Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Some themes from our trek to Albuquerque – Part OneB:





Theme #1: Many good things can be created only by government action.

On our sixth day out, while camping just outside the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, we visited the Park, where Clara took a guided tour of Cliff Palace, one of the four cliff dwellings open to tours. A surprising new piece of information was the statement that the cliff dwellers were now believed to be the ancestors of some of the modern day Pueblo dwellers of New Mexico.

We also learned that there are some 56 total National Parks in the U.S. (including several in Alaska, American Samoa, Hawaii). By going through the list, I counted 32 that we have visited, and noted several that we will never see . . .

Picture #1 is a mural found in the auditorium at the Visitor Center, numbers 2 and 3 are different views of Cliff Palace, and #4 shows the virtual inaccessibility of these cliff dwellings.

Is the preservation of some of the history and culture of our country a constitutionally mandated endeavor? Whether or not it is, it is certainly a worthwhile one that should be continued.

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