it to mesa verde national park by mid afternoon. Since we hadn’t had any real food since breakfast (except for pie, coffee, and fry bread!), we checked out the park’s cafeteria, the spruce tree terrace. I had a navajo style burrito (which is fry bread — again! — with taco ingredients, and very messy) and a durango brewing co. wheat beer. Pretty good! The trailhead to spruce tree house was basically across the street, and the trail was a simple 5 minute walk down into the pueblo (in other words, I could do it!). I took a quick look at these ancient ruins (see my mesa verde pics). Coming back up there was some huffing and puffing, but not too bad!

After leaving the park we doubled back to cortez, where I sampled yet another brewpub: main street brewery. It was early and empty, so we had the bar to ourselves. The beer was excellent and the bartender was very friendly. I told him that brewpubs in jersey could only serve their own beer, and originally couldn’t serve other liquors. (Here, they did have some big company beers on tap. But he told me that they actually tell the customers that they can’t guarantee their freshness, since they sit around for a long time. Gotta like that attitude!)

We wanted to get in as much driving as possible before darkness set in. We headed north and west and into the sunset as we reached the border of utah . . .