@HangingTen. The so-called Turquoise Trail is an interesting trip. The major features are Madrid (pronounced Mad-drid) and Cerrillos. Madrid was a coal mining town until fairly recently. After the mine closed people rehabbed many of the houses and made shops out of them. In Cerrillos it's easy to imagine yourself back in the 19th Century. I think movies have been made there, but there's really not much to see or do, just a couple shops. Right outside of town there's a place you can take a guided horseback ride through the Cerrillos Hills where the famous Cerrillos turquoise was mined. No longer is mining being done.
I think an even better trip is through the Jemez Mountains, ending up North of Santa Fe. You can see the best of everything NM offers in this trip.
Take IH-25 North from the fiesta grounds to the HWY 550 exit (not far) and go West or left on Hwy 550. Stay on 550 until you get to San Ysidro and turn right on Hwy 4. You'll travel along the Jemez River gaining in altitude,, and go through Jemez Springs which are mineral hot springs. This whole area was rife with volcanic activity in prehistoric times. Go by Soda Dam where the minerals in the water created a dam, Battleship Rock, a picnic area with a cliff that looks like a battleship. There is a state park with the ruins of a rather large church the early Spanish missionaries established
You'll go through Jemez Pueblo which is the home of the Jemez Indians. They are a rather poor tribe, being off the beaten path and not suitable for a casino. Note the hornos in the backyards. These are beehive shaped Adobe ovens for bread baking. They have a visitor's center which is very nice with clean restrooms. Often, tribal members will be selling bread in the red rock area across from the visitor's center.
My favorite place is the Valles Caldera which is what was a gorgeous 93,000 acre ranch that the US Government bought about 10 years ago. They're still trying to decide what to do with it. What you see from the highway is a huge lush meadow, a sunken volcanic caldera, with the river running through it. They lease it for cattle grazing but you often see a huge herd of elk grazing there, depending on the time of day and season. I always take binoculars when I take this trip.
After you leave this area you'll drive through a beautiful mountain area where the leaves should still be gorgeous if we haven't had rainy, windy weather. You'll come to Bandelier National Monument which are Indiam ruins. The ruins consist of the remains of homes built into the sides of the canyon as well as on the flat land, but they aren't traditional cliff dwellings like at Mesa Verde. There aren't any of those in this area.
Many of the cliffs in the Jemez are tufa which is soft volcanic rock. It can be carved with a knife and is used for molds in making cast silver jewelry. It's pocked with holes, some large enough to live in, some very small.
After you leave Bandelier, you'll see some of the outter facilities of Los Alamos Nat'l Labs. This is where they built the atomic bombs that ended WWII in Japan. You start a rather steep decent past tufa cliffs and come to Hwy 285. Once I get on 285, I always stop And eat at Gabriel's Restaurant which is Mexican with a beautiful patio and view of the Sangre de Christo Mountains.
Continue South to Santa Fe and stop and shop at the plaza or continue back to IH-25 to Albuquerque. The Turquoise Trail trip is mostly bare brown hills and the Jemez trip is mountains, trees, canyons and really beautiful scenery.
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