The Blanch Herd: Southwest Canyons and Rainbows Loop {10/4: Yoney Flies!, Mesa Verde part 1}

Alrighty, here we are on Day 6 of our big fall break road trip through the southwest. We left Taos on Tuesday morning (4 Oct) and headed a bit north and a lot west to Mesa Verde National Park.

Spoiler alert: that heart is where we released Yoney. ;)

But before we got to the park, we had an exciting thing happen: our butterfly, Yoney, emerged from her (yes, we determined she is a female by the distinct border lines on her wings and the lack of scent pouches) chrysalis! We didn't get to see her come out - it happened sometime in the wee morning hours we assume, because she was there, hanging onto the side of the cage, when we woke up. We found her a seat between the kids and we headed off.

We stopped to peek over the edge into the Rio Grande Gorge after crossing the Gorge Bridge just outside of Taos. Another canyon to add to our road trip count! A little before Chama, Yoney started fluttering her wings. We had read that when this happens, the butterfly is ready to fly. So we found a little park in Chama to let her free. Cal and I got to hold her, which was so amazing! But she just hung onto our fingers and flapped her wings. We didn't have all day to wait for her to take off, and there were no flowers nearby to set her on for her first meal, so we put her carefully back in her cage and headed off again. The kids got a lot of great observation time up close through the cage while we drove. Just over the Colorado border, Callie was feeling carsick so we pulled over by a little corral. Yoney had been flying around her cage for a few minutes, so while Cal ate some crackers to settle her stomach, we opened up Yoney's cage once again. This time I couldn't even set her down on the couple of flowers that were near the car before she took off. She flew! I was so proud I clapped and we cheered. We watched her land for a second on a flower and then take off again up, up up. The last we saw her, she was resting in a ponderosa tree (good choice, Yoney!). We're crossing our fingers that she found her way to California (or maybe Mexico? I hope we didn't mess up her migrating instincts by driving her a hundreds of miles away from home!). What a memorable learning experience for all of us. (Have I mentioned I love homeschool?!) We love you, Yoney!

Welcome to the world! (Again!)

Empty chrysalis. All the pics I've seen of freshly emerged
butterflies have shown them hanging onto the chrysalis
to dry their wings, so when I saw that the chrysalis was
empty I was worried about where she was at first, then we
noticed her down toward the bottom of the cage, holding
on the side. I hope she didn't fall!

Quite an impressive bridge - the 2nd highest bridge in the
US Highway system, according to my googling.

Hard to see, but waaaay out there, jut above the mountains
but below the clouds is a tiny little hot air balloon. We actually
saw the same one earlier, too. Someday we've got to go to Albuquerque
for the balloon festival!

Isn't she a beaut?!

We had no idea what we'd see on this drive, but it was
gorgeous! I love seeing new places!

Can you see her fly? Look just above
the line of grass about 3/4 up the photo.

I'm such a dork, but it almost made me
emotional to watch her fly off!

Go, Yoney, go!

There she goes, about the mid point of this
photo, with dirt behind her.

After the excitement of Yoney, we settled in for a few more hours of driving. We planned to find a fun restaurant in Durango, but somehow we missed any eating establishments or even any good spots to pull over and throw together a picnic. So we just kept driving. Finally, we made it to Mancos and luckily noticed a sign pointing us down through the town instead of staying on the bypass. We spotted a cute little cafe called Missy's and jumped out. We ordered just before they flipped the sign from open to closed (they're only open for breakfast and lunch, and we were late for lunch) and enjoyed yummy burgers and chicken sandwiches and sweet potato tots. Then we continued on just a few more miles to Mesa Verde. We had reserved tickets for the Cliff Palace tour at 3:30pm and so we drove straight there without stopping at the visitor's center or any other sites on the way out to the end of the mesa. We did download and listen to this audio tour as we drove, and even though the loop that it described was closed for road construction this fall, we were able to learn a lot about the Ancestral Puebloans in general. It was really interesting.

Our tour group was rather large, a big bus group was there with all the regular tourists, so it wasn't quite as special of a visit as it probably could have been. We said afterward that we were glad this was our first one and that things just got better and better as we continued rather than ending with this experience. And it wasn't bad. It just wasn't as great as what was to come. It is impressive to see these structures and think about people building them and living in them so many hundreds of years ago! And it was especially fun to share these sites with the kids and Gregg, since I had been here before about 15 years ago and Gregg had been here before when he was a kid. It was good to be back.

Cliff Palace from the overlook where we waited for our
tour to begin.

The kids' favorite part - climbing the
stone stairs and ladders out of the site.

I admit, it was my favorite part, too. ;)

After Cliff Palace, we took the loop back and took our time at a few of the stops. We took a speedy hike (it was starting to rain a bit so we tried to hustle) on the Soda Canyon Overlook trail to see over to Balcony House. Then we wanted to see the Museum, which happened to be closed for renovations, so we just explored a bit around that complex. We could see Spruce Tree House, but couldn't go down inside like we used to be able to due to stability issues. Both Cal and Sam say that Spruce Tree House is their favorite dwelling in the park.

We thought we'd have a little picnic dinner at the Park Point Overlook, but nobody wanted to sit out in the wind to eat, so we just looked around at the 360 degree views (and rainbows!!!) for a few minutes and then hopped in the car and headed on to Cortez, where we microwaved our beef stew and mac and cheese for dinner in the hotel room. The kids and Gregg hopped in the hot tub for a few minutes before bed and then we all snoozed. It was a big day!

Way out there is Utah.

Off this direction is New Mexico. We could see Shiprock
from here, but not very well in pictures with my phone.

There is a fire watch tower
(not very tall since the point is so high above everything else!)
at the top of this overlook point, and we peeked in the window
since it's closed for the season. The kids immediately could
identify the Osborne Fire Finder in the middle of the room
after our last fire tower visit this summer up by Red Canyon
(that blog post is coming . . . eventually). I was so proud and
impressed they could remember its name!