Bandelier National Monument & Mesa Verde National Park

If you haven't noticed already, we like to visit National Parks, National Monuments, National Seashores...any National Park Service (NPS) site. We purchased an America the Beautiful National Park pass last year and have put it to good use. One of our favorite NPS sites in New Mexico was Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos.

It was very cool seeing the structures built by Pueblo people.

But of course the coolest thing about Bandelier was they allow visitors to climb into the structures!  

On another weekend trip we visited Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. It was about a 4 hour drive from Albuquerque, but well worth the visit.

Here lizard, lizard, lizard

At Mesa Verde, you had the opportunity to tour the ruins and structures, but only on a ranger guided tour. We didn't know this until we showed up and then all the slots were filled. We were able to see one or two without a ranger, but the most famous Cliff Palace could only be toured with a ranger. Boo!

View from a distance of the Cliff Palace with a ranger guided tour group