Friday, July 30, 2004
MESA VERDE
I’m ginned up on coffee so we’re ready to go to the top. I am one who begins to palpitate when I stand on a chair to retrieve something from my top cupboard (I’m 5’ 3” so everything is too high up for me). Anyway, you can understand that I avoid step-ladders, don’t climb trees and am terrified of airplanes. Yes, I know, I’m a wimp. But as I always say…..“wimps live and bravado dies.” I do not have a death wish.
Fortified with all the backbone I could muster we began the climb of Mesa Verde. I mentioned airplanes before. For those of you who have been there you know what I’m talking about. For those of you who haven’t…..don’t go. An airplane view is exactly what it feels like. Going up you are on the outer rim of the road. Therefore, your driver is in the comfortable position of being near the center. Riding in the front passenger seat I was privileged to see only inches of road between me and space. Attempting to lock on some sort of a landmark I kept looking through the windshield, only to see space. When I looked down I saw nothing but objects growing smaller with each curve. “Oh how scenic,” you might say. No !! That is far from the picture I was given.
If you have read anything of what I’ve written before you probably assume my imagination is fully in tact. Here is the picture that kept conjuring up in my mind. I will set the scene for you. We are going up at about a 90* angle……..oh all right…maybe that’s a little exaggerated…anyway….we are driving a pretty 4-door Plymouth sedan and our little family camper is white with a soft turquoise band around it to match the car perfectly. (I’m a matchy-matchy.) So we are going straight up and I begin thinking about ways we could do ourselves in……suddenly I had the perfect horrifying event pictured in my mind.
We had been having tire trouble on the camper last year and this year as well. Maybe the wheels weren’t quite right. If they didn’t “track” perfectly they wouldn’t follow the path of the Plymouth and since we were only inches from the edge of nowhere, one would go over the outer edge, thereby pulling us off the road with the camper. I could see us falling into space, backwards, and of course, the end is predictable. I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. It was so real and the reality we were facing, so great, I became more frightened with each mile.
This is the part I hate. The kids imitate it so well it makes me sick. They get my intonation just right and say, “G-G-G-Geeeoooorrrrrr--gggge, get over….get over…G-g-g-geeeoooorrrrgge, ggggeeeetttt oovveerr…..GET OVER!!!!!!!! WE ARE GOING OFF THE EDGE…..” Oh yah. They are all about teasing now. Where were they when I was making my plea?? In the back seat…..in the VERY QUIET back seat. Now, to hear them tell it, I was the only wimp!!!
I make my case. In 1968 there were no guardrails, no shoulder….not even a wide road. Oh no. It was a very narrow, very treacherous road. With hundreds of tourists silly enough to go up the thing why should they care? I promised to take issues with the Colorado Transportation Department when I got down….if I made it down. After what seemed like an eternity we finally made it to the top. I began to feel less tense when I saw the Lodge with people, food and signs of normal life about. My joy was short-lived. We decided to drive around the Mesa and see everything before going to the Lodge for refreshments….after all we were a little past wanting to eat anything after our experience coming up. I, the coward, and the rest who had to listen to my naked fright on the way up…….were all drained at the moment.
I thought the rest would be a piece of cake after what I had just been through, but no!! The road around the mesa was, of course, on the edge as well…..to make the view more meaningful. Again, I was assigned the seat closest to the edge (remember: no guardrails etc;etc;) and all I could see was blue space. George finally parked the car and we got out….“this will be good” I thought…I trust my own feet and legs…not a hunk of steel and plastic that may go berserk at any time and take me where I wouldn’t want to go. But no!!! Remember what John did last year when we were looking at the Yellowstone Falls? Well, this is the same kid a year older.
We were lucky enough to get in on the tour for the Cliff Palace as it was preparing to make the rounds. A Park Ranger gathered us up and took us to an area where we could see the dwellings and that was good enough for me. I looked at the steel steps going down the edge of the mesa which hooked up with a walkway over to the dwellings. As I pondered my choices about backing out I happened to look over towards the edge of the mesa. There stood John…on the very edge…..looking at all the itty bitty specks 1500-feet below. “Look, mom, ………look how little the cars look from up here.” It was a miracle….my little blind son could see!!!!! Did I recognize the miracle? NO !!! I was on him like ugly on an ape. I jerked him back and lectured him all the way back to the group. His reassurance that he wasn’t going to fall only made me more tense. THIS coming from a kid who sounded the alarm at the White House and who almost fell into the falls at Yellowstone??? Oh yah….I’m about to turn him loose again hanging over the edge of Mesa Verde.
I made up my mind to forget going over to the dwellings when he started up again….“I can’t wait to see where the Indians lived, mama, the Ranger said there is all kinds of stuff to see over there………..I wasn’t going to fall.” I reasoned this information before I said anything. We came on this trip to show the kids some history and scenery…to educate them. How could I not let him go on the tour and how could I get out of going? Before I was decided, the tour started and down we went. Steel steps (120 of them…I counted) all going down to a walkway over to the ruins. I had a death grip on John, George was ahead of us, Becky and Patty followed and along came George Jr…….everyone was observing and listening to the Ranger go on and on about the mystery of the Cliff Dwellers, how they carved a city out of the mesa and how they just disappeared without a trace. How they had to make the trek down and back to the top to carry water and hunt for food. I could tell I did right by coming along and by letting John have the experience. He never knew how close he came to not seeing it….that is, until now.
We saw a Kiva where the men of the tribe held council and where the religious practices were performed. We looked in one 3-story house and saw pre-historic paintings on the inside wall, then picked our way around the ledge and climbed stone steps hewn out of the mesa wall and squeezed between a rock opening just big enough for one person at a time. We came to a ladder which brought us out to the top of the mesa again. Mom, dad and aunt Beulah made it without much difficulty and I wondered at their complacency about the danger of the whole affair. Maybe old people and kids just don’t get it, I, on the other hand “got it.” This was a dangerous journey….and I don’t care how much the kids want to tease me about it, I’m stickin to my story.
The high altitude made breathing difficult for us low-lander folks and we huffed and puffed a great deal as we finished our climb to the top again. We drove back to the Lodge and had pie and coffee which was wonderfully delicious and relaxing. We sat and looked out over the horizon, at last able to enjoy the view, and then walked to the Gift Shop. We bought our silver charm for a souvenir… mom and I chose an enameled shape of the State of Colorado but aunt Beulah refrained. Becky chose a mountain goat and Patty selected a pack-mule. Dad spied a silver charm designed like the ruined Kiva so mom and I bought that one as well. John selected a pocket knife and George Jr. enjoyed looking at all the possibilities. He and George Sr. were having fun picking out a charm for me that I didn’t see until later.
The ride down wasn’t nearly as bad on the nervous system as it was going up. Mainly because we were on the inside of the road most of the way down. We got back to camp and tried out a “box” dinner which was pretty good according to the opinion poll. George took the kids up the hill to shower while I did K.P. Oh yah… the charm George got me? He ended up getting me a mountain goat to remember how scared I was….REMEMBER???? You’ve got to be kidding….trying to forget is more like it. The mountain goat was a poor substitute for what he was really looking for…………..a chicken!!!
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
Fortified with all the backbone I could muster we began the climb of Mesa Verde. I mentioned airplanes before. For those of you who have been there you know what I’m talking about. For those of you who haven’t…..don’t go. An airplane view is exactly what it feels like. Going up you are on the outer rim of the road. Therefore, your driver is in the comfortable position of being near the center. Riding in the front passenger seat I was privileged to see only inches of road between me and space. Attempting to lock on some sort of a landmark I kept looking through the windshield, only to see space. When I looked down I saw nothing but objects growing smaller with each curve. “Oh how scenic,” you might say. No !! That is far from the picture I was given.
If you have read anything of what I’ve written before you probably assume my imagination is fully in tact. Here is the picture that kept conjuring up in my mind. I will set the scene for you. We are going up at about a 90* angle……..oh all right…maybe that’s a little exaggerated…anyway….we are driving a pretty 4-door Plymouth sedan and our little family camper is white with a soft turquoise band around it to match the car perfectly. (I’m a matchy-matchy.) So we are going straight up and I begin thinking about ways we could do ourselves in……suddenly I had the perfect horrifying event pictured in my mind.
We had been having tire trouble on the camper last year and this year as well. Maybe the wheels weren’t quite right. If they didn’t “track” perfectly they wouldn’t follow the path of the Plymouth and since we were only inches from the edge of nowhere, one would go over the outer edge, thereby pulling us off the road with the camper. I could see us falling into space, backwards, and of course, the end is predictable. I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. It was so real and the reality we were facing, so great, I became more frightened with each mile.
This is the part I hate. The kids imitate it so well it makes me sick. They get my intonation just right and say, “G-G-G-Geeeoooorrrrrr--gggge, get over….get over…G-g-g-geeeoooorrrrgge, ggggeeeetttt oovveerr…..GET OVER!!!!!!!! WE ARE GOING OFF THE EDGE…..” Oh yah. They are all about teasing now. Where were they when I was making my plea?? In the back seat…..in the VERY QUIET back seat. Now, to hear them tell it, I was the only wimp!!!
I make my case. In 1968 there were no guardrails, no shoulder….not even a wide road. Oh no. It was a very narrow, very treacherous road. With hundreds of tourists silly enough to go up the thing why should they care? I promised to take issues with the Colorado Transportation Department when I got down….if I made it down. After what seemed like an eternity we finally made it to the top. I began to feel less tense when I saw the Lodge with people, food and signs of normal life about. My joy was short-lived. We decided to drive around the Mesa and see everything before going to the Lodge for refreshments….after all we were a little past wanting to eat anything after our experience coming up. I, the coward, and the rest who had to listen to my naked fright on the way up…….were all drained at the moment.
I thought the rest would be a piece of cake after what I had just been through, but no!! The road around the mesa was, of course, on the edge as well…..to make the view more meaningful. Again, I was assigned the seat closest to the edge (remember: no guardrails etc;etc;) and all I could see was blue space. George finally parked the car and we got out….“this will be good” I thought…I trust my own feet and legs…not a hunk of steel and plastic that may go berserk at any time and take me where I wouldn’t want to go. But no!!! Remember what John did last year when we were looking at the Yellowstone Falls? Well, this is the same kid a year older.
We were lucky enough to get in on the tour for the Cliff Palace as it was preparing to make the rounds. A Park Ranger gathered us up and took us to an area where we could see the dwellings and that was good enough for me. I looked at the steel steps going down the edge of the mesa which hooked up with a walkway over to the dwellings. As I pondered my choices about backing out I happened to look over towards the edge of the mesa. There stood John…on the very edge…..looking at all the itty bitty specks 1500-feet below. “Look, mom, ………look how little the cars look from up here.” It was a miracle….my little blind son could see!!!!! Did I recognize the miracle? NO !!! I was on him like ugly on an ape. I jerked him back and lectured him all the way back to the group. His reassurance that he wasn’t going to fall only made me more tense. THIS coming from a kid who sounded the alarm at the White House and who almost fell into the falls at Yellowstone??? Oh yah….I’m about to turn him loose again hanging over the edge of Mesa Verde.
I made up my mind to forget going over to the dwellings when he started up again….“I can’t wait to see where the Indians lived, mama, the Ranger said there is all kinds of stuff to see over there………..I wasn’t going to fall.” I reasoned this information before I said anything. We came on this trip to show the kids some history and scenery…to educate them. How could I not let him go on the tour and how could I get out of going? Before I was decided, the tour started and down we went. Steel steps (120 of them…I counted) all going down to a walkway over to the ruins. I had a death grip on John, George was ahead of us, Becky and Patty followed and along came George Jr…….everyone was observing and listening to the Ranger go on and on about the mystery of the Cliff Dwellers, how they carved a city out of the mesa and how they just disappeared without a trace. How they had to make the trek down and back to the top to carry water and hunt for food. I could tell I did right by coming along and by letting John have the experience. He never knew how close he came to not seeing it….that is, until now.
We saw a Kiva where the men of the tribe held council and where the religious practices were performed. We looked in one 3-story house and saw pre-historic paintings on the inside wall, then picked our way around the ledge and climbed stone steps hewn out of the mesa wall and squeezed between a rock opening just big enough for one person at a time. We came to a ladder which brought us out to the top of the mesa again. Mom, dad and aunt Beulah made it without much difficulty and I wondered at their complacency about the danger of the whole affair. Maybe old people and kids just don’t get it, I, on the other hand “got it.” This was a dangerous journey….and I don’t care how much the kids want to tease me about it, I’m stickin to my story.
The high altitude made breathing difficult for us low-lander folks and we huffed and puffed a great deal as we finished our climb to the top again. We drove back to the Lodge and had pie and coffee which was wonderfully delicious and relaxing. We sat and looked out over the horizon, at last able to enjoy the view, and then walked to the Gift Shop. We bought our silver charm for a souvenir… mom and I chose an enameled shape of the State of Colorado but aunt Beulah refrained. Becky chose a mountain goat and Patty selected a pack-mule. Dad spied a silver charm designed like the ruined Kiva so mom and I bought that one as well. John selected a pocket knife and George Jr. enjoyed looking at all the possibilities. He and George Sr. were having fun picking out a charm for me that I didn’t see until later.
The ride down wasn’t nearly as bad on the nervous system as it was going up. Mainly because we were on the inside of the road most of the way down. We got back to camp and tried out a “box” dinner which was pretty good according to the opinion poll. George took the kids up the hill to shower while I did K.P. Oh yah… the charm George got me? He ended up getting me a mountain goat to remember how scared I was….REMEMBER???? You’ve got to be kidding….trying to forget is more like it. The mountain goat was a poor substitute for what he was really looking for…………..a chicken!!!
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
