MESA VERDE

The "green table", today a national park, was home to the Ancestral Puebloans between about 500 AD and 1500 AD. After living in pit houses and other shelters for centuries, they built these really impressive cliff dwellings into the canyon's alcoves around 1300 AD, some of them several stories high. We came, saw, and were very impressed. Oh, funny/sad detail: Guess who holds the biggest collection of Mesa Verde artefacts outside the US? That's right, the National Museum of Finland. "Thanks to" treasure hunter Gustaf Nordenskiöld.