Travelouge: Mesa Verde

Last weekend, my husband and I took our last extended road trip of the season down to Mesa Verde, Colorado.

For those of you who were as confused as I was by the name, you can compare the picture of a green mesa with previous posts of trips to see red rock national  parks.  I LOVE red mesas.  I think the rock is SO beautiful in it's bright red shades.  I learned on this trip it's just as worth it to see a beautiful green mesa as it is to see a red one. 

I had never heard of Mesa Verde before Dale came home with the sales pitch for this trip.  Apparently, the location has ruins which were inhabited between 600-1300AD.  IN THE UNITED STATES!!  I've always been aware of the Mayan ruins down in Mexico, but I never knew that America had architectural history pre-dating the colonies!  When I think of native americans, I usually think of tipis.  Period.  The natural history museum around here has representations of native american homes made out of mamoth bones, but even so, they didn't seem built to last the centuries. 

Mesa Verde native americans made cliff dwellings, cities built from stone and mortar in coves hollowed out by the wind.  I LOVED it.  About 100 people would have lived in the little city you see behind us.

Our great college friends, the Harpers, came with us.  With them there, we laughed constantly.  They traveled up from Albuquerque, and we traveled down from Salt Lake City, almost 1/2 way for both of us!

We stayed in the lodge inside of the National Park.  A great decision on Dale's part, as the views were superb.  Apparently the whole park is set on the top of a huge green mesa, with the sea level ground looking like huge canyons benieth us.  True to Harper Hangout tradition, we grilled brats in a george foreman grill, brought rice crispie treat snacks, fudge, and veggies on Friday night, and made waffles and bacon for Saturday morning breakfast...all in our rented lodge room.  Score for us for being creative, planning ahead, and having a feast even when we don't have a kitchen!

On one of the tours, the park ranger used Dale and I as his object lesson for about an hour as he taught about what family life was like in one of these cities.  Apparently I would have been married at 12 years old, had as many children as possible, immediately, with an infant mortality rate of 50%, and died of child birth, osteoporosis, and mineral poisoning by age 25.  A full life already ended last year for me. eek!
All in all, a great weekend trip for all those fellow explorers out there!  I highly recommend it.

It's fall. Do you want to know how I can tell?

Clue 1: It's cold
        Classifier: How cold?

Clue 2: Cold enough to wear wool
        Classifier: How many layers of wool?

Clue 3: One thick layer of wool.
         Classifier: anything else?

Clue 4: And a jacket.
         Classifier: A jacket or coat?

Clue 5: A jacket that doesn't need to extend below my hips and is NOT made of wool
        Note: Some people wear ski coats instead of wool or leather coats in winter.  I find these people less than tasteful.  Especially if he or she is a professional.  Especially if attatched to their ski coat is any amount of lift tags.  Regardless of taste if one is wearing any coat made of more than one layer of jean/canvass/courduroy etc material, it is classified as a winter coat, and you have descended below the depths of winter's icy chill.
           Classifier: anything else?

Clue 6: No long johns or second underlayer benieth pants, no scarf and gloves in combination with acceptable jacket, no second or third layer of sweater benieth acceptable jacket, no feeling of pain from cold when leaving the apartment when dressed in such layers.

And finally--irrevocably

Clue 7: NO snow on the ground.

Even though I wore a turtle kneck today for the first time of the season, it is still considered fall.

In support of regular crying.

I somehow stumbled into a work conversation a few weeks ago about crying frequency.  One of my male co-workers couldn't comprehend the whys of regular female crying. 

"Alana, how often do you just watch a movie to have a good solid cry?"

"Weekly."  I answered immediately.  (If you ask my husband, he might guage it to be more often.)

The previous female who had been asked had answered "Monthly," so I suddenly became the boob of the group. 

Doing what I do and having been trained in emotional health and life balance as I have, I know personally, that crying is just something I often need to do.  It's as important to your life as laughter, when you feel it.

It has become a common topic with this co-worker to ask me "did you cry this weekend?"  "when was the last time you cried?"  and once he told me about a movie he had seen over the weekend with his wife and child about a dolphin whose tail had been amputated, but he was taught how to swim with a prosthetic and his wife had cried.  But he hadn't.

It's a silly topic, and we play around with it.

This morning I was reading a blog post about my dear cousin's wife Illana Smith, who has cancer. 
http://ilanascancer.blogspot.com/
She had a bad bout this week.  Needing a trachiotomy, eye patches on both eyes, IV nutrition, and increasing paralysis on either side.  They had a picture up of her eyes covered, tubes in and out, and the little notes she tries to write to communicate.  The writer talked about how her mom traveled to come and hold her daughter's hand and feel that "I love you" between them. 

Crying is okay.  It happens when you feel something human and empathize to support one's self or someone else.  I care about my cousin, even though I haven't seen him in years.  I care about his mother who is hurting for him, and his little boys who he is trying so hard to raise while their mom is battling.  It is important to feel that and to let it out.  It provokes action, like letters of support, and hugs when I do see him again.  I don't cry because I feel pain for him, but because I recognize the beauty of the experience between his wife and her mother.

We fabricate these kinds of experiences through media, and then it may feel silly sometimes to be "tricked" into such an emotional response to a character.  But the fact is, I'd rather know that I am someone who sees beauty and feels that spark of love in herself, rather than someone who lets that beauty pass her by.