10 Days In Farmington, NM – Here’s What We Did

After spending a few days in Santa Fe, NM so that we could visit Meow Wolf, Shae, Truffles and I moved over to Farmington, NM for 10 days.

Our main reason for visiting there was less about spending time in Farmington itself and more so that we could see other places within an hour or two. In particular, we wanted to visit Durango and Mesa Verde National Park which are both in Colorado.

Staying in Durango therefore would’ve been ideal, but hotels and Airbnbs there were $$$$. By staying in Farmington, we were within a reasonable driving distance of those places and were also able to stay for free as there was a good hotel option that didn’t require many points.

Here’s a roundup of everything that we did during our 10 days in Farmington.

Where We Stayed

We stayed all 10 nights at the TownePlace Suites Farmington (here’s my review). I booked this hotel because at the time of our stay it was a category 2 property in the Marriott Bonvoy program and was at its standard pricing for our stay (i.e. not peak or off-peak). That meant it cost 12,500 points per night, but with every 5th night being free on award stays, our net cost was 10,000 points per night.

It was a decent stay, with a comfortable room that had a full kitchen and plenty of storage space, a hot breakfast (something not all hotels are back to offering yet due to COVID) and friendly staff.

What We Did

Mesa Verde National Park

One of our main reasons for staying in Farmington was that it was less than 1.5 hours to Mesa Verde National Park. The park isn’t overly dog-friendly as dogs aren’t allowed on most of the trails there, but we brought Truffles along as we weren’t sure how long we’d be out that day. Shae and I decided to drive through the park initially to stop at overlooks which meant Truffles was fine being with us, then we figured we could drop her off at the kennel at the park’s campground if we wanted to do any non-dog friendly activities or hikes.

We’d heard great things about Mesa Verde National Park, with all kinds of people having told us that they loved it. Unfortunately Shae and I were both a little underwhelmed by it. In terms of views, other places in Colorado (like Rocky Mountain National Park) have much more spectacular vistas. In terms of Ancestral Puebloan history, we enjoyed sites in New Mexico far more like Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Aztec Ruins National Monument – both of which are a similar distance from Farmington.

To be fair, we also hadn’t realized that you needed tickets to visit most of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. You can do a self-guided tour of the Step House, but there wasn’t too much to that in comparison to sites like Chaco.

Durango

One of the other main places we wanted to visit while staying in Farmington was Durango. Durango is a cute city in southwest Colorado that’s nice to walk around and even better when you stop for a drink at Durango Craft Spirits (more about that later on).

It doesn’t look like either of us took any good photos of Main Ave, so here’s a photo of Truffles outside 11th Street Station – an outdoor food court area with lots of food trucks, but which sadly wasn’t pup friendly.

Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness

When we stayed in Bloomfield, NM earlier this year, we wanted to visit Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness. However, I’d read online that the roads there can be very muddy when it’s wet and we’d had both snow and rain during our time there, so we didn’t want to risk our car getting stuck.

This time around the weather was much better, so after checking out of the TownePlace Suites at the end of our stay, Shae, Truffles and I stopped there on the way down to Gallup, NM.

I’m glad we had an opportunity to visit it as it was a fascinating place. These badlands have all kinds of unusual rock formations that make you feel like you’re walking on another planet at times. Here’s more about our visit to Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness.

Where We Ate

Johnny O’s Spudnuts

Seeing as we had a full kitchen in our room at the TownePlace Suites, we didn’t eat out much during our week-and-a-half in Farmington. One place we did order from though was Johnny O’s Spudnuts. I spotted this when looking up something else on Google Maps and Shae and I both knew we had to check it out, because how can you not want to eat something called Spudnuts?!

In case you hadn’t guessed from the name, Spudnuts are donuts made from potato flour and as a result are incredibly soft and squishy. Taste-wise, I liked them more than Shae did, although Round Rock Donuts in Round Rock, TX and Hurts Donut in Tulsa, OK (and other locations) are still easily my favorite donuts.

Where We Drank

Although we didn’t eat out much in Farmington, we did check out a couple of wineries, a brewery and a distillery while we were there.

Wines Of The San Juan

Wines Of The San Juan is about 40 minutes east of Farmington and is a winery in a nice setting near the San Juan River (hence its name). They have lots of outdoor seating and are pet-friendly which was great as it meant Truffles got to join us.

Their wine was good and Shae particularly liked their Girls ‘R Meaner – a gewürztraminer (get it?!) – which was surprising as she’s not normally a big fan of white wines. We also had a lovely time chatting to a family who had stopped there for a drink with lunch before going camping and fishing that weekend.

Lauter Haus Brewing Company

While driving back to our hotel from the grocery store one afternoon, I spotted Lauter Haus Brewing Company. They’re a pet-friendly brewery inside and out, so we went there for a drink with Truffles.

I got one of their stouts which was very good. Shae’s not a fan of beer, so she got a glass of wine – not all breweries offer non-beer alcohol, so she appreciated them having this as an option.

We only stayed for a couple of drinks, but it seemed like it would be a fun place to hang out for longer as they had all kinds of pinball machines, cornhole, etc.

Yellow Car Country Wines

After a slightly disappointing time at Mesa Verde National Park, we still had quite a bit of the day left as it was only 2:30pm. We decided to make the most of being up in that area by looking to see if there were any wineries nearby.

There were a few options, so we picked Yellow Car Country Wines in Cortez, CO as it had good reviews online and was pet-friendly.

Stopping for several hours at Yellow Car Country Wines redeemed that day for us as we had a great time there. The owner was incredibly friendly and they had 44 different types of wine to try, with many of the flavors being unique.

Even better, you get to put your name on a beam if you try all 44 wines. I was the designated driver, so Shae took them up on the challenge and sure enough – her name made it on the wall! Shae will be writing a separate post about Yellow Car in the coming days, so stay tuned for that.

Durango Craft Spirits

After exploring Durango for a while, we decided to stop for a quick drink at Durango Craft Spirits. A quick drink got extended into a relaxing afternoon there as we got chatting to several different people who were also enjoying a drink – hi to Dom, Matt, Katherine, Veronica, Joe, CeCe, Deanne, Ed, Nick, Garrett, Lewis and Cindy!

I liked their whiskey, Shae liked a couple of their cocktails and Truffles just liked being out and about!