In years back when I thought about visiting this park one day, I felt it would be mainly to see a few ruins in perhaps a nice setting in the mountains. After our two full days in this park and surrounding areas I know now how wrong I was. This 81 Sq mile National Park leaves a person with more than merely having a look a mud and brick-like ruins here and there, take a few pictures and off to the next destination. These two long days of hikes, viewing the canyons, museums, overlooks and taking ranger led tours has left me in awe. Between this park, the tour of Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients I feel I have just had a crash course in geography, history, anthropology, and archeology. How lucky we all are to have such places to visit. You can’t help but try to imagine what life must have been like in AD1200. These dwellings just make you stop & take in the emotion.
We spent one night in Holbrook, AZ, and planned to head north to Canyonlands on highway 191. But the morning of departure we looked at the map and decided to move on to Gallup, NM and then up highway 491 to Cortez, CO. These last minute decisions are not unusual for us. We usually travel by the “seat of our pants” because making advanced reservations is akin to a schedule… A schedule is what we prefer to avoid. Sometimes that can end up being a problem when you find yourself in a popular area, no boondocking available or allowed and private parks are full. This area around Cortez is loaded with history and amazing ancestral dwellings.
We found a nice RV Park in Cortez, “La Mesa RV”, that offered Passport America, Escapee, Senior and Good Sam discounts (select one 🙂 The manager/owner, Shiree is not only delightful, she offered a great deal of information about landmarks and restaurants and those places only locals know about. This was a perfect location for our base-camp for all the places that were a “must see” on our list within 50 miles of Cortez. When you are in Cortez be sure to check out this RV park first. Close to shopping and historic downtown and not more than a mile down the road is a very nice city park with a huge dog park attached.
