I'm not sure who it was that uttered the famous words; "A picture is worth a thousand words", but whomever it was is my hero! I'm not very good at writting a lot (at times), so all these pictures should be worth an awful lot of words ;-)
These pictures go back a while, and don't follow the chronilogical order of the blog... but hopefully you will enjoy them as much as I do.
In May of 2006 Kerrie and I went on a trip for about a week. Here are some of our stops on the way. If you haven't gone this route before, I highly recommend it for either you, you and your significant other, and/or your family!
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A great place for a break on our way to Moab, the first leg of our week (short) trip was Hole In The Rock.
As the sign indicates, and at this point was very important to us both... there is a restroom on site!
Unfortunately, the "facilities" pictured below were only on display. . . but I think they are great! Wouldn't it be interesting to see who would get to use the top your family? I'll let you guess who it would be in ours, however, if you were to ask one of us it would vary depending on the person answering the question. :-)
After using the "facilities" we visited the gift shop and took a tour of the home carved out of the massive rock. Neither Kerrie or I had visited Hole In The Rock for many years, and the tour was interesting and worth the couple of dollars it cost. The tour of the house is short, and the entire time taken for the stop was just about right for a break on our travels.
This is a picture of the rock. The entrance to the gift shop and the home is thru the white trailer attached to the front.
We continued our travels to Moab, which is where we spent our first night. It's hard to believe that I didn't take at least 1 picture while we were their, but because it was just one night I guess it is possible, even for me. ;-)
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The next morning we got up and headed to Mesa Verde National Park, which is located in the beautiful state of Colorado.
This is a picture from the road just below the place we stayed. I don't remember the name... it is something along the line of Mesa Vista Ledge View. This was the nicesest (and only) lodging within the park itself. Prior to our trip I reserved one of the "nicer rooms" as part of a package deal that included a great dinner at a 5 star eatting establishment in the lodge, a bottle of wine (that served as an excellent gift for a lady that Kerrie works with) and 2 etched wine glasses.
The room had an extremely small bathroom, as well as a deck with 2 plastic chairs. The room contained no television or telephone, but did have aCD player (although we had no CD's in the room). I guess people don't go to a beautiful National Park to watch television! There was a guest book on the desk in the room that was interesting to read. It was fun to see who had stayed in the room previously, and read about the stay, likes and dislikes. We weren't too bored because we took our laptop on the trip, and although it wasn't fully chared we were able to watch and entire DVD when we got back from dinner. By the time the DVD was over it was time for bed. Although I don't remember what time it was I think it was a little early, which is probably because it got dark pretty early.
The room was very clean and had recently been remodled, so it really wasn't too bad. The only real complaint was the wind blew under the front door. It was somewhat noisy and a little bit drafty. Despite this minor complaint, it was a nice convenience to be able to stay right inside the park-- and NOT have to do so sleeping in a tent! I would recommend the room and package for a COUPLE going for one or two nights... just be sure to take a DVD player and/or CD's (and not the kids).
One of the cool things about the room was that we could see wild horses from our deck. Yes, wild horses roam the park. This is a picture of a couple of the horses ourside our room in the morning just before we left. It was pretty cool and not something you see every day.
Although I didn't take pictures of them for some reason, we also saw very large, no, HUGE and NOISY wild turkey's. It was kind of fun to watch them and see them talk, or scream, back and forth to one another.
The ancient ruins at Mesa Verde are truly amazing and a bit mind bogling. Some of the ancient civilizations home's and meeting places were above ground, some burried within the cliff's, and others located below ground. This is a picture of one of their living quarters below ground. A guided tour is essential in my opinion, unlesss you have been to the park a couple of times previously and know where to go and what you're looking at. The tour guide gave us some great insite on how the people lived and what many of the items represent or were used for. It was well worth the money, which really wasn't much.
Many in the ancient civilization lived in cliffs. This is one of those locations taken from an overlook. 
This is a picture of Kerrie and I standing in front of dwellings that we hiked to. The path was paved, but steep in many places. It was kind-of fun.I don't care for this picture... but I'm getting to the point in my life that I realize that sometimes the picture (and the truth of its reality) just must hurt to be able to share :-) ...that and I've given up worrying what most people think.
Learning about the people who made, and called these locations home, is truly amazing. It certainly makes me much more greatful for all that we have in these very modern times that you and I live in. This is one of the cliff dwellings up close. 
Below is a picture of Kerrie exiting one of the below ground meeting rooms. I wass feeling a bit clostrophobic and fat that day so I didn't venture down the small opening to the room below. Kerrie had another woman take a picture of her taken while she was down their, but unfortunately it turned out blury so I wont post it here.
Mesa Verde National Park had experiences MAJOR wild fires the year prior to our visit, and despite the huge devistation and blackening, it is still a pretty place.
After having spent the night, and taking a guided tour of the park the following day, we left the park and headed to Durango, Colorado. (because the blog site is acting kinda funny tonight... I am going to save the post at this point, and will continue on later...
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