Deep heritage: SW Colorado in late September

Kivas: restored vs. unrestored

For five years now, Anne and I have traveled to the Southwestern US to spend our annual week’s vacation. These trips have centered on the canyonlands country around Moab, Utah – but for the past several years I’ve made a point of choosing a different starting point, where we’ll have a day or two to see something we’ve never seen before and (potentially) find new places to love before driving on to our favorite hangouts in and around Moab.

This year, as usual, we started by flying into Grand Junction and renting a car. Then, instead of heading straight west into Utah, we took backroads (141 and 491) leading south toward Cortez, CO – HQ for Mesa Verde and, more recently, gateway to the recently established Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.

Pueblo ruin, McElmo Canyon, SW CO

Our chosen resting place for the first two…