Chaco was so peaceful, uncrowded and interesting that we didn’t want to leave but we needed to move on. After a Ranger led tour of Pueblo Bonito, we returned to US 550 and headed north to US 64 where we turned northwest through Farmington, Shiprock, and on to Teec Nos Pos. Our next stop was the Four Corners Monument off of US 160 where we joined the crowd taking silly pictures of ourselves in four states at once.
Driving north into Colorado we turned east on US 160 again in the touristy town of Cortez and headed to Mesa Verde National Park. It’s a beautiful drive up the mountains to a very nice campground with hot showers, laundry, and WIFI everywhere. Unfortunately it takes an hour to drive to the ruins from the campground so we will need to return another time to see them.
We wear a lot of merino wool clothes so we hung our laundry to dry on lines in our campsite. Of course the wind blew up during the night and after dreaming of chasing our shirts and underwear around the campground we woke up enough to go out and retrieve them. Fortunately, everything was dry and still on the lines.
Sleeping in the camper in a high wind is very much like sleeping on a boat–it rocks and makes a lot of noise that shifts us into a semi-conscious state where we listen for changes and feel the need to see if the anchor is dragging. So far the truck hasn’t shifted in the wind and nothing has blown away.
Today’s lesson: Don’t leave your laundry out at night unless you are willing to get up and bring it in right away if it gets windy.
