Oakley, Kansas to Mesa Verde National Park

Oakley, Kansas to Mesa Verde National Park.

After Poptarts for breakfast, we were on our way for another day of driving.  This drive was a lot more varied in scenery than yesterday’s.  This country is just amazing. We went from fairly flat Kansas to beautiful mountains, to dry upland prairie.

The road started out very flat with only the occasional grain co-op.

We started to get up in the mountains where we sat grazing cattle and the shadows of clouds on the prairie.

Did I mention that we drove along a train track for much of the day? Jeff was in heaven!

And finally the mountains! No scary roads like last year, but definitely still beautiful!

Going through the tunnels was exciting too.

I applaud truck drivers who drive these roads in the winters; they must have nerves of steel!

This is a runaway truck ramp to be used if a truck's breaks fail on the way down the mountain.
It is a deep sand road that rises and will slow the truck down. 

We stopped for lunch at the Old West Cafe in Fort Garland, CO.  Delicious!

We arrived at Mesa Verde National Park about 5:00 pm. We got our camp set up, made some “camping” mac and cheese, and then I took the kids to the Ranger talk, so Jeff could attempt to get some grad school work done.

We were on a hill but had a great view of the sunset.

Our view

Our view a couple minutes later.

This is us waiting for the Ranger Talk to start.
Carson is into making faces for the camera this week :)

The Ranger spoke about all the animals that live near Mesa Verde and the adaptations that help them. She also played to the crowd by showing slides of the animal babies. Did you know that the skunks around there have different markings than the regular skunk that we all know and love? And that the mountain lion can run 60 MPH? Also that you can't necessarily determine the age of a rattlesnake by the number of rattles on the tail? Some years, they molt (and gain a new rattle) more than once during the year. Don’t worry, we didn’t see any of those animals, but the boys (and I) loved to learn about them. There was also a warning on the info board near the bathrooms to be aware of Brown Recluse Spiders and Black Widow spiders. Yikes!