Hi emalloy! I posted my comments before seeing yours. Our messages must have crossed in cyberspace. Thanks for the information on the AAA map. I'll have a look for it.

We got our map at the AAA site in the next town and they had maps of all over. We originally got the map in New Mexico and wore it out, the AAA guy looked it up and ordered it and they sent it to our house.

Old geezers sometimes find that humans can get you something that is impossible to find on the web.

Can someone speak to the conditions on the roads between Taos and MV via the Colorado route? Are they fast moving highways or more secondary routes?

They are very secondary, one lane in each direction for most of the route. It will take you almost as long to go from Taos to MV as it will to head down to Bernalillo from Taos and then take 550.

Here are the pictures, sorry I forgot!
http://picasaweb.google.com/DebitNM/AztecRuins
http://picasaweb.google.com/DebitNM/MesaVerdeMay2009
http://picasaweb.google.com/DebitNM/MesaVerdeInWinter
http://picasaweb.google.com/DebitNM/ChacoCanyon

You can spend 3 hours or so in Chaco and see the ruins that are in my pictures [driving in and out takes awhile, hence the 3 hours]

Aztec is pretty small, an hour should work.

MV, well, the tours are great, the hikes are also wonderful. As much time as possible.

If you are nature lovers, I would cut time from Santa Fe and add it to outdoor adventures.

I have hotwired a room in Bernalillo for overflow guests, it was Holiday Inn Express and was nice and around $50 last Memorial Day. If you want help with that, let me know.

If you aren't staying in MV at the Farview Lodge, staying in Cortez may be less $$ than staying in Durango.

Thanks for your input DebitNM! I think we'll try the Taos to MV route to see different vistas. It will be nice not to have to back track. I think we may spend two nights in MV at the Lodge giving us an entire day for the park without any road time. We'll return stopping at the Aztec Ruins and Chaco before our final night in ABQ. Perhaps we will be able to take the Tram to the top of the Sandias?

Regarding your comment on spending less time in Sante Fe, I thought that might be a great base from which to explore natural wonders with options to feed our cultural side between adventures? We are really only there from Saturday, late afternoon through Wednesday. It sounds even more sad when I spell it out.

Thanks for the photos-I can't wait to have a look!

It's done! We have four nights in Santa Fe, one in Taos, two in Mesa Verde NP and one in ABQ. I mistakenly booked our Los Rios rafting trip for a morning that we are waking up in Sante Fe, our last morning there. From comments here, it seems Taos is an easy day trip from Sante Fe. Is it reasonable to think we can comfortably make a 9:30 meeting with our rafting guide? We are early birds, so getting up isn't an issue.

Sounds great!

You should have no problem making the 9:30 rafting. The pickup spot is south of Taos proper,so you should be ok.

While I'm pleased to have sorted out our plans, I'll miss the back and forth with those of you that have helped us so much in working through the details of this trip.

DebitNM, your photos are incredible! Thank you for sharing them. Along with emalloy's photos, they make me want to leave tomorrow!

I can not wait for this great adventure to begin. I think planning travel is half the fun of the experience. My next task is to find a documentary on Chaco that someone mentioned was narrated by Robert Redford! Apparently, it's quite a mysterious place!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

All the best,

adventuredays, I think you've got the Fodor's bug

Do come back after your trip and tell us how it went! You could even write a separate thread as a Trip Report; if you do that, please come back to this thread and post a link to it. I'd love to live vicariously a bit and see your photos

Oh, I have the Fodors bug alright, for every trip I plan. I just haven't ever done a trip report, thinking that I always have more to learn than to contribute! I'll try to pull myself together after this trip and post something. We recently got an IPad so I can easily take some notes as we go along.

Well, if you write a TR, I'll be shamed into pulling my act together and writing one too! I always have the best of plans... but somehow never end up writing one for any of my trips.

I'd be very interested to hear how it goes with your iPad on vacation. I'm keen to take one along, but also a little nervous that I'd end up treating it poorly!