Mesa Verde, I respect you... Jan 17

Epic drive through Texas yesterday:

Lots of windmill farms. Squirrel is an engineer and has worked on bearings for these windmills. He was explaining some of the mechanics and efficiency of wind-powered energy. Sounds like we have  a few more years till its really effective.  We also saw a pretty epic Texan sunset. It was beautiful. What was more beautiful was the stars in the utter blackness of night. You can see stars all the way down to the horizon! So many layers of stars, far and close. Being able to see a flat horizon was really settling for my soul. I often get pretty claustro in the city, never getting that last satisfaction of seeing the sun melt into the earth at night. But here, it is different.

stayed outside Austin in a house that was being renovated.  padded rugs are great for my back.

Squirrel fell in love with a tumbleweed. Figures.

Squirrel Ninja's a good guy to have on a road trip. Besides being easy-going, adventurous, and willing, he's great to talk to about most any topic. On the way to Mesa Verde, we had numerous conversations about the Native people's relationships with one another and with Europeans, both now and when settlers were first arriving from the East & West.  How do we envision America? Is "the great melting pot" a good idea and is the erasing of ancient wisdom/lifeways something we agree with, whether Asian, Native American, African, Latino, etc? Is this a passive or active choice for us? Does the colonization of America ultimately mean the eradication of the Native people of this land? Is that ok with us? Do we, as Europeans now in America for generations, reach back to the Native Americans as "our ancestors" or do we have other people groups whose ancient ways inspire us? If we look to the Native Americans, have we ever talked with the Native people and asked how they feel about that? ....so many questions to wrestle with...

The following pictures are from Mesa Verde National Park.

Mesa Verde Spruce Tree house/cliff dwelling:

Mesa Verde is an old dwelling place for the Puebloan Indians. They lived in this dwelling from about 1200-1300 AD. It is believed that about 6 clans lived here together during that time. Their culture was a matriarchal, and our ranger Cathleen (thats her real name) eagerly shared her knowledge of their lives with us. For example, the disciplinarian of the family was the mother's brother, not the father. The father's role was to be loving and supportive to the children, but the uncle had to lay down the law. I thought this was great. The other guy on the tour was from Dallas and he had a harder time wrapping his mind around that concept, or the concept of matriarchal anythings. 

Another great thing were these in-ground living spaces for wintertime. They were engineered specifically to hold a whole clan and be warm, providing a space for storytelling, cooking, and life-sharing. They were built really specifically. It was impressive.

 

This yarn is made of yucca fibers wrapped with turkey feathers. WRAPPED. Wow. 

The drive down from the Mesa, including sunset is shown below. 

This is Pri-pri, my car. She's a trooper.

Dinner out.

 After checking into the motel, we guiltily decided to get crappy Chinese food, so we got back in the car and started driving down Main St in Cortez, CO, where we are currently staying. Then a window & a name caught Squirrel's eye. Change of plans. He insisted that we go to The Pepperhead instead. Talking me out of eating crappy american Chinese food isn't terribly difficult, and I'm so glad we changed plans!  We sat surrounded by a huge mural, painted ceramic animals, plants, and delicious food.  We chatted with the owner before we left and decided that yes, this was the best change of plans we made all day.

this is part of the 4-walled mural. It made me so happy.

 Tomorrow we're driving to Denver.