Memorial Day weekend 2010 I took a trip from Denver to the Four Corners region in southwest
Colorado. I stayed overnight in Cortez before getting an early morning start at Mesa Verde National Park. In hingsight, I should have allowed two days
to explore the park but I will be back. I did not pay to tour any of the cliff dwellings but will do just that on my return visit.
About 1,400 years ago, long before Europeans explored North America, a group of people living in the Four Corners region chose Mesa Verde for their home.
For more than 700 years they and their descendants lived and flourished here, eventually building elaborate stone communities in the sheltered alcoves of canyon
walls. Then, in the late 1200's, in the span of a generation or two, they left their homes and moved away.
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