Mesa Verde Museum — Attraction in Four Corners States

We were very lucky to have a full day of sunshine and beautiful weather when we visited Mesa Verde in early April. Two of the trails were closed due to renovationa nd failing rock, but the greatest part of the park was accessible. Unless you arrange for a ranger led tour, you aren't able to walk into the actual living spaces of the cliff dwellings, but there are so many overlooks with free telescopes to get great, detailed views of the ruins. This is a great trip for adults or with sophisiticated kids who are either interested in the history or equipped with the "scavenger hunt sheets" that can be obtained from the gift shop. The guide boards at each stopping place are informative and made the ingenuity of the Native Americans who made this place their homes come to life for visitors. There is a small gift shop and in the busy season, there are frequent water stops available and snack shop about 1/2 way through the tour. You do NOT have to go from start to finish here. There are different loops representing the evolution of the space, so only take in the pieces that you feel you can handle. Lots of stair and long walks are NOT required to...

Mesa Verde in general is a great place to visit if you've got a full morning, or even a full day. Our stop at the Museum was probably about an hour long, they've got a pretty educational exhibit inside with artifacts and paintings, including a 20ish minute long video explaining how humans survived here 1,000 years ago. The pictures I've posted are from the actual archaeological site, from which many of the artifacts were collected. I definitely recommend stopping by the museum to watch the instructional video before visiting any archaeological sites, since the video explains a lot of what you'll find there. In addition, my group paid for tickets to do the bus tour with Grady, and that was similarly helpful and educational. It costs a little more, but you definitely get your money's worth out of the visit. Mesa Verde is very well preserved and you can tell that everyone working at the site cares very much about preserving its history and culture. We definitely...

The museum was very interesting and had many artifacts and great information. The staff in the bookstore, however, was less than stellar. One of the women working there gave my kids dirty looks from the first moment we stepped foot inside the store. She followed us around, not being discreet at all. My son went over to the penny shaper machine while I was in line to checkout. Note that the machine was within a few feet of where I was standing, so he was in no way unsupervised. He then starts to crank the handle on the machine, which is hurting nothing and is not in anyone's way. The woman that had been following us around runs over to him, yanks his arm off the crank, and screams at him to stop because "he's going to hurt someone." I couldn't believe that she treated him like that and put her hands on my child! Very upset with...