Breakfast boiling

On our trip, I've tried to match the appealing mellow demeanor of Southwestern people and let go of my inner Eastern impatience. But a morning encounter with a Mesa Verde park employee tested my resolve.

We were rushing to get to our Balcony House cliff dwelling tour, and figured the park's pancake breakfast would be quick and easy. We figured wrong. The line was moving awfully slowly for pancakes. What could be going on? It's not that complicated. You order X number of breakfasts and pay. As we got closer, we discovered the problem. Ellen (not her real name) was at the window.

Every order, she treated as if assigned a word problem. She laboriously checked the boxes of her order pad, crossing out mistakes, redoing her calculations.

OK. I was trying not to fidget and mutter. I really was. She looked grandmotherly. Be laid back, I told myself. When in Rome, I told myself. But it was hard. We were running out of time. So before our turn, we decided to ditch the all-you-can-eat and go with the "Family Breakfast" option -- eight pancakes, eight sausages, four drinks. It was one of five menu choices. Simple, right?

Ellen seemed confused. Family breakfast? Yes, for four. With drinks? Yes, two coffees and two hot chocolates. More pad calculations. Family breakfast without drinks? No. Two coffees. Two hot chocolates.

Eventually, she scratched out $20.67 on her pad. I handed her $21. She couldn't open the register, fluttered her hands and left for help. Sigh.

We ended up wolfing down our pancakes and made our tour on time, almost derailed by Ellen. And I almost lost my adopted Southwestern cool.

Mesa Verde Puzzles

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).

Durango langor

After viewing the pueblo ruins at Salmon and Aztec, we pulled into Durango off a mesa in desperate need of a motel room and showers. Our coating of SPF Dirt had helped protect us from the Chaco sun, but it made us less than suitable company for civilized surroundings.

A standard-issue Quality Inn in the outskirts of town did the trick.

As they always do, the boys immediately tested both bedsprings and found they had sufficient bounce. None of us could muster the energy to go out for dinner, so we ordered a pepperoni pizza from a local restaurant recommended by the desk staff. We had just sluiced off the dust layers when there was a knock on the door. Delivery: Not exactly roughing it, but we needed a change of pace.

We placed the box on a bed, folded the slices New York-style without plates, washed it all down with vending-machine Dr. Pepper's, and had a fun party watching a Max Linder silent comedy from 1921 on TMC, laughing between bites.

In the morning, we had time for some pool splashing, and then it was on to Mesa Verde and back to our tent.

Adventure is out there

Departing the Grand Canyon after an excellent geology ranger talk and a junior ranger badge ceremony. The NPS Junior Ranger program is superb!

Now we are headed south about an hour ahead of schedule. We'll spend that hour at an airplane museum between here and Flagstaff. After that we'll try to hit the Meteor Crater and then the Painted Desert, where we hope they have primitive camping. We came in through the eastern Desert View entrance to the Grand Canyon which is rarely used. Leaving through the southern main entrance is reminding Chris and me of driving home from Maine when traffic is heavy heading north, except all the license plates are California rather than New York.

Prelude to Pie Town: Stuffing our pie holes

We're driving north along Highway 44 in the northwestern New Mexico heat, coming into Bloomfield, so hungry there was talk of stooping to fast food drive-through.

Suddenly, like a desert mirage, appeared a giant wedge of pie and a cup of coffee. Was I hallucinating? No, it advertised an oasis called the Triangle Cafe.

So much for Burger King.

I feared the huge rooftop sign might be better than the real thing, but the Triangle's pie case didn't let us down. We first downed Navajo tacos, green chile tacos on fry bread for Michele and I, and huge cheeseburger platters for the boys. Michele and I also split a superb chile relleno and a dish of sopapillas.

We made a spectacle of ourselves, but we weren't through.


As full as we were, we simply had to have pie. Wandering over to the case behind the counter, we checked out the field. Just at that moment, our super-friendly waitress came out with a fresh pan of cherry pie and pointedly gave me the biggest wedge. Ted got lemon meringue, John Michael chose pumpkin, and Michele ordered chocolate cream.

We all ended up helping each other finish. It was better than auction pie, but not quite Moody's Diner. Here's hoping it's a good omen for Pie Town.

From Chaco to Mesa Verde

We reluctantly left Chaco, knowing that we would be returning as often as we could.

Our next stops were north, Salmon and then Aztec. Both are now considered part of the Chacoan system. Salmon is run by the San Juan County Historical Association. Best part of our visit there was Hal, who reminded me a desert version of Hartley, if Hartley had been an archaeologist. He showed us a barrel cactus that only blooms once in ten years. As part of the crew that worked for twenty years on the excavation, Hal could answer all our questions and then some. He told the boys about Navajo dream catchers and Hopi Kachinas. He told us we were seeing the sites in exactly the right order. And as he walked us to our car, he assured us that he'd be waiting for us to come back soon.

Next up was Aztec National Historic Park. This site was run by the NPS, so instead of Hal, we got a movie and a junior ranger program. I think the museum at Salmon was just as good.

Both sites are late Chacoans. Because Salmon was excavated with modern methods, there is a lot more information about daily lives of the people there, but both sites were cool. One of the archaeologists at Chaco theorized that people had eventually left Chaco canyon and moved to Aztec along the banks of the San Juan River. I'm not convinced.

Our next stop was Mesa Verde. But first we needed a pit stop in Durango and showers. Chris' knees have never been dirtier!

Out of order

We're blogging from a cafe across from the post office at the Grand Canyon. We found a table with an outlet to recharge and now we're catching up. One observation: We started camping in the most remote and isolated camping site at Cimarron Natl Grasslands, where we were the only campers to the Grand Canyon with thousands. We've heard French, Italian, Russian, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, and Californian so far.

Chris is writing about our hike to Pueblo Alto. I'll cover Mesa Verde. Don't know if we'll get time to post the photos. That's time consuming and there is only so long the boys can hang out in a gift shop before I have to buy something