Four Corners vacation advice?

[bobbysamd]

Gallup

You never made it to Gallup. I made it to Farmington a few times, it looked like a much much nicer place than Gallup.

Actually, I drove through Gallup five times. I will not say Gallup was dreadful, but FMN was not much better. Friendly FSS on the airport, however.

 

[414Flyer]

Gallup had lots of drunks, beggars and extremely overweight uneducated women.

At least in FMN, it was much cleaner, you had some decent places to go eat, and even a few women (well at least more than Gallup). And you had Durango 45 min away.

 

[bobbysamd]

Farmington

At least in FMN, it was much cleaner . . . .

Somewhat, depending on the part of town. Some of the apartments were barely above squalor level.

[Y]ou had some decent places to go eat . . . .

You could at least get a decent fast-food burger with good fries at Blake's, Senor Pepper's on the airport served decent Mexican, there was a decent BBQ place off Navajo, and I recall some kind of a catfish restaurant on a side street off East 20th. Still, Farmington was a backwater, a fitting place for Mesa to be headquartered during those years.

 

[labbats]

Having lived in Durango several years ago, I hope it's not too late to throw my two cents in. Take the choo-choo up from Durango to Silverton and goof off. Then on your drive to Telluride, stop and enjoy Ouray. They don't call it little Switzerland for nothing.

And I second not going to Farmington. What a dump.

 

[Dan CFI/CFII]

As a native New Mexican (who would possibly take a tooth or two out of a few of you for defaming my state ), it's all in what you make of it.

Durango, eh. Silverton is pretty cool, Ouray is totally awesome. If you want the train, if the C&TS is running, it's far better scenery, and the money doesn't go to a rich dude in Florida. Canyonlands are awesome (Bryce, Zion, and others). Chama is absolutely beautiful (especially this time of year). Canyon de chelly is really, really cool. The reservation is pretty neat if you ask me, but then I enjoy travelling to third world countries. Skip Santa Fe, it's a uber-touristy jet-set town. Taos is neat (especially if you drive to the Ski Valley and can hike into Williams Lake--doable this time of year with snowshoes or skis, but not bad with boots).

Don't make too much of an itenerary, if you see a road that looks like it goes someplace cool, take it. And US550 is totally weak, it might as well be an interstate. Unless you take it to get to Dulce, there's pretty country in there. If you can get the old Taos highway into Espanola you'll really see some beautiful stuff, Embudo is looking real nice lately. But Taos is probably too far if you're trying to do all that.

And make sure you drive back into ABQ at night, Jim Glaser didn't write a song about the lights of Albuquerque for nothing.

And Angelfire is beautiful, you should try to get there if at all possible. Drop a line if you want to get real food in ABQ, gringo food sucks.

There's a lot to see out here. I've seen the vast majority of the world, and I'm not sure that I would want to live anywhere else.

Dan

 

[Vector4fun]

Durango, eh. Silverton is pretty cool, Ouray is totally awesome.

My thoughts too. In fact I don't care if I ever go back to Durango, not because it isn't a nice town, but because every hotel and restaurant acted like they were doing ME a favor for letting me in. I thought Vail, Aspen or Beaver Creek might be that way, but I've had worse experiences in Durango. (Breckenridge not far behind)

Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and if you get time, go to the museum at Los Alamos. Pretty drive and interesting place.

 

[FL000]

Great advice, everyone. Thanks a lot. I will let you know how the trip goes and hopefully get some good photos to share.

Adios.