Hi, husband and I will be flying into Albuquerque for a week and want to explore. Willing to drive up to 8 hrs in a given direction to see cool stuff. Thought maybe heading to Cortez, Co to the Mesa Verde park would be best bet. Any opinions? Where should we spend most of our trip and not waste too much time on? Thanks!!

Sounds fun:
-Take tram in Albuquerque to top of Sandia Mountains. Pack a lunch - beautiful trails at top. Nice zoo and natural history museum as well.
-Bandeleir National Monument. Awesome.
-Taos - Rio Grande river rafting in the gorge
-Santa Fe. Wonderful art galleries. Great restaurants as well
- Telluride Colorado. Beautiful mountain town

If you are interested in Mesa Verde, you could do a loop of similar sites and see Bandalier, Aztec Ruins, Chaco Culture, plus fit in some time in irrestible Santa Fe. Here are some National Park links and one to the SF visitors bureau:
http://www.nps.gov/chcu/
http://www.nps.gov/azru/
http://www.nps.gov/band/
http://santafe.org/Visiting_Santa_Fe/

Have fun!

We did the a week's trip like that in May & drove a big loop ALQ-SANTA FE-TAOS-DURANGO-ALB & thought we saw alot & relaxed too. Flew into Albuquerque, spent 1st night (it was already 7:00pm) at the airport Wyndham, which was great. Next day drove to Santa Fe, spent 2 nights at Inn of Loretto, saw Georgia O'Keefe Museum, chapels, churches, shops, great dinners at La Casa Sena & El Shed. Wonderful town. Drove to Taos, stayed on the plaza at La Posada, balcony (little) room, great dinner at Joesph's Table in the hotel that night. Time to walk around & discover great shops & artisans treasures. Next morning toured the Pueblo de Taos, then drove to Durango, 3 nights at Stator Hotel, huge corner room, quiet on weeknights, loud on the sidewalk on weekends. May be more crowded now in summer. We loved it. Great restaurant Mahogany Grill in hotel & included breakfast. Two completely different bars, one uptown style, one cowboy style. Spent one day at Mesa Verde & one day at Silverton/Ouray & one around town. My husband had never seen this area or especially cliff dwelling (& we have been to many countries) & he really enjoyed it. Then drove back to ALB, stayed at Hyatt downtown, very nice, went to Indian casino that night, had a ball. Next day our flight out was late so we discoverd their Old Town historical area again with great shops & restaurants. Then to the airport! First trip we had actually taken within the US in quite a while & we really had fun.

When are you arriving, and what are your interests?

Lee Ann

Thanks for all the input, folks!
Replying to last post - getting in on Saturday afternoon and staying until the following Saturday. We're interested in doing a little of it all: seeing cool natural stuff, historical stuff, local yocal stuff, artsy stuff, great food, fun nightlife, good places to see live music (virtually any kind) Basically I guess we want it all!