Rocky Mountains.
(You didn't meation time of year).

In southern & SW Colorado you can ride the Durango train as well as the Cumbres Toltec, much more fun than the 0815 to Waterloo !
Train or drive up Pike's Peak.

http://www.durangotrain.com/

http://www.cumbrestoltec.com/

http://www.cograilway.com/

Lots of things to see without spending anything as well, you'll love it.

You must visit the Colorado Springs, CO area. Visit Pikes Peak - take the train up. Visit the Garden of the Gods - wonderful scenery. Also, in the area is a living history settlement - the name escapes me. Lots to do and see. Great restaurants and shopping. The Scenery is outstanding. Take a good camera.

Hi,
We are looking at September around 11th, after your labour day.

I think this time is best to visit most of places everyone's mentioned. Am I right?

That Durango train sounds fun...

have visited out west in the mountains many times in sept/oct. it is very chilly at night so you have to pack more bulky clothes (no big deal) and i have most definately hit the occassional snow storm but not blizzard conditions so you might have to wait something out for a few hours (for some mountain passes chains are required and none of the rental companies i've used have provided chains and the contract has said DO NOT put chains on our tires....

but that wouldn't stop me from going.activities may be closed down, this often happens at labor day week end (first weekend in sept) as a lot of workers go back to school.

if you do durango you could then hit southern utah, and the land of westerns, butch cassidy (capital reef national park) etc. very stark landscape about as different from the east coast as you could imagine.

using the build a route function on map quest you could do a colorado circle including the moab area of utah it would be aobut 1100 miles which is quite doable in 16 days. the question is how much time to spend in each area.

I suggest playing around on map quest and see what happens route wise but the circle i made
starts in Denver.

denver to rockymountain nat. pk. (estes park, Co) to grand lake, co
to grand junction, co
to moab, ut
to durango, co
to montrose, co
towards salida, co
to colorado springs, co
back to denver

there are TONS of things to see along this route, many national parks, black canyon of the gunnison, the town of telluride, co but it's just a suggestion and it's fun thinking about a trip like this....

but i would never write off california, with 16 days you could do a fantastic trip taking in the coast (redwood forests) and the sierra nevada mountains (yosemite national park) and wine country.

Have been going over things and leaning towards California etc.

Can anyone fine tune this agenda?

Flying into San Francisco touring Carmel, Route 1, san simeon (sic) onto LV grand canyon etc BUT

Incorporating our Preference which are:

Small quaint towns, Diverse landscapes i.e. forests/deserts/lovely drives/possibly a few western type of towns/ Grand canyon and monument valley

we would be able to return home from another airport. i.e Las Vegas or even Denver if this is a feasable part of trip. We are not lovers of big cities..

thanks

Anne, this is certainly do-able in 16 days. Keep in mind you are talking about covering a LOT of miles, particularly if you plan to fly out of Denver. My advice is to use Yahoo or Google Maps to do some sample distances from place to place. We drove from Colorado to San Francisco in about 8 days, driving about 4 to 6 hours most days but more on a couple. You see a lot of the scenery between places, that way, but not a lot of the places.

When you arrive in SF, I recommend that you spend a day or two traveling North of SF. A good way to get a bit of everything the area has to offer is North to Healdsburg, do some wine tasting in the Dry Creek, Alexander Valley and Russian River areas, then head west to Guerneville, check out Armstrong Redwoods, continue on to the Coast and turn south to Bodega Bay, then go back inland to cut through Sebastapol and then south again to SF. Plan an overnight along that route. Healdsburg is a good choice.

Thanks, if we arrive at SF airport we go uptwards napa etc, it then looks like you go back on yourself to get to Big Sur etc.

Any suggested routes to take us to all of the above and other nice places on way. Heading towards LV we will spend about 5/6 days in LV (poss 2/3 of them at Grand Canyon/Monument valley.

If its easier we can fly home from LVegas.

Can anyone fine tune this itinery?

Thanks again.