Mesa Verde

So, a belated report on the late-in-the-summer vacation we took over Labor Day. Remember: our first camping trip of the year (boo). Also, I have been agitating to visit Mesa Verde for YEARS. Five years, in fact, which was the last time we visited Mesa Verde. (The kids were too small to appreciate it then. Also, it was winter and we didn't get to go on a guided tour.) (I also agitate a lot for guided tours, since M. has a low opinion of them and I happen to think they're worthwhile and also have fond memories of them from when I was a kid.)

So, maybe I had a lot riding on this particular little mini-vacation.

It didn't begin well:

Si's makeshift shrine to Costi.

It was a cloudless sunny day across the entire state, I swear. However, we pulled up to the campsite in this:

Imagine also being starving.

I began to think maybe I had pushed the vacation gods a little too far. I had vacation hubris. I had overextended myself, and now the entire family was going to pay.

Fortunately, it is the desert and the next day dawned warm and sunny. The kids threw themselves into it, as I always knew they would which is why I wanted to come in the first place. It was very gratifying. The adults enjoyed it, too.

We took the "Adventure Tour" with the two 30-foot ladder climbs. I worried about Helen - silly me.

We went on not one, but two guided tours. The kids, poking through the oakbrush around our campsite (okay, fine, shooting each other with airsoft guns), found a kiva.

No matter how many times I see these, I'm always stunned.

We commemorated our trip with lots of gift store purchases, and for once I didn't panic over the Spending of Money. It was a great trip.

Not the kiva we "discovered," but cool nonetheless.

The only low point, other than pulling up in the rain, was that not one, but two (2) separate people on two (2) separate days asked if I was buying something for my granddaughter. Helen. Who is, for the record, seven.

I would have had to be 13 when I had Helen's mother. Or possibly fifteen.

Then M., trying to reassure me, said, "No. You don't look like a grandmother. It's your hair."

My hair?

Wearing a youthful baseball cap. To cover my aged hair.

Still, a very good trip, fuller than it seems possible it could be.