Can You Read Me Now?

Ok, I am officially impressed.

I am stretched out in my sleeping bag, beside a very smelly (great night to have gas, Wiley), very tired dog who is managing to take up about 2/3 of the small two-person tent I recently bought to replace my coffin-sized (really) Tomb Tent. We are in the Hovenweep National Monument Campground, about 80 miles from anything else in any direction, on the Colorado-Utah border.

And I, my friends, am online.

I brought my laptop and nifty Verizon wireless card just to see how good the network was and, whaddya know, that geeky guy with the glasses apparently did come out here to check if it would work.

I have a couple days off from work because of the notoriously slow Mud Season, so I came down here to the Four Corners area to visit Hovenweep, known for its 13th century stone Puebloan towers, Four Corners itself and Mesa Verde National Park, famous for its cliff dwellings.

I have photos to post, but for now just let me say I was paid the ultimate compliment this morning while taking the ranger-led tour of The Cliff Palace, the largest of the complexes.

After explaining to the group that the trail involved tight squeezes, uneven surfaces and ladders, the ranger opened the gate down into the site and said he'd stand there to take tickets and then bring up the rear.

No one moved. Eager to avoid fanny packs in my photos, I started heading for the gate. The ranger smiled as he took my ticket and said "I'm glad you're going first. You look like you know what you're doing."

Hell yeah!

Two other people were right behind me and the three of us made it down to the site about five minutes ahead of everyone else (and it's a short climb down). As we stood around taking pictures for each other and talking, I learned the woman was from Dusseldorf and the guy, also traveling alone, was from Tokyo.

Not to stereotype or anything but... the Japanese, the German and the Pirate. I think we all knew what we were doing.

Now I'll post some pictures if I can do so without disturbing Wiley, whose nose is almost in the USB port.