Visiting Mesa Verde National Park in my youth fueled my interest the history of the first people and of the southwest beyond the required subjects taught in New Mexico’s public schools. I had been to many ruins and museums in the southwest prior to my visit to Mesa Verde, yet somehow climbing the same cliffs as the ancients and viewing the land much as they may have seen it brought it all home and made the stories I had heard in school and artifacts I had seen in museums seem more real and tangible and at the same time; inspiring.
Mesa Verde, the park, was then, and I suspect is still now, a little known historical treasure that is well worth a visit of more than a day or two.