There are excellent stops in SW Colorado/Four-Corners area. Enroute to/from previous conventions, Jamie and I spent two days at Mesa Verde Nat'l Park. We landed at Cortez, CO and rented a car for about $30/day (call ahead to the airport terminal) from the local rental agency. We made reservations at the accomodations at the Park itself which is run by the Park Service. If you're someone who seems to always hear people gripe about the gov't....be ready for a surprise with the well-run lodging and restaraunt, complete with roof-top cocktail lounge with 100+ mile views all the way to Shiprock! Buffalo (excuse me...BISON) steaks, quail, and other wonderful menu items, all well prepared and reasonable.
Great views from the balcony of your cabin, and super guided tours of the cliff-dwellings. Reasonably priced, too!
http://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm
Just to the west is Durango, CO, as well as the Monument Valley to the west of Four Corners is an incredible tour to make by air while enroute elsewhere.
A website which will assist you in finding Nat'l Parks to visit while travelling is:
http://www.nps.gov/findapark/index.htm
Simply find a park with an interest for you, call that Park Headquarters for tips and visitors info, and locate a small, nearby airport with small airline service (they will have rental cars available) and call ahead for discount rates. Don't forget to ask for the annual Nat'l Park Pass. Here's the website for FAQs:
http://www.nps.gov/faqs.htm
Santa Fe, NM is one of the oldest towns in No. America and has excellent B&Bs, restarants and historical attractions like the Old Gov't Square (ca. 1640) where Native Americans sell their handmade jewelry/etc., not to mention nearby Los Alamos (site of development of the Atomic bomb). Art Galleries and fantastic Old West hotels still open for business right on the square.
Passing thru Oklahoma should include the Cowboy Hall of FAme (see Gene Autry's guns and gunleather). Ft. Smith, AR where "hangin' Judge Parker dealt out justice on the frontier, and Hot Springs, AR Nat'l Park and stay in the old Arlington Hotel and enjoy a hot mineral bath and massage. Buy the lady a pedicure and maybe you'll get lucky with her! (And take a walk around the old town center to see where Al Capone visited the now-closed casinos and got treatments for his ailments. While you're at it, visit my birthplace, the old St. Joseph Hospital, now known as the "Bill Clinton School of Mathmatics"
Take a drive through the Ozark mountains and try the local smoked hams (send one back home via UPS) and don't forget the "Duck Rides" on Lake Hamilton and the Horse Races at the Downs. Fish nearby at Gaston's resort after landing on their grass runway and staying in their lodges, while the ladies and kids take the guided bird-watching tours.
http://www.gastons.com/airstrip.php
Coming from the N.E., stop at Springfield, IL to visit the Abraham Lincoln Museum and memorial/tomb. (See his law offices where his legal assitant George, admitted to the future president that he really did not enjoy law...that he really just wanted a military career and would do anything for an apointment to West Point...so Mr. Lincoln talked with his law partner who had congressional contacts and got the young assistant his much-desired appointment to the U.S. Military Academy where he graduated last in his class...then resigned his commission to become a General in the Confederate Army, leading a division which made his name forever memorable in their failed effort known as "Picketts Charge" at Gettysburg.
On your return, land at the Gettysburg airport and hike 1 mile toward town to stay at "Herr Tavern Inn"
http://www.innatherrridge.com/ a B&B which has stood since before the Confederates under Maj. Gen Henry Heth arrived on the Chambersburg Pike right beside that Inn, and opened up their cannons against the Union forces under Gen John Buford directly in front of them, virtually in the front yard of that Tavern, and within sight of McPhersons Farm (Confederate field hospital) and the Lutheran Seminary where Gen. Buford directed his defenses from the cupola. Sleep in Civil War era beds and furnishings of the Tavern, which served as a field headquarters during the engagement. Enjoy the champagne and cheeses and fruit awaiting you in your room, and the fantastic menu (and cold Beck's beer in the "barn" lounge.) Take the guided bus-tour of the battleground. (Watch the Ted Turner movie "Gettysburg" before visiting, as it is historically accurate and filmed ON location.) See Lee's headquarters, and stand where Lincoln delivered his "Gettysburg Address" in the Oak Ridge Cemetery where union cannon defended the heights. And take a moment to reflect upon the names of the sacrificed on the gravestones.
Stand on "little Round Top" and see the "Devils Den" where the ground became littered and soaked with the human carnage of a misguided war against ourselves. And visit the little town which is much like it was at the time, including the small hotel where Lincoln stayed and put the finishing touches on his speech.
(BTW: the fuel at the Gettysburg airport is by private membership, so arrive with sufficient fuel to leave. I got lucky...the president of the Lutheran Seminary is a pilot and happened to be at the airport when I was facing a non-responsive fuel pump. He loaned me his membership number so I could purchase fuel.) If I had it to do over again, I'd buy a pair of those little fold-up bicycles and spend a week there. The Inn can arrange for bicycle rentals if you call in advance.
This can all be discovered on Google. Get Imaginative! Take photos. Write about it and send it in for the 170 News! MAKE MEMORIES WITH YOUR LOVED ONES!