Because we are tourists so we must do the must-dos even if it makes our holiday brains ache a bit

So we are going a little bit back in time to leaving Santa Fe and spending some time in Durango. When we left Santa Fe we took that detour to Chimayo and then we went to Bandelier National Monument before going to Los Alamos then on to Colorado. In Colorado we went to Mesa Verde National Park before "that" trip to the four corners monument. I will combine the two visits because there is a common thread between them. Mesa Verde National Park is the only archaeological national park and was created in 1906 to preserve the archaeological heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people. Bandelier is a monument which protects evidence of human activity from over 11,000 years ago. So basically our visits were exploring people which existed in America before the Europeans "discovered" it.

From AD 550 to 750 the people lived in pit houses which were dug into the ground. Because things were going well for them and the population was growing, by about 750 AD they began to build houses above ground, with upright walls fashioned of poles and mud. They built their houses against each other in a curving row. Pit houses changed into Kivas (probably used for spiritual and social stuff).

By AD 1000 skills had developed to stone masonry. They also were doing more farming than previously and so they cleared land for agriculture.

From 1150 to 1300 AD most lived in compact villages of several rooms, although in about 1225 many of them moved back to cliff dwellings.

By 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted.

It was really interesting to march around these two places and explore a history that doesn't really impact at all on UK history.  At the same time as the Pueblo people were moving back to the cliff alcoves, the Magna Carta was being affirmed.  I don't really know how Americans view this period- is it part of the history of their nation but somewhat detached from that of the USA. The bumpf didn't really try and bring any commonality in and it did feel like "the other America", probably because there was no direct impact from Europeans and the Ancestral Pueblo civilisation had moved south long before Columbus was born.

Bandelier National Monument

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Mesa Verde

See the road on the right? That used to be the road through the park. eek

We walked a few miles in temperatures of 38 degrees through this terrain,...

...to get to the Badger House Community ( 600 years of changing architecture).

We then went to Spruce Tree House which is the best preserved cliff dwelling:

Mount Rushmore, Deadwood and Bikers

When “we” (for “we” read “Chantelle”) were planning this whole endeavour, we got to this part of the trip –between Colorado and Wisconsin- and found that many places around Rapid City, South Dakota were entirely sold out.  This area was really convenient for us, so we just assumed at the time that these rooms weren’t available because we were booking too far ahead and ended up booking a motel in Wall, SD (home of Wall Drug store, advertised for literally 200 miles in every direction as the home of free ice water and the 5 cent coffee).

Anyway, we were talking to a couple at a bar/restaurant in Denver the night before (it transpires he was a food critic for the Denver Post) and we were talking about our difficulty finding accommodation in South Dakota.  With some mirth they pointed out that the reason for this is the imminence of the Sturgis Biker Rally – a rally of several hundred thousand bikers, biker-related vendors and interested observers.  It is also the 75th anniversary of said rally. This explained a few things.  It also explained why the entrance to Mount Rushmore (which is in the vicinity) looked like this:

We got in eventually and did some obligatory tourist photos (I thought it would be bigger, btw)
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Good call on Teddy Roosevelt;  Dude got shot and kept on giving his speech.

 
Pictured: Photos of non-comparable majesty.

So now we knew what we were in for and because I’m a fan of the show, we popped up to Deadwood for a nosy.  Deadwood is next door to Sturgis, so it had one or two bikers in attendance.

 

Not pictured: thieving Cornish miners and Chinese Butchers

What I didn’t know is that Deadwood, true to historical form, is maintained and financed by gambling.  Thing is, gambling is illegal in South Dakota as it is in the majority of the United States, so it has it’s own exceptional concessionary licence.  The booze, gambling and motorcycles lend it a certain appropriate decadence. All I needed now was Lovejoy hanging out a window and yelling “Cocksuckers!” at the crowd.


Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: (Changing back to perfect case as it’s more comfortable) Wir haben unsere  Reise zwischen Denver und Milwaukee zufällig wahrend eine grosse Motorradsternfahrt gebucht. Genau genommen, ist es am größten Motorradsternfahrt  (hoffentlich habe ich das korrekt raten, wie sagt man dass) in Amerika. Auf jeden Fall, haben wir Mount Rushmore und Deadwood gesehen. Wir haben die Motorradfahrer sehr freundlich gefunden. 

(I might’ve made a right mess of that translation.  My German teachers would be shocked, I know. Let me know the scale of the damage by email)

Durango

Ok, so some catch up is required.  The four days prior to our trip in the hills (breathlessly documented last time), we were in Durango, Colorado.  Its a bit of a holiday town, what with its access to various ski resorts, the San Juan Mountains and the Animas River flowing through it.

We did some obligatory rafting down the river, where we thrilled and entertained our American co-raftees with our British wit and charm.  I further impressed them with my uncanny efficiency for sunburn.

One of the main draws to Durango is its 1920s maintained narrow-gauge steam railway to nearby SIlverton, a largely-preserved mining town some 45 miles away. So we too thought we would take a journey up there, at about 12% the speed and about 100 times the cost of the car journey.  At least it is easy to gauge your carbon footprint when you take much of it home with you in your hair and clothes.

I jest. It is a rather spectacular -albeit it smoky and juddering- journey to Silverton, and we got some nice snaps. Cue picture splat:

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch:  Wir übernachteten in Durango für vier Nächte und nahm einen Dampfbahnfahrt zu den nahe gelegenen Silverton. Der Zug war schmutzig und ineffizient und sehr undeutsch.