9/12/14 – 9/15/14

We’ve alternated finding, ordering, and installing new tires for the Van with exploring Anestral Pueblo Civilizations – also known as the “Anasazi” or Cliff Dwellers.

A stark realization of the contrast of worlds. We think we are living simply in our little 80 square feet, but yet with propane, we still have a stove, and refrigerator, and a heater. We can fill up our water tank and still have running water. In the middle of the desert, we can go to the grocery store and buy ourselves pretty decent food. And we can go to a tire store and get tires shipped down 150 miles away in  a little over one day.

The Ancestral Pueblo people in contrast living here between 600 and 1300 AD in this harsh desert ecosystem, not only survived on really very little, but thrived at it. For about 700 years anyway.

Click on this gallery below and check out where these folks lived…and the incredible architecture!

 

 

Built with adobe clay hand hewn bricks and stones, into sandstone cliffs, high above the valleys and far below the mesas, sometimes crawling on hands and knees, or climbing the face of cliffs to reach their homes, neighborhoods, and villages.

 

 

The beauty of the harsh world they co-existed in still survives.

 

 

They were People of the Land. Subsistence farmers, creators, gatherer’s, and artists. Aways one with their environment.

 

 

We are so fortunate that places like this have been preserved to help us modern Simplitarians and once been Back to the Landers ourselves understand where we’ve come from and where it began.

 

 

 

Once again humbled and awed by life.

Back to our own modest little campsite to rejoice in what we have and where we can go.

 

❧

Mesa Verde National Park

 Ancestral Pueblo peoples

Anasazi