Santa Fe has long been known as the place to visit for art lovers who wish to browse the 250 galleries situated throughout the small, accessible city, located on Canyon Road near the Plaza and the historic Railroad District.

But for lovers of the culinary arts, Santa Fe promises a similar bounty of restaurants to explore and enjoy. ... Read More

In my territory, an unusual winter snow storm has closed major roads leading in or out of Las Cruces in southern New Mexico. If you’re planning travel in this area, be sure to check the New Mexico Department of Transportation (DOT) website for the latest updates for Interstate 10 from the Arizona border to the Texas state line, Interstate 25 from the Texas border to Belen just south of Albuquerque and N.M. Highway 70 East to Alamogordo.... Read More

Our last stop on our southwest tour (after Lubbock and Roswell) was Carlsbad, New Mexico.  My folks took me there when I was a kid and I had a great time.  It was 1985 and The Goonies was my favorite movie.  The Goonies spent a lot of time in a cave so I hoped to have a similar adventure.  Unfortunately, there was no One Eye Willy at the end of the Carlsbad Caverns tour, but I still remember it fondly.... Read More

 
I want to start this blog by letting my readers know that I love the quirky, cheesy, goofy stuff across America. This is one of the main reasons I stopped in Roswell, New Mexico.  So let the fun begin:


Roswell's claim to fame is the UFO folklore surrounding the alleged recovery of alien creatures from a crashed object there in 1947. ... Read More

The dedication of a sheep and goat barn may not be a typical event for a AAA inspector, but I didn’t want to miss it. It was held at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum (NMF&RHM) in Las Cruces -- a very special place for me as I grew up on a nearby farm and worked there for several years. ... Read More

While doing ‘inspector duty’ in Carlsbad, New Mexico,  I was encouraged by many local folks to experience Christmas on the Pecos, an event I had heard great things about but never had the opportunity to experience. A nighttime boat ride during December, you say? I am not a fan of cold weather and will do my best to avoid it, but since I was just getting into the holiday spirit I took the challenge.... Read More

  
 You have two choices traveling between Albuquerque and Santa Fe: I-25, your basic interstate highway, or SR 14, better known as the Turquoise Trail—which is slower but more scenic, with Madrid (MA-drid), a former mining company settlement turned ghost town turned eccentric artistic community, as a stop along the way. Guess which route I picked while in New Mexico on travel assignment?... Read More

   
Santa Fe is a town that takes its artsy reputation seriously. It has museums devoted to art (the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the Museum of International Folk Art, just to name three). There’s a mural or a funky sculpture on practically every side street. You could even say the town itself—adobe architecture, leafy plazas, mountain backdrop—is a work of art.

Of course downtown Santa Fe is packed with shops selling every type of art imaginable, from cheap trinkets to exquisite handcrafted pieces. But the really heavy-duty art scene is nearby on Canyon Road. ... Read More

When I found out I was traveling to Albuquerque on assignment my stomach growled eagerly in anticipation. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Mexican food, and I figured that the geographical proximity would result in a bounty of good Mexican restaurants. It turned out I was half right; there are a lot of Mexican restaurants, but most of them specialize in New Mexican cuisine. New Mexican, you say? Well, for me it boils down to a couple of general observations:... Read More

 
When I first found out I was going to New Mexico on travel assignment, visions of hiking began dancing in my head. Living in central Florida, let’s just say I don’t have many opportunities for exhilarating high-desert treks. I asked my California colleague Eli Ellison, an avid hiker himself, for suggestions and he recommended Chimney Rock, e-mailing a photo of the namesake formation that immediately convinced me I had to do this hike.... Read More