The Bryner Family Blog: Trip to Cortez

For Memorial Day weekend we headed down to see Matt and Leticia in Cortez. Bryan and Lindsay and Cami were there too. We had a lot of fun while we were there. We played quite a few games, although maybe not as many as Bryners typically play when they're together. We cooked most of our meals outside on the back deck with a Camp Chef which was really fun. I think Matt probably wishes his whole kitchen was outside. We had great breakfast each morning from the outdoor cooking. One night we also had delicious Dutch oven cooking. Paul and Bryan got everyone to make boats out of water bottles, milk jugs, or whatever you could find. We raced these down a little creek in their huge backyard. This was a really fun activity. We also climbed up in their loft using a really tall wooden ladder that you have to lean against the loft to get up. It was a little scary for some people but we all made it up. When everyone was up, Allie said, "It's like a party guys. Everybody stay up here so it can still be a party."
On Memorial Day we had a flag ceremony while we played "The Star Spangled Banner" on Matt's iPod. It was pretty neat. Paul and James, the scouts, helped put the flag up. On the last day of the trip we went to the Cortez Rec Center after trying to decide whether to go there or to Mesa Verde. The Rec Center had a lazy river, little kid area and a big yellow water slide. This place was pretty fun but all the life guard people were paranoid. If you leaned on a wall of the children's play area they blew the whistle, acting like you were going to climb the wall into the lazy river. I think pretty much everyone in our family got whistled at for stupid reasons. But, despite the paranoid lifeguards, we still had a lot of fun. Since we started getting tired of swimming about 11:30, Garrett asked, "When are we going to go see the Ancient Indian houses?" We couldn't really turn down a cute question like that so we decided to go to Mesa Verde for the afternoon. It was incredible. We saw all kinds of old Indian cliff dwellings. We hiked up to the Spruce Tree House (a self-guided tour so you don't have to pay). We were able to walk right next to a bunch of kivas and were even able to go down a ladder into an underground kiva. At one point it was all Bryners down there. That's probably what it would have been like for the old cliff dwellers that lived there, crammed in a kiva with all your family. Most of these pictures are of Mesa Verde. We definitely need to go back. Mesa Verde was awesome, as was our whole trip! Thanks to Matt and Leticia for letting us come!

Flag Ceremony