Spring Break- (Warnng- lots of pictures)

Austin was off for Spring Break this week so Steve took a couple of days off and we went on a road trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado and Moab, Utah. We drove down on Thursday and stayed in Cortez, Co. the first night and thought it might be fun to drive out to the Four Corners. For those of you who don't know, this is where four states- Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona all meet.When we got there the place was closed but having driven all that way we were not to be deterred so...we climbed through the barb wire fence! I should have taken a picture of us doing that but didn't think to at the time.We all took turns doing our own thing to show that we were in four states at the same time.We didn't get caught and lots of other people were doing it, too. Besides who closes a place like this at 5:00?

On Friday, we went to Mesa Verde National Park. This place was amazing...full of Indian Cliff Dwellings. This is the Castle Cliff Dwelling. We were able to go on a tour of this one. We are standing on top of a cliff looking down on it.Our tour guide, Ranger Rebecca took us down to the ruins.This is one of the many Kivas ( ceremonial pits) that were here.

To get out we had to climb through this narrow passage and up three wooden ladders. It was awesome! This castle cliff dwelling was thought to be the center marketplace and there are about 60 other smaller dwelling in the cliffs all around this one. Some of those are pictured below.

We also got to go down into the Spruce Tree House, which is one of the best preserved dwellings.There is a kiva there with the roof on that you can climb down into just like the Indians would have.

They are not very big. Austin had just enough room to stand up. This is him coming out of it.We did manage to find coyote village which Austin loved because he could climb all through it.Coming up out of this Kiva was a little scarier for him!

Friday evening we traveled back to Moab and Saturday we went to Arches National Park to check out some arches we missed on our last visit there.

It was a bit chilly out but nice for hiking. I actually have three layers on which is why I look so puffy!

Landscape arch is one of the largest in the world!What an awesome view! We are standing next to the fiery furnace ( to the left). There are too many pictures to put on this blog but it was beautiful here and we had a great time. One other stop we made was to the whole in the rock house.

This house was made by blasted into the sandstone. We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside but it was really cool. The home is 5000sq. ft.- built right into the rock!

It was a great little getaway and I think Austin enjoyed himself even if he had to go with just his Mom and Dad!