Oh man I almost forgot to blog about what we did the last day we stayed at Sleeping Ute Mountain Casino in Towaoc, Colorado. We originally planned to visit Hovenweep National Monument during our weeklong stay in Bluff Utah. However when double checking our reservation we realized they put us in a 30 foot site for the week (oops) so we had to shuffle our plans and will therefore only be in Bluff for two days.
As a result we decided to take the drive over to check out Hovenweep National Monument and also the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument. The visitor center for the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument is near Dolores Colorado. Entry is $3.00 per person but they do honor the National Parks passes so we used our Senior Lifetime Pass to visit for free.
This is a small museum but loaded with exhibits and interesting historical pieces. There are also a lot of hands-on and interactive exhibits enriching the full experience visitors receive from visiting this museum. The native artifacts on display are amazing.
Since time was not on our side we chose to simply drive through the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument and spend our time at Hovenweep. About an hour after we left the museum we pulled up to the visitor center expecting it to be empty. However, the parking lot was full and we had to park in one of the RV spaces so we pulled in at the front of it in case someone needed to park behind us.
Hovenweep NM is out in the middle of nowhere so seeing it full helps explain why we are having so much difficulty finding places to stay in southern Utah and Northern AZ. Too many RV’ers are on the road!!!
The hike around the rim of Hovenweep NM was only about 2.5 miles. It was mostly flat but involves crossing the canyon meaning there was some fairly steep downhill and uphill hiking for a short while. That is why after seeing the map, we went left on the loop trail so we could do the canyon first and hike the flats the rest of the time.
There were a lot of really cool ruins here… We brought our lunch with us and enjoyed it while sitting on a ledge of the rimrock overlooking one of the ruins. We were really glad we chose to spend our time hiking this trail and enjoying the ruins at this national monument.
We headed back home but stopped in at the Wild Edge Brewing Collective. This is by far the best of the three breweries we visited in town. Also we should warn our fellow beer loving fans that the this town also had the WORST craft beer we have ever had in our lives! In our opinion, don’t visit J Fargo’s Microbrewery.…
NOTE: We are left Page AZ this morning and are now in Fredonia AZ for a week to rest after all that fast moving we were doing due to so many parks being full this time of year…
Looks like a new sign at Hovenweep, new VC too? Must be on the tourist list now, I had the place to myself! ... a decade ago ;)
ReplyDeleteWe made the excursion/diversion out to hovenweep too. special day, special place. on the way out, encountered a kid on a bicycle almost lost looking. gave him a ride out of the sandy two track on our tailgate.
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