Traveling Huntleys

Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.

New Mexico

From Yellowstone to Arizona: A Winter Family Road Trip Through Wyoming, Colorado & Texas

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Last Updated: May 4, 2026

We don’t always take the direct route home from Yellowstone, and this trip was proof of it. After one of our latest-season stays in Gardiner — businesses closing, temperatures dropping well below freezing each night, and several surprise snowfalls reminding us that late autumn in Montana is not the time to linger — we mapped a route south through Wyoming and into Colorado to visit as much of Michael’s family as we could reach. Jake was a good sport through the cold weather and ready to move again. From Colorado we continued east across the plains to Amarillo before cutting west through Albuquerque, stopping in the Arizona high country, and finishing the winter migration at Yuma for the drive home to San Diego.

Bighorn sheep grazing near the road at Yellowstone, Montana in late autumn — late-season wildlife viewing with few other visitors around
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Santa Fe, Albuquerque & Elephant Butte, New Mexico During COVID

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Last Updated: July 12, 2026

Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico and one of the most extraordinary cities in America — the oldest state capital in the country, founded by Spanish colonists in 1610, sitting at 7,199 feet in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It has been an art hub for over a century; Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather, and D.H. Lawrence all found their way here, and today Santa Fe’s art market is the second largest in the United States after New York City. The adobe architecture, the canyon light, the galleries along Canyon Road — we wanted to experience all of it. COVID-19 had other plans. Nearly everything was closed, and we moved through the city mostly from a distance, filing it away for a proper return visit. From Eagle Nest, it was a two-and-a-half hour drive through the mountains and then south along the Rio Grande.

Sandy Huntley and Jake the dog standing on a rocky overlook high above the Rio Grande River in northern New Mexico
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Eagle Nest, Taos & Red River, New Mexico: Wildlife on the Enchanted Circle

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Last Updated: July 12, 2026

From Amarillo, Texas, we headed west and then north into the mountains of northern New Mexico — a five-hour drive that climbed steadily from the flat Texas Panhandle to the high alpine country around Eagle Nest at 8,300 feet. The drive itself provided an early complication: somewhere along the route, either diesel fuel contamination with water or the rapid change in altitude was causing the engine to run rough under load. Purging the fuel filter helped, but a visit to the Freightliner dealer in Albuquerque was clearly going to be necessary. We filed it away and pressed on. What was waiting at the end of the drive was worth every mile of it.

A young bighorn sheep ram perched confidently on a rocky cliff face near Questa, New Mexico along the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway
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