We arrived at Mesa Verde by mid-day and wound up the long road to the mesa top. I remembered this drive from years ago. We quickly found a nice camp spot, made a classic quick lunch, and then took off to see the sites. At Mesa Verde now, one must purchase tickets for ranger led expedition to some of the most spectacular cliff houses, which is a good thing given how popular this park is. 
First we checked out Spruce Tree House, which is a self-guided tour — very crowded. The boys overheard one person commenting to a friend that the round subterranean room in the courtyard was probably a cistern for water storage. What? Idiot! We all know that's a kiva, and is the most sacred place in the whole pueblo.
Later that afternoon we had our ranger-led tour of Cliff Palace. Ted and John Michael knew all the answers to the ranger's questions, as usual.
John Michael even figured out that one major benefit of building in alcoves was shade during the hottest part of the summer day. Still, we were all a little discouraged by the general lack of knowledge, respect and enthusiasm of our fellow visitors. 
We headed back to our campsite to make dinner and set up the tent. During dinner we talked about ways that Mesa Verde might fit with what we saw at Chaco. Was this part of the Chacoan system, a Chacoan outlier, or an unrelated system that evolved in place and to which late Chacoans came? We had many questions as we drifted off to sleep.
We woke early and hurriedly broke down our tent and packed up, skipping breakfast. Our grand plan was to eat the "all you can eat pancake breakfast" at the campground cafe and then drive about an hour to get to our 9:00 a.m. tour of Balcony House. By now we were experts at breaking down the tent and packing up. Chris, Ted and John Michael focused on the tent while I took care of packing up the camp kitchen. We were standing in line for our pancakes by 7:30. And there we were almost undermined in our quest for answers by Ellen (not her real name).
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