Tumbleweeds

This has, literally, been a whirlwind couple of days.  Not only because we have been in high wind areas, but also because we've packed a lot of activities into a few days.  Since my last update, we have been to Bandelier National Monument, Canyon De Chelly National Monument, and Mesa Verde National Park.  Our last stop is set to be Great Sand Dunes National Park, but anyone watching the US news very closely knows that it will only be open for business tomorrow if the Federal Budget gets passed.  Crossing fingers! Anyway, this has really been an Anasazi (or Ancestral Puebloan if we are wanting to be more hip) ruins trip.  Our first sightings were at Bandelier, where we marveled at the complexity of the structures and the sheer number of intact walls and structures.  Now that seems laughable.  It just kept getting better and more impressive the further we trucked on.  Canyon De Chelly is gorgeous, with or without ruins, but it definitely had more and even more complete examples than Bandelier.  There was also a coffee shop run by a Navajo woman in the boundaries of the monument called Changing Woman Coffee.  If you ever get to that park, you MUST GO!  She was such a trip.  She even fist-bumped me over the top of the counter.  Hysterical!  Anyway, Canyon De Chelly led to a stop at the Four Corners.  Pretty cheezy photo op, but worth the stop to talk to some Navajo artisans selling their wares.  In Canyon De Chelly I bought a Snowflake Obsidian necklace for myself, and I've purchased a few gifts for people.  In addition to local craftspeople, the last few days have also brought a crazy amount and variety of dogs, horses, and cows running around seemingly wild near the roads and sometimes right off the trails.  We've been informed that some of the horses are feral and owned by the Navajo, but the dogs just seem to be friendly neighborhood mutts.  We even watched one of the dogs steal a bag of chips right out of our neighbor's campsite at Canyon De Chelly!  So funny.  All they found was the empty bag and a happy looking canine wagging his tail.  Today we toured around Mesa Verde NP and we were certainly in for some surprises!  Half the park is closed for the season, but there were still more ruins than we'd seen at either Bandelier or Canyon De Chelly, and you could get even closer to them.  So cool.  Still haven't downloaded photos from today, so you'll have to check back and see those in a few days.  Call it a cliffhanger.