Road Trip West Day 1

Abbey and I have a summer Road Trip tradition. (It's tradition now because it's our second year in a row!) For those of you who don't know, last year we went East; All the way to Maine. We saw most of the northeast. Here's a little rundown from last year to refresh my own memory: Colorado Springs to Kansas City, to St. Louis, to Chicago, to Niagara Falls / Buffalo, to Watkins Glen, to Farm Sanctuary, to Boston (for hte 4th of July!), to Acadia National Park, back down through New Jersey, and through a bunch of other states that aren't recalling in my mind at the moment.
Anyway, this year we decided to go West and see a whole new world. Neither of us had been west (with the exception of a trip to CA that Abbey took about a month ago).
Itinerary for this trip:
-Mesa Verde National Park
-Grand Canyon National Park
-Sequoia National Park
-Ventura, CA (we're staying with Annie and Kevin! My sis-in-law and my bro-in-law-in-law)
-Zion National Park
-Arches National Park

So today, Sunday the 20th, We drove from Colorado Springs and made our first stop at Mesa Verde National Park. We had intended for this to be a 1-2 hour side trip, a place to have lunch. over 5 hours later however......we finally left. This was an incredible place that we wanted to explore, the Grand Canyon would have to wait a little longer.
Mesa Verde was home to the Anasazi people. They lived many many years on Mesa Verde, planting and growing Beans, Corn, Squash. There were thousands that lived there. They built their homes into the sides of the cliffs. They were extremely spiritual people, totally aligned with the seasons. They had buildings with windows that only allowed light through on the Solstices due to their angle, so we know they knew the seasons perfectly. We took a Ranger Tour down into the ruins, and explored and learned a lot about their history. Our ranger was an adopted Hopi Indian and had a lot of extended history about the people.