The last couple days were pretty crazy, but mixed in was one God thing after another. I am currently reading Queen of the Road, by Doreen Orion, about her travels in a bus converted to an RV with her husband for a year. At one point in their journey, they are told by another couple that they hope they run into some hardships so they can see how kind people are. That might not always feel true, but what an great God we have that he can make the most out of even stressful situations. (All God things will be marked with a *.) The beginning of this post won’t have many pictures, sorry!
We decided we would take the 2 1/2 hour drive down to Mesa Verde National Park and so got up and on the road. When we were in Cortez, CO, just 10 miles from the park entrance to Mesa Verde, we were coming up to an intersection and our car’s engine just turned off. We tried to turn it back on, but it didn’t work, so a couple of older gentlemen jumped out of their cars and helped us push our car out of the way.* We called AAA and a tow truck came and got us to a car shop in less than an hour.* The place was called “D & L Services” and it was kind of on the outskirts of town. They were really nice, but said they wouldn’t get able to get to the car until after lunch at 1pm (and it was currently 11am). They offered to take us somewhere to eat or just hang out, but they had wifi and we had food so we stayed. (Plus, I thought if we were visible they would have a little more pressure to get the car worked on.) Well, 1pm rolled around and they couldn’t initially find anything wrong and so wanted to run the car until it stopped working so they could see what was going wrong. Two hours later, I was going CRAZY. I think I had a pretty good attitude until this point and then I just needed OUT of there. So, we took them up on their offer to take us somewhere. We went into town where there was a park, Colorado Visitor’s center and a cute little coffee shop called Let it Grow.* (haha YES this is a God-thing when you’re going crazy.)
I called my dad and he helped me feel a little better about the process.* We met a really kind lady at the Visitor’s Center who talked to us for a long time and gave us advice about Mesa Verde (even though we didn’t know if we’d ever make it there).* When we got back to the D&L right before 5pm, they said they still didn’t have a 100% accurate diagnosis because the car never stopped running in over 3 hours! They said it was a 90% chance it was the fuel pump. We had a few options, ranging from doing nothing and waiting to see what happens (with a couple thousand miles to still go home with lots of “nothing” in between) to waiting until the next morning and they would replace it first thing (this part being something that should be “tuned up” every once in awhile and has NEVER been since it’s birth in 1993). With our camping stuff and clothes in Moab, we decided we’d stay the night in Cortez. We went to a restaurant called “Lotsa Pasta” (again thanks to the recommendation of Laura :)) and it was amazing!
We stayed at a cheap hotel called Budget Host Inn and it was kind of grungy. However, the next morning we got up and were waiting at the car shop when the guys arrived at 8am. The owner (who is SUPER kind and very sociable 65 year old man who doesn’t want to retire because he enjoys working)* took us back into the town, planning on picking us up when our car was done. We went back to the Visitor’s Center and purchased 3pm tour tickets for “Cliff Palace” one of the dwellings in Mesa Verde, hoping we’d be able to make it for the time. Then we went to the post office, another cute coffee shop and I went and got my nails filled in.
We got a call a little after 10am that our car was done. When we were picking it up, the owner told us to call him if we had any problems so that he could tell the next person what they had done/tried OR if we made it all the way home so he knew we got there alright. (He was great!)
We spent the afternoon exploring the ruins at Mesa Verde. It was a VERY cool park and it was like lots of little towns close together because there were so many different ruins.
{Brian coming out of a kiva.}
It was neat to drive around and explore the ones that were open to everyone, but I am so glad we did the group tour of “Cliff Palace.” Our National Park’s guide was part Navajo and part Pueblo and his perspective on everything was a little more personal than some tours would be. He talked about how these were people just like us- with the same brains, hearts, feelings, etc. We need to respect their history, just as we want to be respected, and not thing of them as “uncivilized” or like there was something wrong with them, but just that they lived in a different time with different resources.
We left Cortez around 5pm, and I felt like we were leaving a place we’d really come to know. The town was cute with fun shops and restaurants and the people were so kind. We got back to our campsite at 7:30pm. We are so grateful to this campsite as well because they let us extend our stay by another night and worked with us through the whole situation.
We went out for snowcones/icecream when we got back and LOOK! The “Tropical Sno” has been around since 1984 -- the same as as me!
Now we’re back in Colorado making our way to Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s so fun to see GREEN hills/trees and Starbucks at every other exit again!
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