Blanding Day 3 - Hovenweep National Monument and Cortez Colorado

Not many people realize that the place where Gandalf met the elves is right around here, but when we found out we had to go see.  Kind of surprised us as we thought the Elves lived in the forest and these houses look more like something Dwarves would build, but I guess if this is the way the government archaeologists say it was then that's that.

Miles and miles of flat ground around, and these guys liked to build on the edge of the cliffs.  

Ah!  This must be the tower where the princess lived.  

The map showed a few ruins off to the northeast of the main site, some accessible by 'high clearance 4WD' only.  You KNOW we're gonna go see those... 

Oh come on. Now they're just being silly.  

Unless there were a lot of bad kids in this group and carrying rocks up a cliff kept them out of trouble...

If this rock shifted while they were still living here I bet there were a few quick sacrifices...

There's a pattern here... the buildings that are hardest for us modern-type people to get to seem to be the most intact... curious... 

A tower with a walk-out basement suite... 

After listening to ads from the Cortez marijuana grow op on the radio all week (my favourite:  "Hunters! Show us your license and get a free joint!") we had to go see the town.  Sadly no debauchery or wasted pot heads laying around the streets that we could find.  We did park by this cool mural though.  And got a couple nice Sonic milkshakes for the drive home.