A Beautiful World

Previous : Day 4 (part 1) - Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park Day 4 (part 2) of road trip . We drove for about two and half hours from Monument Valley to reach Mesa Verde National Park . As I was researching about this park, I knew that we will not be able to see all Cliff dwellings in winter. But this potentially could be my only chance to see this place. So there was never a thought of skipping it. Of all the national parks in US, Mesa Verde is only one which is preserving man-made sites (constructed around 1100-1200 AD). As we reached the entrance, I got to know that Spruce Tree house  cliff dwelling can be visited on your own (somehow nps.gov website said that there are ranger guided tours). The cliff dwelling section of the park is at the rear end and we had to drive good 20-30 mins before we reached the museum near Spruce Tree. We parked the car and immediately went on the trail to visit Spruce tree house. Here is the view of this Cliff dwelling from Top of the tra...

This trip was planned for Thanksgiving week in Nov 2013. We had thought of visiting the following places in a circle (I usually try to have a nice circle with each destination about 2/3 hours away from each other). CA, AZ, CO Roadtrip Circle Starting / Ending (point A / O in the map) - Fremont CA B - Kings Canyon National Park C - Sequoia National Park D - Death Valley National Park E - Grand Canyon National Park - North Rim F - Antelope Canyon / Slot Canyon G - Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Park H - Mesa Verde National Park I - Canyon De Chelly National Monument J - Petrified Forest National Park K - Sedona AZ L - Saguaro National Park M - Scottsdale AZ N - Joshua Tree National Park I had done some research about the places through TripAdvisor and had initially planned to start on Friday (Nov 22) and reach near Joshua Tree. But the weather pattern during the week meant that I reverse the circle (which turned out to be a wonderful decision). Tip#1 : Keep...