Trail of the Ancients

Our spring break this year had something of an "ancient America" theme. Covering roughly 1400 miles in 5 days, we visited, in order: Fisher Towers, Needles Overlook (Canyonlands), Lowry Pueblo (Hovenweep), Mesa Verde (Colorado), Durango, Four Corners (Navajo Tribal Park), Valley of the Gods, Cedar Mesa, Mexican Hat, Monument Valley, Natural Bridges, Hite Overlook (Lake Powell), and, last but not least, one of our all-time favorites: Capitol Reef. Whew!

Fortunately, our kids travel well, so all that time in the car wasn't too bad, and it was fun to round out the family travel map with a trip to Southeastern Utah and the Four Corners region. We saw a lot of great stuff both on--and off--the beaten path, met some great people from all over the world, and learned a fair amount about Native American culture and history. For example, we learned that the term "Anasazi" (a Navajo word meaning something like "enemy ancestors") has fallen out of favor and been replaced with "Ancestral Puebloans," apparently on the assumption that no one can possibly take offense at a word so long and hard to pronounce. Whatever term you use for its builders, however, one thing is clear: Mesa Verde is cool, as are the literally thousands of ruins the Ancestral Puebloans left scattered all over the Four Corners region. In some of the ruins we saw thousand year-old finger prints, clear as day, and corn cobs, the remnants of meals eaten long before Columbus discovered America.

Great stuff.