Wandering through the base village, I passed a window through which I heard a lot of laughter and commotion. I peeked in. A roomful of kids watched a mad scientist and his even loonier assistant make things change color, balls magically rise in the air, and cause other strange happenings. I was witnessing, it turned out, the Winter Wizard Science Show in which kids are treated to a wacky series of experiments that demonstrate scientific principles while simultaneously activating the funny bone. Suddenly, they left.
Nobody knows why.
But their cities of sophisticated brick, wood and adobe construction stand today in southwest Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, just ninety minutes west of Purgatory Resort. We wrested four teenagers off the slopes and dragged them on a guided trip to Mesa Verde. They moaned and complained. Until they saw the place. Until they climbed the steep, winding path into the ruins and explored several of the dozen other sites along Ruins Road.