Chaco Culture is a National Park that takes quite a bit of effort to get to in an RV. There is a very bumpy 13 mile dirt road that took us over 90 minutes to drive because if we went over 10 miles and hour it felt as if the RV was falling apart.

Chaco Canyon was a major center of Puebloan culture between AD 850 and 1250. The Chacoan sites are part of the homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest. Chaco was a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area--unlike anything before or since.  Chaco is remarkable for its multi-storied public buildings, ceremonial buildings, and distinctive architecture.  These structures required considerable planning, designing, organizing of labor, and engineering to construct.  The Chacoan people combined many elements: pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture.

Though the structures are vast, there is evidence that not many people lived there full time. It felt to me like it was a giant resort for the Native Americans where the people came from all over, bringing different types of trade, participating in festivals and sharing ideas and goods.