Eureka Springs is cool except that it’s kind of hard to get there from anywhere. The old downtown has a lot of neat architecture and has a artsy/hippy feel to it with lots of quirky shops. The scenery is also very pretty, it reminds me of sections of the Smokey Mountains.
Warning: The newer areas surrounding downtown is more like Branson lite though, so if bible belt/country music type entertainment isn’t your thing, you would need to ignore that part.
The Grand Canyon itself is only 1-2 days unless you’ll be doing some serious hiking.
There are lots of other things to see in that part of the country. We went on a half-day smoothwater rafting trip out of Page AZ (from the Glen Canyon dam) which was a lot of fun. Monument Valley is beautiful (I haven’t been but photos suggest it’s lovely). Rocky Mountain National Park is worth a day or two and is in the right direction. You can see the beginning of the Colorado River there - it’s a creek! Trail Ridge Road (the continuation of US 34 through the park) is quite a drive. We were through there in early June one year and there were 8 foot snow drifts on both sides of the road.
If you take I-40 east through Arizona and New Mexico, you’ll see lots of nice mesas, red rock cliffs, and even an 11,000 ft. dormant volcano (Mt. Taylor, near Grants, NM). Not quite as spectacular as Monument Valley, but still very nice.
Meteor Crater, the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert in Arizona have been mentioned; all are worth a visit. Just east of Grants NM is Highway 117 going south (exit 89, I believe). It goes past huge lava fields stretching for miles (called El Malpais, the Badlands). Lots of nice scenery along this road. The Sandstone Bluffs Overlook and La Ventana Arch are two good places to stop. Keep in mind, there are no facilities along this road, other than restrooms.
East of Albuquerque, just off Highway 14, is the [URL=“http://www.tinkertown.com/”]Tinkertown Museum. It sounds hokey, but it’s actually quite impressive!
South of Amarillo, TX is Palo Duro Canyon. Not as big as the Grand Canyon, but worth a stop.
In Albuquerque, you might take a ride on the Tram. Spectacular views from the top of Sandia Mountain.
Central Ave. in Albuquerque gives a taste of what Route 66 was like; lots of little motels, shops and diners. I recommend the Frontier Restaurant. A very popular spot- I suggest a green chile cheeseburger, a true New Mexico delicacy! Someone mentioned Sadie’s, another excellent choice for New Mexican food. It’s not unusual to wait for a table, however.
What time of year will you be taking your trip? If you mentioned it, I missed it.
And how old are the girls? They might enjoy the Radisson Hotel and Water Park in Albuquerque.
Late July or early August is our traditional vacation time. And I can’t afford to be gone later than that for electoral reasons.
The girls will be 11 and 7 at the time of the trip. One of our cardinal rules for vacations, though, is that we do our best to avoid things we can get at home. So no chain restaurants if there’s one of them back home…no waterparks in a hotel setting and suchlike.
We (2 adults, 13 YO girl, all Aussies) went to Las Vegas last year for TAM, then drove down to Phoenix via the Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon and Sedona. It is the reverse of your direction, but some of that trip may be useful to you.
We all loathed Las Vegas - just not our sort of thing. Even the walking round looking at the sights, “gee it’s all OTT isn’t it? Look at the people” just didn’t sit well with us. Though there was a sound and light show in a street converted to a mall with overhead screens that we enjoyed. But, by and large, Las Vegas actively didn’t appeal to us.
Hoover Dam was interesting - worth a visit if you are in the area.
Grand Canyon. You could spend a week and not exhaust the possibilites. We had 1.5 days. We stayed at the south rim of the Canyon. I left the booking a bit late (only 2 months ahead of the visit!), so couldn’t get a room at one of the Rim hotels, but rented a room at one of the non-rim hotels in the park. It was basic, and the food at the general park restaurant was poor quality. If you plan to stay a night (which is a very good idea and the absolute minimum time), do yourself a favour and book and eat at one of the rimside hotels. If you can’t stay a night, just do a helicopter tour and leave the ground tour for another time.
We picked a spot along the rim to watch the sunset and booked in for the dawn tour. This was most excellent, and if we were in the Canyon area again we would do it again - and we are NOT morning people. If you have more time you can do mule tours down to the base of the Canyon, or walk, and I think there is also accommodation further down, but I don’t think you have the time to try that. A decent visit to the Canyon would take many days to really sample all it has to offer.
One thing we lucked on was that Canon was doing free photography workshops. If you don’t have a camera they lend you a top-of-the-line DSLR (you leave your credit card as hostage) and a professional photography instructor takes a group of you for a walk amongst the scenery and gives you tips on general DSLR photography, scenery and macro/plant/insect photography. Absolutely worth it if it is still running. If not, I think Canon was planning to run the workshops in other US National Parks, so keep an eye out.
Once we were well south of the Canyon and into the red rock country the drive was precipitous but gorgeous.
The Canyon was impressive, but ahhhhhh - Sedona! The woo capital of the South West, but so, so beautiful. If you have the time, go to Sedona and spend a couple of days. (We were discussing earlier today whether to go to TAM again this year, and the consensus was that any trip to TAM would have to be counterbalanced by another trip to Sedona.) You can ignore the woo, but not the beauty. We stayed at a hotel on the rim of a mesa with the whole town laid out below us. There was a cafe in town that made great sandwiches, and we sat on our balcony, cleansing ale/lemonade in hand, ate the wonderful sandwiches and were at peace with the universe several nights in a row.
We also took a jeep tour/hike out through the rocky areas - again well worth it. Take more water than you think you could possibly need.
If this is of help, I will gladly send you specific details.
That’s very helpful, Mame, thanks.
We really do enjoy trips where we see a lot of different things. If it’s the Canyon one day and some roadside snake pit the next we’ll be happy as clams.
So east through Texas (which would end up going through Memphis and Graceland) and north through Utah and Colorado?
Roadside snake pit? How about a Rattlesnake Museum? It’s in the Old Town section of Albuquerque.
Oh, and just west of Amarillo, TX is the Cadillac Ranch, similar to Carhenge.
You should be aware of the weather patterns during that time of year. July and August are both the hottest and wettest months.
I was just going to mention that, blondebear! Southern AZ and NM have lots of interesting things to see- Saguaro National Park and Tombstone in AZ, White Sands National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns and some ghost towns in NM- but it will be extremely hot that time of year.
The I-40 route won’t be as bad. A lot of it is at 5,000 ft. elevation or higher until you get into eastern NM. It rarely breaks 100 F in Albuquerque, but highs in the 90s are the norm.
The northern route, through Utah and Colorado, will be cooler still, but the mountains of CO and northern NM get their share of summer storms.
Southern Utah has a lot to see- Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Glen Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches National Park. Southern Colorado has Mesa Verde, Durango, the San Juan mountains, Great Sand Dunes National Monument. But eastern Colorado and Kansas have little to offer, honestly. So I recommend the I-40 route.
If you’re going to be swinging south of I-40 in New Mexico, I recommend visiting the NRAO VLA and then stopping by Pie Town, New Mexico for some pie. If you can go to only one pie place in Pie Town, choose the Pie-O-Neer over the Daily Pie. The Daily Pie has good coffee and ambiance, but the Pie-O-Neer has better pie.
Second Alamagordo. White Sandsis nearby for some freaky Earthly landscapes.
Or, you could go north through Utah & Colorado and then head south into New Mexico. If you turn south at Pagosa Springs, you’ll go past Chama, the Echo Amphitheater, Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu Reservoir. If you turn south at Alamosa, you can cross the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and visit Taos.
Both routes lead to Santa Fe (visit the Plaza) and I-25, which intersects I-40 in Albuquerque.
Good advice, Mariemarie. And east of the VLA is Magdalena, an interesting little town with quite a history.
They don’t have time, it would be a tough hike for the kids, and it’s even harder to get a room there than at the rim hotels.
For anyone else who wanders into this thread, though, it’s called Phantom Ranch. You can get a shower, a hot meal, a bed, and even make a phone call. If you mail a post card, they take it out by mule.
I think that would be a bit much, especially for the then-to-be-seven-year-old. Sounds like fun, though.
The VLA is a win. We’ve toured Green Bank in West Virginia before and had a blast. I should show the kids ‘Contact’ before we go.