Back At Mesa Verde

Alright, back to my trying to catch up on what the Black Family's been up to. I really wish these would just be printable and work for my journal, but at least I'll still have the pictures.

Around the second week of June, we headed off for Southern Colorado to explore Mesa Verde and the La Plata Mountain Range. In the hope of keeping it short and sweet, here's a few shots from the trip.

Grandma and Grandpa Black endured the four-day excursion amazingly well, between screaming babies and pouring rain. Layne zonked out on the last hike of the day in Mesa Verde. That's about how we all felt I think.

This is the cabin that we rented (for a "scorchin' deal" as Jared would say) for our stay. It was beautiful and we enjoyed being there just as much as we did the surrounding area. I made the mistake of forgetting Luke's blankie, one that I hope to NEVER repeat for fear of losing my sanity. The kid loves that thing like it's an extremity.

We drove through Durango, up to Silverton, and on to a small town called Ouray, which we still have no clue how to pronounce correctly, even after I asked a local at the Box Canyon Waterfall site. This tiny town is known as the Little Switzerland of America, and rightly so. It was inspiring, complete with multiple waterfalls, a natural hot springs water resort, and beautiful surrounding mountains covered in green. Maybe Kimball got it right when he asked us if we were in "Avacado yet?"

Kimball also decided to give all of the sights in Mesa verde more meaningful names, like this one formerly known as the Cliff Palace. He's renamed it the Crystal Palace -- must be some place on Super Mario Galaxy. He also made sure to spice up the eternally long tour guided info from this site with his own comments. He entertained family and strangers alike with his answers to retorical questions posed by the world's most obnoxiously long-winded park ranger.

And this is a scene from the Long House, another sight in Mesa Verde where Layne conveniently decided to override anything that the park ranger tried to say with her spitting attacks. I had drool covering my hands and arms from the fallout. Needless to say, we attracted a lot of attention. A grandma asked if she could take pics of Koria, to which the redhead graciously agreed. And Luke? Well, lets just say that any female over the age of 18 had to come and talk to the kid -- not the rest of us -- just him. He's a chick magnet, I tell ya. Happens wherever we go. We left the trip very happy with the outcome. Who wouldn't love a free gondola ride up and down the side of an aspen-covered mountain in Telluride in the pouring rain, a standing ovation as two very tired parents scaled wooden ladders with twin babies strapped to their chests, or hot chocolate around the campfire as deer hover 30 feet away? Sounds like a dream, doesn't it? Feels like one too. It passed much too quickly. What a great way to see part of the world we've never explored before.