How is Yosemite on the way to Death Valley? Give it a miss anyway unless you like crowds and noisy campgrounds.
Be sure to stop at White Sands NP and then drive up to Cloudcroft. The area south and north of Cloudcroft is the best part of New Mexico. Fort Stanton is well worth a stop too. It is just a few miles from Capitan – Smokey The Bear’s grave.
BTW, for all of you I cannot recommend too highly Benchmark Travel Atlases. They have one for each western state. I am a geographer so take my word!
You can order them on their website: benchmarkmaps.com
It’s good to be a n00b - so I can aspire to be just stoopid.
Monrovia, CA
