Once again we visited the Luminaria lighting of Spruce Tree House at Mesa Verde. The National Park and volunteers put out thousands of traditional luminarias, called farolitos in Sante Fe, New Mexico, once a year at Mesa Verde. This year’s festival of lights was hampered by temperatures in the teens and icy roads up into the park itself.

All the better for us, as there was easy parking and not much crowding around the ruins. You could actually get up to the chain barrier and take photos without other “bodies” in the viewfinder.

It’s always a surreal experience visiting the Spruce Tree House ruin at night, because you readily get the feeling you’re visiting in an historic time period. Hearing an Indian flute playing in the background adds to the atmosphere of this ancient puebloan time.

We visited with friends Mike and Judy and had a “tail-gate” dinner snack after visiting the ruins. Bundled up, it was unusually comfortable eating snacks out of the back of the 4Runner.