To recover from the previous days sun related injuries, we decided to head to Mesa verde national park, which was mostly toured by car (it had bus tours in pre-COVID days). The weather was beautiful, but windy, and the intense fire danger lead to the closing of even more of the park. Although we were able to see the central part with most of the cliff dwellings, the western part (which I had missed during my previous trip with Richard) was closed.
As that left us with a great deal of extra time, we headed west, through the canyons of the ancients national monument to reach hovenweep national monument, a set of Pueblo people ruins around a central canyon, much of it in good condition. We visited a bit of that before deciding our sun exposure was likely already too high for the day, and headed back to Durango.
Mouse over the pictures for commentary, click for large images
Day 2 of the Trip - Day 4 of the Trip