Ruins, Canyons, Arches, and Balloons

This is a very picture heavy post, so be warned.

 This weekend we went to three national parks.  It was great. We went to Mesa Verde first.  The thunderstorm that I was hoping for showed up on Saturday in the afternoon when we were almost done hiking but it was a nice way to cool off.  We visited Cliff Palace first, which is the biggest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde.

After Cliff Palace we went to Balcony House, which was definitely the best place to visit.  We climbed up a 30 foot ladder, got to look inside the buildings, and explore.  We were shown a hand print that had been left on the wall.  Its very faint but I hope you can see it. 

At the end of the tour of Balcony House we had to crawl through a tunnel to leave. It was a pretty tight squeeze but it was really fun.

One of the best parts of the whole trip was seeing TWO small herds of wild horses. I was obsessed with seeing wild horses when I was very little so seeing two different herds in one day was a pretty big deal.

 That night we went on a walk around a lake that was near the campsite.  As we were walking around a balloon floated down from the sky right in front of us.  We could see that something was written on it so we ran to grab it before it blew away again. 

One side said "No worries, we'll take care of Gramps.  XXOO"

And on the other, "See ya in a bit...Chicken Spit!"

It was an interesting thing to find.  I've never found a lost balloon before, let alone with something so intriguing written on it.  







The next day we drove out to Canyonlands and saw Newspaper Rock.  It was so amazing!  I've never seen pictographs before and it was really cool to see.   I wish I knew what all of the drawings were and what it all meant.

We then stopped at Arches and saw the beautiful rock formations there. 

It was a fabulous trip and we packed as much as possible into a two day trip.  We had a great time.