Southwest Best Bangs for your Bucks
By Lin Alder
Apr 8, 2004, 13:29
$1—Enjoy an ice cream sandwich at the Little A’Le’Inn, a kitchy roadhouse/gift shop in Rachel, Nevada—the closest town to nefarious Area 51, the government’s top secret testing center. 775-729-2515.
$5—A five spot gains entrance to Snow Canyon State Park near St. George, Utah where you’ll find giant pinkish sand dunes and sheer Navajo sandstone walls renowned for intermediate level climbs. 435-628-2255; www.statepark.utah.gov.
$10—Pack your snorkel and camp at New Mexico’s Bottomless Lakes State Park 15 miles southeast of Roswell. It’s just an illusion that these 17- to 90-foot lakes are, bottomless. 505-624-6058; www.nmparks.com.
$20—Is all you’ll pay for a chicken-salad wrap with sundried cherries and a day at Tucson, Arizona’s Sonoran Desert Museum, where you’ll see pumas, javelinas and coatis up close and personal. 520-883-2702; www.desertmuseum.org.
$50—It may just be dinner and a dorm room, but it’s a dorm room in the Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the only way to get there is by foot, mule or raft. 888-297-2757; www.grandcanyonlodges.com.
$100—Take a ride in the parlor car on the steam-powered Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad as it crisscrosses the mountains between Antonito, Colorado and Charma, New Mexico. 888-CUMBRES (286-2737); www.cumbrestoltec.com.
© Copyright 1999-2006 by Hooked on the Outdoors