Day 34
Saturday 28th July
We now have a fanbelt and a jeep so we pstpone fixing the camper and drive up the hairpin road to the top of Mesa Verde and an ancient indian settlement. Lisa cuts me an illegal stick so I can walk and unbend and we queue impatiently in the heat for tickets to the ancient dwelling sites as the weather worsens. The views on the way up are long range and highly detailed.
We are very high and Lisa’s heart is hurting so we are a pair of cripples wandering through a fantastic outdoor museum. The indians who built these villages into the cliffs eventually moved out to settle lands throughout the southwest. Their descendants ‘exchanged’ the Mesa Verde for other lands 100 years ago, shortly after the dwellings were discovered by a settler looking for his cow.
Weather turns foul as we leave and a rockslide closes the road, stranding us in our discomfort for an hour. I return the jeep to Cortez and the weather clears enough to give us a lovely cliff sunset.
We finally prepare our citizenship applications and go online to find the combined fee goes up another $550 on Monday and there is nowhere to get a postmark tomorrow. Feeling the feds sneer, I seethe.
