I took a hike and I learned a new word. That word is strenuous. Strenuous means pretty much the same as challenging or pretty difficult but you can do it.
This hike had tall ladders to climb up, more than 30 feet tall, and little tunnels to crawl through on your hands and knees.
This is a place where Native Americans used to live. They built their homes up high in the cliffs.
I learned that if you were a Native American living in this cliff dwelling, your life cycle was a lot shorter than nowadays. I learned that a kiva was used for ceremonies like special occasions. Other times the Native Americans went in there to stay warm.
When the Native Americans were alive here they ate pine nuts from the piñon trees, rabbit stew, and they grew corn, squash, and beans on top of the mesas above their cliff houses. The Native Americans used sandstone rocks to grind up the corn and then that means bits of sandstone mixed in. So when the Natives ate the corn and sand, it wore out their teeth and germs got into their bodies from their teeth having openings.
I like beans, corn and squash and some nuts, but I would definitely not eat rabbits today. Maybe I would have had to if I had been a Native American a very long time ago.
