Day 112 (October 12): Mesa Verde National Park

Simply, Mesa Verde National Park is an extraordinary place and it has given us an extraordinary opportunity. Our purpose on this travel is to expand horizons and we have certainly done that here.

We arrived here from Santa Fe on Friday afternoon, having driven from Santa Fe. It was really four drives in one: first, through the desert of northern New Mexico; second, descending from the plateau into Durango, CO; third, climbing out of the Animas Valley, through bright fall colors, to the entrance of the park; finally, winding up through the mountains to reach the Far View Lodge, so named because one can gaze upon Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

Among other things, the landscape lends itself to remarkable sunsets. In mid-October, this begins at about 6:30 and lasts for about an hour. I've always loved sunsets. I used to decorate my apartment with a dozen or more large pictures of ones I had captured. This was the first opportunity in a long time.

Saturday was our day to tour the park. We had tickets for the 3:00 tour of Cliff Palace. But how to prepare the kids to understand that this is not something created for the pleasure of spectators? Once again, the internet rescued us. A bit of searching led us to the following playlist, which I highly recommend:

1. From PBS's 4-episode series on Native America, a segment on the Hopi origin story. This is animated, in a style that evokes in my mind Moana and other Disney movies. As soon as I saw this, I knew it would catch the kids' attention and therefore be a good starting place.

2. From the channel, GoTraveler, which has served us well at a number of parks, a good backgrounder on Mesa Verde. These videos are a great way to preview a national park. Our experience is that the kids do better with an experience when they've been able to see what's coming.

3. The centerpiece, though, was a video called Visit with Respect, which was the exact sentiment we hoped to convey. The video, and the opportunity to watch it, were both extraordinary. Our kids heard from descendants of Pueblo Indians who talked about the sites, the artifacts and why these are living history. It's an excellent production and it had exactly the effect we had hoped. We were able to invoke the mantra, "visit with respect," throughout the afternoon.

4. As a break, we showed them a fellow visitor's video on their experience. It's a nicely produced video and got the kids excited about the destination of our ranger program.

5. Finally, I was lucky enough to stumble across a video produced by a Navajo teenager who shared his description of key sites and his perspective on their importance to his people in a way that clearly resonated with the kids, especially our pre-teen. In ways both direct and subtle, it countered prevailing stereotypes of Native Americans.

Collectively, watching and briefly discussing these videos was beyond ordinary. It's one of those things were it becomes obvious that our unconventional schooling can be more educational than the conventional.

But the afternoon itself: we drove to the park museum, where the kids completed their junior ranger program, their ninth, learning about the development of Pueblo society in terms of architecture, agriculture, craftsmanship and more. With delicacy, please allow me to describe what they learned as extraordinary. But let me simultaneously acknowledge that this is largely because I've been taught and trained to have low expectations. Visiting Mesa Verde is, itself, an extraordinary opportunity to expand our horizons.

The museum features an array of dioramas depicting Puebloan communities.

The kids earned their ninth junior ranger badges!

Then there was our ranger-led tour to the Cliff Palace. This gave us the opportunity to descend to an amazing scene, see it up close. It required the kids to climb ladders and clamber up and down stone stairs. But I'd prefer to let the pictures do the talking, since we have so many.