Santa Fe, Chaco and Taos in 6 Days

Start on the plaza in Santa Fe at the Palace of the Governors, the long adobe seat of Spanish, Mexican and American governors, where Native artists sell their work under the portal. In the afternoon drive east on I-25 and the old road through Glorieta Pass to Pecos National Historical Park, where the walls of a mission church rise beside the ruins of Cicuye, the pueblo that traded between the Rio Grande and the plains. It was at Pecos in 1786 that Spain and the Comanche made their peace. Return to Santa Fe for the night.

Drive north to Pojoaque and west up NM-502 onto the Pajarito Plateau. At Bandelier, the main loop trail passes rooms carved into the soft tuff of Frijoles Canyon and the round village of Tyuonyi on the canyon floor. Then climb to Los Alamos, where Fuller Lodge, the log hall of a boys' ranch school, became the dining room of the Manhattan Project. NM-4 runs on west past the great meadow of Valles Caldera, the floor of a collapsed volcano, and down San Diego Canyon to Jemez Springs, where the Jemez Historic Site keeps the ruins of Gisewa pueblo and its seventeenth-century mission church.

Start early. NM-4 meets US-550 at San Ysidro, near Zia Pueblo, whose sun symbol rides on the state flag. Follow US-550 northwest across the San Juan Basin to the turnoff near Nageezi, then take the county road south to Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Walk Pueblo Bonito and drive the loop past the other great houses of the canyon floor; Fajada Butte, at the canyon entrance, holds the Sun Dagger, closed to climbers since 1989. Then return to US-550 and continue north to Aztec for the night.

In the morning visit Aztec Ruins, a Chacoan great house of the early 1100s that settlers wrongly credited to the Aztecs, with the great kiva Earl Morris rebuilt in 1934. Then drive east on US-64 through Dulce, home of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, to Chama, depot of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, whose narrow-gauge steam trains climb over Cumbres Pass into Colorado in the warm months. A full ride takes a day; the yard and its engines are worth a stop even without one. South on US-84 the cliffs turn red, yellow and purple at Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O'Keeffe painted for decades. Stay at the ranch or near Abiquiú.

Follow US-84 down the Chama to Española, then cross east to Chimayó and El Santuario de Chimayó. From there take the High Road up NM-76 through Truchas and Las Trampas, by Peñasco and over NM-518 to Ranchos de Taos, where the buttressed adobe of San Francisco de Asís faces the road. Taos is four miles on.

Visit Taos Pueblo in the morning, its multistoried houses lived in for centuries, and look up at the mountains that hold the lake the pueblo would not sell. West of town, US-64 crosses the Rio Grande on the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, hundreds of feet above the river. Return to Santa Fe by the river road, NM-68 down the canyon of the Rio Grande to Española.