Mesa Verde Cliff Palace Tour, drive to Southern New Mexico

I had a good day seeing the sites at Mesa Verde yesterday and felt like I had pretty much seen it all. I was okay that the ranger tours were full so I didn't get to set foot on any of the cliff dwelling sites.

During the night, I did some more research on Carlsbad Caverns and decided that since all their ranger-led tours were also full, it probably wasn't worth driving the 5 hours to see the caverns. My new plan was to go to the library and look up where to go next on my cross-country tour. That was my plan when I woke up, but it would soon change.

Just before lunch, I decided to check the Carlsbad Cavern tours availability one more time on recreation.gov, even though I had already checked it multiple times. Low and behold, a spot on the Carlsbad Cavern "Kings Palace" cliff dwelling tour at noon tomorrow had become available! Someone must have canceled, and I snatched it! Just for grins, I akso checked the Mesa Verde tours, and believe it or not, a spot on the "Cliff Palace" tour had become available for today at 1:30 pm. Double score!! I could take the Mesa Verde tour and then spend the rest of the afternoon and evening driving most of the 9+ hour trip towards Carlsbad Caverns, and arrive in time to take the cavern tour tomorrow!

The cliff dwelling tour was great! I really liked our guide. He used to be a high school history teacher and coach. He talked about the people and their beliefs and explained things well.

Among other things, the ranger explained that the round circular stone Kivas were symbolic in addition to being used for gatherings and ceremonies. The Hopis believe our current earth life us our fourth existence. Our first existence was in total darkness. We progressed to a second and third existence before this one. I don't remember the details.

I'll reinsert one of my photos from yesterday here, which shows the parts of a ceremonial kiva like the one we stood above today with the ranger.  

The "sipapu" is a small hole in the bottom of the kiva that represent the darkness from which we emerged. Kivas were covered rooms, with a hole in the top to let the smoke out from the fire below. The hole was also the entry and exit point into the kiva. A ladder spanned from the side wall to the opening in top, and as you ascended, the smoke from the (sacred juniper wood?) served as a ritual cleansing.

A hole built in the wall above the ventilaror shaft let air flow into the room. The deflector prevented it from blowing directly onto the firepit and spreading ashes. Hot air rises, so the air that sucked down the ventilator shaft spread around the room and the heated air from the fire rose to the ceiling and out the hole, thus providing  good air circulation.

The ranger also pointed out that the builders inserted stones into the mortar, which is considered an advanced form of masonry.

At the end of the tour, we had to climb back to the top of the mesa. The ranger pointed out some of the hand and toe holds the cliff dwellers used to help them climb between levels.

We, however, climbed through a crevace and then made use of a wooden ladder.

I was  glad I stayed for the tour. It was well worth it! I had a big afternoon and evening of driving ahead of me, though, and didn't get to the Carlsbad area until well after midnight. I saw some interesting land formations somewhere around Albequerque. 

  

I ended up spending the night in a Pilot truck stop parking lot between the city of Carlsbad and the caverns. I was very tired after driving into the wee hours of the morning.