Not too long ago I was in northern New Mexico wishing I had my BRZ. I drove a shitty rental car from Santa Fe to Los Alamos and then over to Valles Caldera, looped back south near the Bandelier National Monument to White Rock. At that point I still had time in my day, so I said what the hell and drove up the Rio Grande to Espanola, then all the way up through the Rio Grande canyon to Taos.
The canyon and mountain roads just beg for a sports car, and the scenery is simply stunning. There were times when it was hard to get my head around the scale of what I was seeing. I had more than one "reveal" where I would come around a turn or over a ridge, see what was in front of me and say, "Holy shit!"
That's right along your way. You could easily take a right before you get to Albuquerque and make a lazy loop up into Colorado and back through Utah. One of these summers I'm going to drive back out there with the BRZ and do exactly that.
I don't think I would do it in the winter, though. That's all up around 7000 feet and might be a little treacherous. When is your trip?
This is your view coming down into Taos:
This is Valles Grande in the Valles Caldera. For scale, realize that there's a dirt road running right through the middle of that pic.
