Well where do we start? Since the last blog update we have seen some amazing things and travelled a very long way. We cannot include everything we have seen and done in this blog otherwise you’ll get very bored reading it, but we can pick out the highlights 🙂.

We used our first, and only, full day in south western Colorado to visit Mesa Verde national park. This is in the mountains and the high desert and was home to the ancient Pueblo peoples – a number of indeginous tribes that the Spanish simply collectively called Pueblo as they had permanent homes/villages. The history is amazing! On the high desert itself you can see ancient houses and settlements from circa 600 AD, which are fascinating, but then you get to see the cliff houses from circa 1200 AD. These are well preserved settlements in the cliffs of the canyons. They are built into the existing eroded cliff walls so they are all under massive overhangs or in what could be called a cave. They are villages. They have buildings made of dressed stone mortared together, they have communal areas, storage buildings, water (seep water) etc. etc. We were lucky enough to be on a tour of the largest settlement with a native American whose ancestors could be traced back to these dwellings. We also trekked and saw Petroglyphs. A truly awe inspiring place.

Where we stayed in Colorado was a few miles outside a small town called Dolores. This was where an acquaintance Si met trekking in Italy grew up. Sadly she was not there but she recommended some things. It was truly the nicest American small town we have been in. Clean, tidy and looked after with what appeared to be a great community 🙂.

We left Colorado and headed in to Utah. On the way we stopped first at “Newspaper Rock”. This is a large rock covered in Petroglyphs. It would appear ancient peoples left these to tell a story to anybody who came by, hence the name. There are so many different images 📰. We then went on to Arches National Park. Much like Mesa Verde this was a wow moment but for different reasons. The arches are all rock formations created by erosion and are truly spectacular. We could have spent an entire day here but sadly only had a couple of hours. Even so, spectacular.

Having left the Arches we then had a long drive to a small town called Vernal. A non-descript place in itself but it is the base to go to the National Dinosaur Moument 🦴. This is another National Park. Utah is dinosaur fossil capital of the world and this place does not disappoint. Quite apart from the story of how they excavated hundreds of skeletons that are now in museums all over the place, they decided to build a centre that is attached to the rock face of a small excavated valley. The rock face is roughly 200ft long by 50ft high and contains some 1500 fossils. It is truly amazing to see so many in one place, and…….you can actually touch a few 😯.

Having left Vernal we then had another long drive up to Yellowstone. The majority of the journey was over the high desert, climbing over yet more mountain passes, but when we got in to Wyoming, and towards the Grand Teton national park, the scenery changed. Heavily wooded mountains and valleys, fast flowing rivers etc. 🌲. We arrived just outside Yellowstone in early evening, having seen Bison and Elk on the way. So many people had stopped to look at the herd of Elk the Police were called as there was a 5 mile tailback 😄.

Today was our first day in Yellowstone. It is difficult to explain how vast Yellowstone appears. It is in fact 3472 square miles of mountains, forest, rivers and lakes, so there is a lot to see and it takes a while to get from anywhere to anywhere! However, we managed to see a lot of the “must see” things today, including the Prismatic pool and Old Faithful. We also saw a lot of supposedly lesser things, which where actually just as amazing if not more so. More tomorrow!

Finally, it has become apparent that the locals in this part of the world see more Aussies than Brits. My hat doesn’t help either 🤠. One woman asked if we were Australian and when we said no she just walked off! Next time someone asks if we are from Australia I might just say yes 😄.