#manitou cliff dwellings

[mechadress]

Colorado Springs

[rockyp77mk3]

Tewa wedding at Manitou cliff dwellings in Colorado. 1919.

The groom is wearing his US Army uniform, most likely from serving in WWI. I hope this man and his beautiful wife enjoyed a long and happy life together.

[mitsdriveswhere]

I wanna talk about the Salmon Ruins

I really can't explain in a way that doesn't make me sound like a raving lunatic how cool the cultural and chronological differences in architecture of a specific region are. Like. That sentence. Read it back? Sounds fuckin crazy. Why do I care about this? idk. I just think it's neat.

So.

Salmon Ruins. Really, I'd never heard of these ruins before I really started learning more about ancestral Puebloan (and specifically Chacoan) architecture.

Yeah, I'll be completely fucking honest, my reasons for getting into Chacoan architecture are dumb at best. At best. I'd have to trace back so many things. What led me to the Salmon Ruins? Probably, I think it started by joining a tour group that I did not pay for in Mesa Verde.

I'm 90% sure the tour guide knew I wasn't in his group, but what was he gonna do? Tell me to go away? Nah. So I tagged along because it was interesting. This tour was about the mesa part of Mesa Verde - not the cliff dwellings - mostly focusing on the early settlements and kivas. I'd been to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings as a kid, back when they called the ancestral Peubloans 'the Anasazi'. It was cool, but didn't really spark my interest outside of being there. But kivas?

I'd never heard of these things before. And there were so many! And so deep! How they were built, how they were used, who inhabited them, all new information to me. I'm sure they talked about it at the Manitou Cliff Dwellings but, ya know, you don't listen to that stuff as a kid.

Mesa Verde led me to Chaco Canyon. And Chaco Canyon (while terrifying to get in and out of) is beautiful. You could pick a 5x5 part of the outer wall of that site to study for an entire day.

The Chacoans cared about their buildings. They made art with their homes. This was beyond necessity, this was purposeful. And it was so close I could literally touch it. I could walk in the city and see what they saw from the same place they saw it. I could go on about Chaco Canyon (as I have in the past), but moving on.

Chaco Canyon led to Canyon of the Ancients, lead to Aztec Ruins, and then finally to the Salmon Ruins. Mind you - there are more sites that I haven't seen yet. They are scattered across New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado, literally dozens of sites. I've probably seen more than most, but I've certainly not seen all of them.

But the Salmon Ruins are special in their own way, and that comes specifically from their research library. When you enter the site, they'll hand you a little laminated booklet that you return to the front office after seeing the site. That includes a map of the full site, a detailed history of its re-discovery and preservation, and most importantly - a color guide to take you to each important marker placed in the ruins.

This guide is gorgeous. The amount of information you get as you go is just amazing. It goes over common practices, tools, room usages, inhabitants, changes to the structure, everything. Personally, I found Markers 1 and 16 most interesting.

These focus on the craftsmanship specific to the people living there at the times they occupied Salmon Pueblo. Because you can tell! Who was living there! Based off how they built and rebuilt things!

Fascinating!!!!

The Chacoans used very geometrically similar rocks - think almost brick-like, cut to fit - to create the outer layer of their walls, while filling the insides of the walls with large, unshaped stones (Chacoan style core and veneer masonry). They would also decorate their walls by taking these stones and exposing them to heat to change their colors (because again!! The Chacoans!! Made their homes into art!!)

This style of masonry is not shared among all ancestral Puebloans, and when the Chacoans no longer inhabited Salmon Pueblo, other ancestral Peubloans occupied it and modifications to its structure were made in a different style, with large river rocks held together with mortar.

You can follow the Chacoans and their influence to every site they created and interacted with, including Mesa Verde and Chimney Rock in Colorado.

Idk. Maybe at some point I'm going to buy a big ole fuckin ream of paper and spread it out around my house so I can draw out and fully appreciate the chronological and geological changes and dispersion of Chacoan architecture. Maybe at some point I'll hit that level of out to lunch that it will seem like a good idea to do that.

Maybe I'm actively thinking about doing this.

Maybe I went and bought a copy of the booklet you can walk around the Salmon Ruins with. Maybe I specifically asked for one after I was done looking around.

[mttyswhre]

Black Window outside my Santa Fe hotel.

Pikes Peak.

The ride up was 90 minutes of no cellphone service. I couldn't breathe when I got to the top. All I did at the top was go pee, buy a sticker and then walk around unable to breathe. 20 minutes at the top and then another 90 minutes down. Like four hours without my phone... crazy. The view was nice up top but it was more beautiful going up on the train.

Manitou Cliff Dwellings.

I was honestly so hot and uncomfortable during the cliff dwellings that I was like damn im out of shape. which is funny because I was in the best shape ever when I went to the grand canyon this time last year.

[lasclmt]

Crystal castles tour london

Built by Father Jean Baptiste Francolon in 1895 the house is an eclectic estate that’s a mixture of nine architectural styles, including Byzantine, Tudor, Gothic, Medieval and Victorian. Miramont Castle located in Manitou Springs. Love architectural variety? Then visit the 14,000 sq. Miramont Castle, Manitou Springs Miramont Castle. Here are the top castles in Colorado, in no particular order: 1. It’s located in Antonito, which is a historic train town in southern Colorado. One cool private castle that can only be enjoyed from the roadside, pictured above, is Cano’s Castle. Some are open to the public to visit, others are private residences that do not permit visitors. Others lie in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. These castles are situated throughout Colorado, with many up and down the Front Range. So keep your eyes peeled next time you’re road tripping. There are many other historic manmade landmarks located around the state. Best Castles in Colorado Cano’s Castle in Antonito, CO. They contain ruins of old mesa top villages and cliff dwellings. Built by the Ancient Puebloan people, these architectural areas are year round places to visit. The oldest castles actually lie in the southwest part of the state. There are castles of varying architecture and age, from recently built in within the last one hundred years, and those that are far older. Who knew that Colorado had so many castles? A day trip touring the myriad of enchanting Colorado Castles is a chance to experience the royalty and grandeur of the late 1800s.

[leicastudio]

The most approachable Pueblo dwelling I have come across while in Colorado.

These structure can be as high as three storey, with multiple families staying in each tower. It is believed that before the cliff dwellings were built in caves, the Indians were farming a society and living on the mesa tops and in the valleys.

But due to the ever increasing raids by war-like, normadic Indians, the peaceful farming people began to abandon their mesa top homes for the safety of constructing homes in the caves.

[lenas-travels]

Yesterday was another day of great adventures. I started by going to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings . These are not real cliff dwellings but reconstructed and recreated dwellings from other areas near the four corners. It was still very cool to walk through and see how the life of the indigenous people must have been like in these cliff dwellings.

[texcanypics]

Manitou cliff dwellings, CO

[psychadelic-fool]

Manitou Cliff Dwellings, CO.

[sscriqui]

We visited the Anasazi cave dwellings. And learned so much! 

The Anasazi evolved from nomads who lived in temporary dwellings to become accomplished farmers. In time, they created massive, free-standing stone buildings of up to five stories and cliff dwellings like those on display at the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.

From oral histories that have been handed down, generation to generation, we understand that they held the Earth as sacred and believed that all living things have a soul or spirit which is part of the Great Spirit. Unlike Europeans and their descendants, their land was not privately owned or controlled by a king. They saw themselves as caretakers of the land for the Spirit of the Earth.

[claudidfoad]

best reptile resources online1

My yearning to travel goes way back as far as I can remember. School field trips was one of my favorite things to do because our class visited places that were sometimes taken for granted especially if they were in our town or city. We'd visit museums and interesting places like the Houston Planetarium, the Intercontinental Airport and Hermann Park Zoo field trips stick out in mind more than anything. Someday, I will venture back to Houston, Texas to revisit the places of my school days! My grandchildren would appreciate visiting some of these places as well. The Internet is a luxury I never had back in the seventies. Had it been around back those days, there's no telling where I'd be today! Maps are easily at our disposal and GPS's makes traveling so much easier. Nowadays, before arriving at a destination, I know exactly what we're going to do and when we're going to do it. Nothing bothers me more than to hear a bunch of teenagers whining about being bored and not having anything to do! Especially on my trip! So I plan every day ahead of time, and make sure that slack times are in the evenings where we gather around the pool and enjoy a good swim or if we're camping out, we all gather around the fire where we can roast wieners or marshmallows, make s'mores and have family time and share our thoughts and pictures of the day.

We're not the perfect family and no, we don't always have a perfect vacation... but we make memories and have fun trying and that's what makes it so good! Because we are not rich and have to vacation on a shoe string budget every year makes us appreciate the things we do and see, and the places we go! It's not all about theme parks, glitz and famous places - there's something good even in the smallest museums. best reptile resources online  You just have to know 'what' and 'where' it is! It's called research! If you travel with teens, nine times out of ten they carry cell phones. Keep them busy on Google looking for fun activities in the town you're visiting. You'll never know what you may find!

Let me tell you about our trip last year.

Day one, we started off here in the South, drove to Amarillo, where we spent the night in an affordable room that served breakfast. In the evening before retiring for the night, we ate sandwiches and chips, and swam for a while and ended the evening with a movie or two. The next day we spent the biggest part of our day driving on to Colorado Springs, Colorado where we spent the next few days having a blast before going on to the next destination on our itinerary.

Day three, while we were in Colorado Springs, our first visit was to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado.

They have a wonderful display of dinosaurs, prehistoric marine reptiles, pterosaurs and fish of North America's late Cretaceous period. In addition to vibrant graphics and life-restoration sculptures, visitors could venture around the museum reading the stories of each specimen. They also have a working fossil laboratory where important recently discovered paleontological specimens are being freed from their rock matrix and undergoing restoration, as well as a children's area where they can brush off fossils in our dig box, there are books to read, a magnetic board for them to make their own imaginative dinosaur, and a rubbing station where they can take home their colorful drawings of dinosaurs. Everyone in the family will enjoy the Dinosaur Resource Center. If you have a few extra dollars to spend, there is a gift shop for souvenirs.

Later that evening we had dinner, swam at the pool at our motel and spent the remainder getting baths, and ready for bed so we could get a decent start the next day. Since we had such a large group with us, we got multiple rooms where everyone wouldn't be too cramped and could enjoy a good nights sleep after the long drive the day before and the outing this day. Our motel wasn't the best but it provided the essentials we needed at an affordable price, and it was clean and quiet. We were on a budget!

The next day, we packed a picnic lunch and headed off to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings located in Manitou Springs, Colorado, five miles west of Colorado Springs.

We toured the Anasazi Museum. Impressive dioramas depicted the daily life of the Pueblo Anasazi. At the museum, we saw exhibits of tools, pottery, weapons, and informative videos that offered a glimpse of the mysterious people who left a remarkable architectural legacy on mesa tops and in cliff walls like the one at the Manitou Cliff Dwellings. Scientists still are unsure why the Anasazi left their cliff dwelling homes hundreds of years ago, but when you tour the dwellings and museum you'll also become intrigued with finding out more about their lives as my family has.

[spectralarchers]

Two years ago, I was landing in Indianapolis, Indiana and was met there with an amazing friend, @kate-katiehawkeye picked me up from the airport, and with her, I took off into what would end up being a 21.500 kms (14.000 miles) long Roadtrip across 23 state lines and from one end of the United States to the other.

We slept in a tent, and experienced bears, bison and coyotes in the camp, but we also slept in at the haunted Stanley hotel (thanks for that, Stephen King), saw dinosaur tracks, aliens in Area 51 but more than anything, we saw the remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park. They will be gone by this time next year.

This is a non-exhaustive list of the things we saw:

🏞️ National Parks and Forests: Garden of the Gods National Park, Rocky Mountains National Park, Arches National Park (and a hike out to Delicate Arch), Mesa Verde National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Monument Valley Tribal Park (it's not a national park, but is as important as them!), Grand Canyon National Park, Slide Rock National Forest, Lake Mead National Recreational Area, Death Valley National Park (and temperatures of 57'C / 127'F), Angeles National Forest, Sequoias National Forest, Sequoias National Park, Yosemite National Park, Humboldt National Forest, Wasatch National Forest, Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park (and its Canadian partner, Waterton), Little Big Horn National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Monument, Badlands National Park.

🏞️ State Parks and Forests: Finger Lakes State Park, Ray Robert's Lake State Park, Lake Arrowhead State Park, Palo Duro State Park, Clayton Lake State Park, Cheyenne Mountain State Park, Rifle Gap State Park, Mancos Lake State Park, Storrie Lake State Park, Redwood Forest State Park, Salt Lake State Park and Custer State Park (where they saved the species Bison!)

⛲ And all the other landmarks we saw along the way: Cahokia Mounds, the Gateway Arch, Black Jack Battlefield, Little House on the Prairie, Old Red Museum, Sixth Floor Museum (where JFK's shooter was positioned when the killing shots were fired), Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, Clayton Dinosaur Footprints, Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings, US Figure Skating Hall of Fame, US Olympic Center Colorado Springs, Denver Museum of Science and Nature, Stanley Hotel, Pioneer Cemetery at Glenwood Springs (where Doc Holliday's remains are buried, just as Kid Curry's), the 4 Corner Monument, Acoma Pueblo, Oatman AZ (where Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable had their honeymoon), Las Vegas, the Luxor Titanic Exhibit (with real items from the Titanic), Hoover Dam (no Transformers in sight, sadly), Area 51, Calico Ghost Town, Warner Studios, Griffith Observatory, Solvang, the James Dean Memorial (placed at the intersection where he lost his life in a car race), the California Academy of Science, Golden Gate and Alcatraz, Francis Ford Coppola's Winery, Utah Olympic Park, Sundance (where they host the Sundance Film Festival), Waterton, Buffalo Bill Museum of the West, Old Trail Town, Devils Tower (where they filmed Encounters of the Third Kind, which is shown every night at the camping center), Crazy Horse monument and Mammoth Site, the Corn Palace, as well as Elk Horn, Waverly (because that's where Hawkeye is from) and a whole bunch of other places too.

And, I got to meet some of y'all and those are days I will forever cherish in my memory ❤️

[familywelltraveled]

Listen to the Voices of the Past at Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Listen to the Voices of the Past at Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Our family enjoys visiting the ancient cliff dwellings of the the desert Southwest. We visited Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. And, we’ve toured Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. I can see us visiting all of the cliff dwellings and residences of the Ancestral Pueblo throughout the Southwest. That’s why we seized the opportunity to visit the Manitou Cliff Dwellingsjust outside of…

[monique-what]

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[deja-emtendu]

Manitou Cliff Dwellings