Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

Last year, Jacob and I were lucky enough to visit Mesa Verde National Park.

This year we got a little distracted by all the fishing....

Next year we plan on heading back to the park and hopefully doing one of their tours that includes hiking down into the dwellings.  That would be way more up my alley than driving around with the rest of the tourists looking down on the Puebloan remains.

In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt named Mesa Verde as a National Park to "preserve the works of man. " This place really, truly shows how incredibly resilient and resourceful the Ancestral Puebloans were.

As much as we like to spend the day celebrating how white people came to this country, I really wish I could have seen it before we did, especially Mesa Verde. I'm blown away by the raw beauty and harsh reality of the desert region as it stands today, so it's hard to imagine what it must have looked like so many years before.

The Puebloans cared for this land, built on this land, made lives and grew families on this land all while living with it rather than fighting it.

I wish I could have known such people.

So, here's to all you indigenous peoples. I admire you, I crave the world that your ancestors lived in.

P.S Sorry we came here and screwed it all up, but I hope one day we can all maybe make it just a little bit better.