New Mexico Boasts the Turquoise Trail and More

The popular southwestern destinations of Santa Fe and Albuquerque offer a vibrant lifestyle to visitors that combines elements of Spanish and Native American culture with the traditions of the Old West and a fascinating history. Both cities feature a unique mix of Spanish colonial architecture, adobe dwellings and pueblo buildings, while the surrounding areas are dotted with old mining camps and the remnants of ranches established by the settlers who came into the area in the 19th century on the Santa Fe trail or along railroad lines.

Outdoor activities and arts and crafts are popular throughout the state of New Mexico, which contains breathtaking landscapes with canyons, deserts, grasslands and plateaus. The dominant feature of the northern part of the state is the mountains, since the elevation rises from 5,000 feet above sea level in Albuquerque to more than 7,200 feet in Santa Fe. You are never more than a block away from a coffee shop or an art gallery with oxygen in either community.

We had the opportunity to visit the area for a week and enjoyed the experience. In addition to the geography and cultural diversity of the area, the region also has fascinating history. Here are a few places to start:

Old Town Albuquerque: Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico, with a population of over a half million people and a famous Old Town area. For hundreds of years since the city was designated as a town by the Spanish crown, the adobe buildings have served as the meeting place for traders and locals. Today, the area is known for its interesting craft shops, restaurants and museums. The Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, the Museum of Natural History, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Centre and the International Rattlesnake Museum are just a few of the nearby attractions. Fans of the “Breaking Bad” TV show can also visit famous sites around town on a “cooking van” identical to the one used by the show’s protagonists.

Outdoors enthusiasts also flock to Albuquerque. The international balloon fiesta held every autumn in the city attracts huge crowds from around the world as more than 500 balloons take off across the countryside with experienced balloonists and riders aboard. Called the most photographed event on Earth, it takes place for a week in October. Even without a balloon, visitors can look down on the entire city by climbing to the 10,000 foot Sandia Peak on one of the world’s tallest tramways.

Coronado’s Path and the Pecos Historical Park: The longstanding presence of humans in the region is vividly demonstrated by the thousands of ancient petrographs of human figures, symbols and animals dating back several thousand years carved into the mesas west of Albuquerque. More recently, from the 12th to the 16th century, Native American Pueblo people had settlements throughout the area and established a sophisticated culture that included skilled stone masonry and ceramics. One of the most prominent settlements known as the Pecos Pueblo, located southeast of Santa Fe, once housed 2,000 people in more than 700 rooms, and it served as a trading center between the southwest and the plains Indians. Remnants of the pueblo as well as later Spanish missions can be viewed at the Pecos National Historic Park.

The transformative historical event for the region took place in 1540, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, the appointed governor of the Spanish province of Nueva Galicia, launched an expedition to investigate the reports of a Franciscan priest that cities of gold were located to the north. Accompanied by 300 soldiers, 1,000 Mexican Indians and 1,000 head of cattle, Coronado’s explorers spent several years wandering from western Mexico across the southwest all the way to Kansas. They identified many of the natural wonders of the region, including the Grand Canyon, and sometimes brutalized the Pueblo people and Zuni Indians they encountered to force them to turn over non-existent gold treasures.

Although monuments to Coronado are few and far between, his failed expedition led to the return of other colonists decades later, including Juan de Onate, who established the city of Santa Fe and the colony of New Mexico in 1598. Several turbulent centuries followed that included a decade-long Native American uprising against the Spanish known as the Pueblo Revolt; the United States’ acquisition of the southwest after the Mexican War; conflict between Anglo settlers and the Apaches; and range wars. In 1912, stability arrived when New Mexico was finally granted statehood.

Turquoise Trail: While not as pronounced as the California Gold Rush, New Mexico had its own mining boom beginning in the 1870s, when silver and gold was discovered. For decades thereafter, towns like Golden, Cerrillos and Madrid rose and fell in the hills and valleys of northern New Mexico as people scrambled to make a fortune in mining minerals. One way to capture the flavor of those abandoned communities is to drive scenic highway 14 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe for an hour or two. In addition to seeing some interesting mountains and forests, this route known as the Turquoise Trail has now become the popular homestead for artists, antique shops and off-beat small businesses.

Santa Fe Plaza: Santa Fe is one of the most visited cities in the United States, with a well-deserved reputation for the arts and free-spirited people. It’s a great place for window shopping and taking in the views of the snow-topped mountains that surround the town. Much of the town’s cultural activity and tourism is concentrated in the central part of town around the Santa Fe Plaza. The New Mexico Museum of the Arts has four museums there with all kinds of sculptures, paintings, ceramics, textiles, pottery, and cultural relics. American Indian art, Spanish colonial art and folk art are also prominently displayed at various galleries and museums. For history enthusiasts, the New Mexico History Museum and the Palace of the Governors on the north side of the Plaza effectively display artifacts about the Old West and New Mexico history.

Los Alamos: One of the most secret places in American history lies only about an hour away from Santa Fe on top of a plateau. Los Alamos served as the hidden laboratory and home for the thousands of scientists who developed the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945. Today, defense research continues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Visitors are not welcome at that location, but the excellent Bradbury Science Museum presents movies and interactive displays about the Manhattan Project. While some people may be uncomfortable seeing life-sized replicas and pictures of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 to end World War II, others will be drawn to the letter that Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt in 1941 about the urgent need for the United States to commence research on the potential energy and military applications of the atom before our enemies did. Other technologies created by the Manhattan Project, such as computers, transistors and energy production, are also presented at the museum.