It's time for another post about my trip with Raven! The day after the Grand Canyon, our parents suggested that we take a day to rest. We said "NO WAY!" and off we went to a new National Park. This time, we visited Wupatki National Monument. Wupatki is a Pueblo where people no longer live. You can go and see the buildings and ball court, check out the museum, and of course, do the Junior Ranger program.



We started the day with a photo by the park's welcome sign. This is a tradition that started when I went to Canyonlands National Park with my friend Violet. Now, I try to get a picture at the welcome sign of each park I visit. To get to Wupatki, you have to drive through a different park, but I'll talk about that one in the next post. (Bonus points if you can figure out the name of the other park!)



One nice thing about the Junior Ranger program at Wupatki is that you can do it all inside! It gets extremely hot in Arizona, so it was great that we could do the workbook in the comfort of the air conditioned museum. There were lots of interesting questions, including a section where you get to use artifacts to figure out things about the Wupatki people. Once we finished, Ranger Cassandra swore us in!



After we earned our badges, we went for a walk around the Pueblo. Here's Raven in a section you can actually enter! You can walk down to the ball court too, but it was too hot and our parents made us sit in the shade and drink water instead. Archaeologists don't know what kind of game was played in the ball court, which is shaped like an oval. What do you think the Wupatki people played?



I was able to climb up this little outcropping at Wupatki and look down over the ballcourt. Raven and I thought it was a beautiful place to live. I love the red rocks and the big blue sky. I'm glad we got the chance to visit Wupatki Pueblo! Have you ever visited a place where people lived long ago?