","teaser_raw":"\r\n","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725ec5","author":{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f249","name":"The Staff","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.420Z","blog":"magazine","_name_sort":"the staff","updated":"2017-03-15T20:35:50.490Z","_totalPosts":97,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f249","title":"The Staff","slug":"the-staff","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/the-staff/58b4b2404c2774661570f249/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/the-staff/58b4b2404c2774661570f249/#comments","totalPosts":97},"categories":[{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e5","blog":"magazine","title":"June 1953","_title_sort":"june 1953","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.561Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","_totalPosts":1,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e5","slug":"june-1953","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-1953/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e5/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-1953/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e5/#comments","totalPosts":1},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"teaser":"\r\n","description":" ","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f98b","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/our-back-pages-86279/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/our-back-pages-86279/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/our-back-pages-86279/","metaTitle":"Our Back Pages","metaDescription":"\r\n","cleanDescription":" ","publish_start_moment":"2014-06-03T15:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.577Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f98a","title":"One of Our 50 Is Missing","slug":"one-of-our-fifty-is-missing-86278","publish_start":"2014-06-03T15:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","58b4b2404c2774661570f30b","58b4b2404c2774661570f267"],"tags_ids":["59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f","59090de2e1efff4c9916fafb","59090c10e1efff4c9916f95a"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"Rueful anecdotes about New Mexico's mistaken geographical identity, since 1970.","created":"2014-06-03T15:25:28.000Z","legacy_id":"86278","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"one of our 50 is missing","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.238Z","active":true,"description_raw":"\r\n\r\n

BROKEN SPOKE
\r\nOn February 28, Loren Bray of San Diego, California, heard the following during the prizes montage on the Wheel of Fortune game show: “You can experience the Land of Enchantment ... at a spa in Cabo San Lucas!”

\r\n\r\n

BORDERLINE UNBELIEVABLE
\r\nIn the process of moving from Arizona to New Mexico, Paul Appel attempted to update his car insurance. He called the national toll-free number and was told, “We don’t have an office in New Mexico.” He then noticed that there was an office in his Arizona town. He called the local number, hoping for better results, but was given the same “No can do” response. “Why?” he asked. “Because New Mexico is not in the United States. We can’t help you.” Appel insisted that New Mexico was a state, and asked to speak to the representative’s supervisor. The boss also insisted that New Mexico was a foreign land. Flabbergasted, Appel insisted that they look at an atlas. “New Mexico is the state right next to Arizona!” he exclaimed. After looking at the map, they were obliged to admit that they could indeed update his insurance. Whew.

\r\n\r\n

LET IT BE
\r\nA frequent visitor to New Mexico, Harold Frodge was enjoying a dinner out in Midland, Michigan, wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt emblazoned with the Zia symbol. A woman at an adjacent table asked, “Isn’t Mexico dangerous?” Frodge replied, “Some parts are, but my sweatshirt is from New Mexico.” The woman paused, and then said, “Oh, yes, the new part is safe.” He writes, “I could have pursued this, but decided to just let it be.”

\r\n\r\n

MEXICAINS SANS FRONTIÈRES
\r\nAnne-Laure Aubry, originally from France, fell in love with New Mexico in 1975 when she was a traveling student. She worked for the United Nations for 30 years, and lived in Mexico, Japan, Kenya, and New York. But when time came to choose a place to retire, she picked Santa Fe. She plans to move into an “old but renovated” adobe house this summer. Before moving, she obtained the necessary documents from the French consulate in New York. “I asked one of the staff which consulate I would depend on as a French citizen living in New Mexico.” The reply? “Mexico City.” (It’s actually Los Angeles.)

\r\n\r\n

A FOREIGN CONCEPT
\r\nAfter 31 years serving in the federal government in Washington, D.C., Nancy L. Card decided to relocate to Bernalillo. She began the process of obtaining health insurance that was offered by the government, and valid in New Mexico. She chose a company and e-mailed a few questions to the Hartford, Connecticut, headquarters. A few days later, Card received a reply from a gentleman in London, England. He informed her that he was redirecting her inquiries to the domestic desk, and was puzzled that he had been sent her e-mail since he worked at the company’s foreign desk. The Londoner knew New Mexico was in the United States, but apparently someone in Hartford didn’t.

\r\n\r\n

RING-TONE DEAF
\r\nThis past September, Millie Parker of Treasure Island, Florida, and a friend traveled to Albuquerque for Parker’s Highland High School class reunion. They toured some highlights within striking distance of Albuquerque: Puye Cliff Dwellings, Bandelier, Santa Fe, Acoma, Kasha- Katuwe, and many other sites. At Acoma, Parker’s friend showed her a message on her cell phone from Verizon: “You will be charged roaming charges if you continue using your phone out of the country.”

","teaser_raw":"","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725ee3","categories":[{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f30b","blog":"magazine","title":"One Of Our 50 Is Missing","_title_sort":"one of our 50 is missing","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.592Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.600Z","_totalPosts":86,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f30b","slug":"one-of-our-50-is-missing","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/one-of-our-50-is-missing/58b4b2404c2774661570f30b/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/one-of-our-50-is-missing/58b4b2404c2774661570f30b/#comments","totalPosts":86}],"teaser":"","description":"Send Us Your Story—Please! Dear “50” fans: Help sustain this popular feature by sharing anecdotes that you haven’t gotten around to sending in. Just dash it off if you like, and we’ll take it from there. Submissions will be edited for style and space. Please include your name, hometown, and state. E-mail to fifty@nmmagazine.com , or mail to Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. BROKEN SPOKE On February 28, Loren Bray of San Diego, California, heard the following during the prizes montage on the Wheel of Fortune game show: “You can experience the Land of Enchantment ... at a spa in Cabo San Lucas!” BORDERLINE UNBELIEVABLE In the process of moving from Arizona to New Mexico, Paul Appel attempted to update his car insurance. He called the national toll-free number and was told, “We don’t have an office in New Mexico.” He then noticed that there was an office in his Arizona town. He called the local number, hoping for better results, but was given the same “No can do” response. “Why?” he asked. “Because New Mexico is not in the United States. We can’t help you.” Appel insisted that New Mexico was a state, and asked to speak to the representative’s supervisor. The boss also insisted that New Mexico was a foreign land. Flabbergasted, Appel insisted that they look at an atlas. “New Mexico is the state right next to Arizona!” he exclaimed. After looking at the map, they were obliged to admit that they could indeed update his insurance. Whew. LET IT BE A frequent visitor to New Mexico, Harold Frodge was enjoying a dinner out in Midland, Michigan, wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt emblazoned with the Zia symbol. A woman at an adjacent table asked, “Isn’t Mexico dangerous?” Frodge replied, “Some parts are, but my sweatshirt is from New Mexico.” The woman paused, and then said, “Oh, yes, the new part is safe.” He writes, “I could have pursued this, but decided to just let it be.” MEXICAINS SANS FRONTIÈRES Anne-Laure Aubry, originally from France, fell in love with New Mexico in 1975 when she was a traveling student. She worked for the United Nations for 30 years, and lived in Mexico, Japan, Kenya, and New York. But when time came to choose a place to retire, she picked Santa Fe. She plans to move into an “old but renovated” adobe house this summer. Before moving, she obtained the necessary documents from the French consulate in New York. “I asked one of the staff which consulate I would depend on as a French citizen living in New Mexico.” The reply? “Mexico City.” (It’s actually Los Angeles.) A FOREIGN CONCEPT After 31 years serving in the federal government in Washington, D.C., Nancy L. Card decided to relocate to Bernalillo. She began the process of obtaining health insurance that was offered by the government, and valid in New Mexico. She chose a company and e-mailed a few questions to the Hartford, Connecticut, headquarters. A few days later, Card received a reply from a gentleman in London, England. He informed her that he was redirecting her inquiries to the domestic desk, and was puzzled that he had been sent her e-mail since he worked at the company’s foreign desk. The Londoner knew New Mexico was in the United States, but apparently someone in Hartford didn’t. RING-TONE DEAF This past September, Millie Parker of Treasure Island, Florida, and a friend traveled to Albuquerque for Parker’s Highland High School class reunion. They toured some highlights within striking distance of Albuquerque: Puye Cliff Dwellings, Bandelier, Santa Fe, Acoma, Kasha- Katuwe, and many other sites. At Acoma, Parker’s friend showed her a message on her cell phone from Verizon: “You will be charged roaming charges if you continue using your phone out of the country.”","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f98a","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/one-of-our-fifty-is-missing-86278/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/one-of-our-fifty-is-missing-86278/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/one-of-our-fifty-is-missing-86278/","metaTitle":"One of Our 50 Is Missing","metaDescription":"","cleanDescription":"Send Us Your Story—Please! Dear “50” fans: Help sustain this popular feature by sharing anecdotes that you haven’t gotten around to sending in. Just dash it off if you like, and we’ll take it from there. Submissions will be edited for style and space. Please include your name, hometown, and state. E-mail to fifty@nmmagazine.com , or mail to Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. BROKEN SPOKE On February 28, Loren Bray of San Diego, California, heard the following during the prizes montage on the Wheel of Fortune game show: “You can experience the Land of Enchantment ... at a spa in Cabo San Lucas!” BORDERLINE UNBELIEVABLE In the process of moving from Arizona to New Mexico, Paul Appel attempted to update his car insurance. He called the national toll-free number and was told, “We don’t have an office in New Mexico.” He then noticed that there was an office in his Arizona town. He called the local number, hoping for better results, but was given the same “No can do” response. “Why?” he asked. “Because New Mexico is not in the United States. We can’t help you.” Appel insisted that New Mexico was a state, and asked to speak to the representative’s supervisor. The boss also insisted that New Mexico was a foreign land. Flabbergasted, Appel insisted that they look at an atlas. “New Mexico is the state right next to Arizona!” he exclaimed. After looking at the map, they were obliged to admit that they could indeed update his insurance. Whew. LET IT BE A frequent visitor to New Mexico, Harold Frodge was enjoying a dinner out in Midland, Michigan, wearing a bright yellow sweatshirt emblazoned with the Zia symbol. A woman at an adjacent table asked, “Isn’t Mexico dangerous?” Frodge replied, “Some parts are, but my sweatshirt is from New Mexico.” The woman paused, and then said, “Oh, yes, the new part is safe.” He writes, “I could have pursued this, but decided to just let it be.” MEXICAINS SANS FRONTIÈRES Anne-Laure Aubry, originally from France, fell in love with New Mexico in 1975 when she was a traveling student. She worked for the United Nations for 30 years, and lived in Mexico, Japan, Kenya, and New York. But when time came to choose a place to retire, she picked Santa Fe. She plans to move into an “old but renovated” adobe house this summer. Before moving, she obtained the necessary documents from the French consulate in New York. “I asked one of the staff which consulate I would depend on as a French citizen living in New Mexico.” The reply? “Mexico City.” (It’s actually Los Angeles.) A FOREIGN CONCEPT After 31 years serving in the federal government in Washington, D.C., Nancy L. Card decided to relocate to Bernalillo. She began the process of obtaining health insurance that was offered by the government, and valid in New Mexico. She chose a company and e-mailed a few questions to the Hartford, Connecticut, headquarters. A few days later, Card received a reply from a gentleman in London, England. He informed her that he was redirecting her inquiries to the domestic desk, and was puzzled that he had been sent her e-mail since he worked at the company’s foreign desk. The Londoner knew New Mexico was in the United States, but apparently someone in Hartford didn’t. RING-TONE DEAF This past September, Millie Parker of Treasure Island, Florida, and a friend traveled to Albuquerque for Parker’s Highland High School class reunion. They toured some highlights within striking distance of Albuquerque: Puye Cliff Dwellings, Bandelier, Santa Fe, Acoma, Kasha- Katuwe, and many other sites. At Acoma, Parker’s friend showed her a message on her cell phone from Verizon: “You will be charged roaming charges if you continue using your phone out of the country.”","publish_start_moment":"2014-06-03T15:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.577Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f989","author_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1e2","title":"Ben-Hur vs. Billy the Kid","slug":"ben-hur-vs-billy-the-kid-86277","image_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4fc","publish_start":"2014-06-03T15:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58c83c8d1f16f9392cf09b83","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090cede1efff4c9916fa4c","59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"During a wild career in New Mexico, Territorial Governor Lew Wallace invented an epic hero and betrayed an infamous outlaw.","created":"2014-06-03T15:25:03.000Z","legacy_id":"86277","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"ben-hur vs. billy the kid","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.311Z","active":true,"description_raw":"

James Cameron’s effects-laden Titanic was 1997’s biggest box-office smash, sailing into the 70th Academy Awards with 14 nominations and expectations the size of icebergs. The film won all but three of those statues, and tied a record that had stood for 38 years; until Titanic, no other film could match Ben-Hur at the Oscars. And, while the 1959 film never shot a day in New Mexico, the story came to life on the Santa Fe Plaza. If General Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, came to the Territory of New Mexico in 1878 in search of a writer’s retreat, he came to the wrong place. Range wars ripped the territory into pieces. The U.S. Army struggled to suppress local Apaches while a consortium of corrupt businessmen dominated the region and almost all of its commercial interests.

\r\n\r\n

Wallace had survived worse. When he was a young general during the Civil War, he made his regiment late for the Battle of Shiloh, which the Union won despite enduring heavy losses of life. The mistake cost Wallace his command and damaged his reputation. The stigma stuck with Wallace even as he went on to sit on the tribunal for Lincoln’s assassination, and to a later career as a lawyer in his native Indiana.

\r\n\r\n

When the drama subsided, Wallace grew bored by his life in Indiana. His law practice and occasional forays into government failed to match his ambitions. Fortunately, Wallace had a big favor coming from President Rutherford B. Hayes. As thanks for helping Hayes in Indiana during the election, Hayes gave Wallace a choice between two positions: territorial governorship of New Mexico, or delegate to Bolivia. Wallace knew almost nothing about either place, but chose New Mexico. Maybe he thought it would resemble old Mexico. He had participated in the invasion of the country during the U.S.-Mexican War, and used the experience as the basis for his first novel.

\r\n\r\n

The move to New Mexico set the tone for Wallace’s tenure. It was a few years prior to the installation of the rail to Santa Fe, and he traveled by wagon from Trinidad, Colorado. The primitive suspension on the carriage did little to cushion the bumpy trail. “A deadlier instrument of torture was never used in the days of Torquemada,” he wrote in a letter to his wife, Susan, describing the journey.

\r\n\r\n

Conditions in the territory shocked him. The adobe of the ancient Palace of the Governors building had received relatively little upkeep prior to Wallace’s arrival, and the structure’s contents had been neglected, too. He and his wife, who had joined him, found a pile of rotting papers in the back of the old building and recognized their importance almost immediately; those papers would eventually become the Spanish Archives of New Mexico.

\r\n\r\n

Worse yet, Wallace received a very cold welcome from his predecessor. As territorial governor, Samuel B. Axtell used his position to better his business affairs, and consequently those of a loose cohort of like-minded entrepreneurs called the Santa Fe Ring. Its members ran an intricate vertical-control scheme in which they exercised political power to manipulate cattle, land, and retail operations in the territory. Members of the ring, including Axtell, were none too happy about Wallace’s inauguration.

\r\n\r\n

But the ring created its own troubles. A few of its associates, Lincoln County mercantilists named Murphy and Dolan, allowed their scheme to become national news. Their established storefront, The House, enjoyed a virtual monopoly on sales of goods and lucrative government beef contracts, until John Tunstall arrived in the area and created a rival enterprise. Tunstall hired a few ranch hands with special talents to protect him from the House. One of those young men, William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, went on to become the most famous soldier in the resulting Lincoln County War.

\r\n\r\n

The fighting between Tunstall’s group and the House captured the popular imagination, becoming fodder for newspapers and dime novels. But for the federal government, it was an embarrassment. More than a decade after the Civil War, it did not want to appear unable to control an unruly bunch of cowboys, much less the nearby “insurgent” Apaches. Wallace was assigned to cleanup duty. Reluctant to embroil himself with the powerful ring, Wallace responded with diplomacy. He issued a general pardon to everyone who had participated in the war, a blanket exoneration for a slew of rather violent individuals. Only those with preexisting infractions would not be excused; chief among them was Billy the Kid.

\r\n\r\n

The Kid wrote to Wallace in search of a pardon. “I have heard that you will give one thousand $ dollars which as I can understand it means alive as a Witness … but I have indictments against me for things that happened in the late Lincoln County War and am afraid to give up because my enemies would kill me.”

\r\n\r\n

Wallace responded, and so the strangest pair of pen pals in New Mexico history was born. The governor even convinced the Kid to help capture criminals. The two met secretly in Lincoln County and agreed that the Kid would testify against other local do-badders in exchange for exoneration. Afterwards, the Kid repeatedly wrote Wallace, begging for the pardon that Wallace promised him at that rendezvous. The pleas fell upon deaf ears. Wallace stopped responding to the letters and, on December 13, 1880, he issued a warrant for the Kid’s arrest— the same warrant that led Sheriff Pat Garrett to shoot Billy the Kid dead in Fort Sumner in 1881.

\r\n\r\n

Wallace had lost interest in the Kid long before his death. For the general, outlaws posed less of a threat to the territory than the Apaches. Victorio, a chief of the Chihenne band of the Chiricahua Apaches, and his fellow tribesmen in the southern part of New Mexico, proved increasingly difficult for the American Army to corral. Only after Victorio trapped himself between Mexican and American forces along the border did his impressive resilience come to an end. “Now that Victorio is dead, this Territory is peaceful,” Wallace said.

\r\n\r\n

Wallace had other troubles in the south. He invested in a series of mines near Silver City. “I have held the office [of governor] until I have accomplished what I wanted the acquirement of which I consider good mining property as there is in the territory,” he wrote to his son. But the mines proved unprofitable, depriving Wallace of what was perhaps his single greatest interest in New Mexico.

\r\n\r\n

The territory may have failed to provide for Wallace, but he had plans for making it on his own. Prior to arriving in New Mexico, Wallace had begun working on his second novel, which was inspired by a serendipitous meeting on a train with the nation’s most famous agnostic, Robert Ingersoll. Wallace’s conversation with Ingersoll motivated him to explore faith and the life of Christ in his new book, a grand and sweeping tale that began with the magi and ended with salvation through Christ. Much of it had been written before Wallace set foot in New Mexico, so he had only a few chapters to complete in the territory.

\r\n\r\n

On rare days, he would devote 12 full hours to writing. But the demands of the governorship often meant Wallace could only make time to write at night. The process was hectic. He paced around the Palace scribbling notes as he went, and pored over the many revisions and suggestions sent to him by his wife, who had returned to their home in Indiana. He wrote in a Plaza-facing room, or he’d hide. “Once there, at my rough pitch table, the Count of Monte Cristo was not more lost to the world,” he later wrote of one of his spots. Some reports insist that he would close the blinds to keep his exact location a secret from the revenge-minded Billy the Kid.

\r\n\r\n

Ben-Hur is a massive tome, and Wallace devoted a great deal of time to keeping the details straight. He finished the book in March of 1880. Not long after, he followed his manuscript to New York, where he met with Harper & Brothers, which published the novel despite wariness of its religious overtones. At first, the book did not sell particularly well. Within a few years, however, Ben- Hur would gain an audience.

\r\n\r\n

James Garfield, the incoming president, joined legions of readers who admired the book, but he had a singular reaction to the novel—he reassigned Wallace to the consulate of Turkey. What better post for the author of such a sweeping epic? Moreover, Wallace could use the time in Turkey to complete another novel.

\r\n\r\n

The new assignment also meant that Wallace could finally escape New Mexico. He would ultimately deliver this famous, biting verdict of the state: “Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.”

\r\n\r\n

Susan’s swing at the territory was even more vitriolic. She wrote, “We should have another war with Old Mexico to make her take back New Mexico.”

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The success of Ben-Hur swept away any lingering troubles Wallace might have retained from New Mexico. It would eventually become one of the best-selling novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries, attracting interest from stage producers in New York. Wallace rebuffed them until finally consenting to put the book on stage in 1889. The production of Ben-Hur raised the bar for staged effects. To re-create the integral chariot race, it used a sort of treadmill on which horses trotted. Unfortunately for the producers, the horses rarely went by the script, and the wrong charioteer would sometimes finish first.

\r\n\r\n

Wallace lived long enough to see his beloved novel become a success on stage, but not on the screen. In 1905, he died of stomach cancer at the age of 77 in his home in Crawsfordville, Indiana. As he lay in his study, hundreds of people came to pay their respects. A passage from Ben-Hur was inscribed on his headstone. Susan would soon finish and publish his autobiography, but his true legacy was about to gain an even wider audience.

\r\n\r\n

An infantile Hollywood took notice of the literary and theatrical spectacles, and rallied to put Ben-Hur on film in 1907. The producers neglected to compensate the Wallace family for use of Lew’s intellectual property, and the Wallace family took legal action. The case reached the Supreme Court, and eventually set precedent for copyright laws still in use. Fortunately for the Wallace family, the judges ruled in its favor. Ben-Hur still had profitable days ahead.

\r\n\r\n

Filmmakers attempted to board the chariot again in the early 1920s. It wasn’t just the horses that ran wild this time, though— the entire film went off track. It was scheduled to shoot in Italy, and production costs skyrocketed. Louis B. Mayer, then head of production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, pulled in the reins. He threw away much of the footage, brought the film back to California, and selected Ramon Navarro to be the film’s new lead.

\r\n\r\n

Mayer’s intuitions were validated as Ben-Hur brought in $9 million in ticket sales. It fit squarely into the golden age of silent films and, along with many other movies, propelled Hollywood through two decades of growth. But by the 1950s, a competitor threatened the silver screen—television. The major film studios wanted spectacular cinema that could not be replicated in living rooms. They turned, once again, to Lew Wallace. Not only did Ben-Hur promise action and scenery too large for the television screen, but the story offered a distinct fringe benefit— religious overtones. Hollywood took a beating in the 1950s at the hands of Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. The Communist-hunting tribunal blacklisted a number of filmmaking elites, and gave the entire industry a black eye. A successful adaptation of Wallace’s classic would shore up both MGM’s bottom line and public image.

\r\n\r\n

Two-time Academy Award winner William Wyler was hired to direct the film. Charlton Heston, a veteran of another biblical blockbuster, was brought on board to be the film’s star. Although he had a few reservations about the project, Heston wrote in his production journal, “The picture itself in Willie’s hands looks pretty staggering.” That was putting it mildly. It took more than a year to construct the film’s 300 sets, 1 million props, 18 chariots, and 20 ships. One hundred seamstresses were employed to sew the multitude of costumes, while 15,000 extras populated the stands during the chariot race. The investment of time and money provided a huge return. The film made $80 million at the box office, and the number of Oscars it received set a record that lasted for decades.

\r\n\r\n

The chariot ride, however, has yet to end. A straight-to-video miniseries of Ben-Hur was released in 2010. MGM now has plans for another version of the epic, to be helmed by the Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. This would be the first big-screen version of the film to include computer-generated imagery. Bekmambetov has a reputation for stunning visuals like those that appear in his latest efforts, Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This new take on Ben-Hur focuses on Judah Ben-Hur and his Roman friend and betrayer, Messala. John Ridley, who wrote the Academy Award–winning adaptation of 12 Years a Slave, authored the most recent screenplay. The extremely successful novel that was partially written in New Mexico will reach a whole new generation.

\r\n\r\n

But while Judah Ben-Hur may reappear on screen from time to time, he has yet to achieve the same legendary status as Wallace’s one-time collaborator, Billy the Kid. The gunslinger, cut down in his early 20s, is the most famous of Wild West outlaws and has been the focus of dozens of films, including Young Guns, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, and The Left Handed Gun. In a case of irony an author might best appreciate, Wallace may ultimately be most remembered as the man who betrayed Billy the Kid, and not as a Civil War general, territorial governor, or best-selling author. ✜

\r\n\r\n

Jason Strykowski wrote about Taos-based mountaineer Dave Hahn in the May issue.

","teaser_raw":"

James Cameron’s effects-laden Titanic was 1997’s biggest box-office smash, sailing into the 70th Academy Awards with 14 nominations and expectations the size of icebergs. The film won all but three of

","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725ef5","author":{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1e2","name":"Jason Strykowski | illustrations by Polly Becker","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.319Z","blog":"magazine","_name_sort":"jason strykowski | illustrations by polly becker","updated":"2017-03-20T14:49:35.727Z","_totalPosts":1,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1e2","title":"Jason Strykowski | illustrations by Polly Becker","slug":"jason-strykowski-%7c-illustrations-by-polly-becker","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/jason-strykowski-%7c-illustrations-by-polly-becker/58b4b2404c2774661570f1e2/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/jason-strykowski-%7c-illustrations-by-polly-becker/58b4b2404c2774661570f1e2/#comments","totalPosts":1},"categories":[{"_id":"58c83c8d1f16f9392cf09b83","title":"Heart of NM","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"heart of nm","updated":"2017-03-14T18:55:09.485Z","created":"2017-03-14T18:55:09.486Z","_totalPosts":31,"id":"58c83c8d1f16f9392cf09b83","slug":"heart-of-nm","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/heart-of-nm/58c83c8d1f16f9392cf09b83/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/heart-of-nm/58c83c8d1f16f9392cf09b83/#comments","totalPosts":31},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"image":{"_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4fc","legacy_id":"86291","title":"main-wallace -kid","created":"2014-06-04T11:37:40.000Z","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:08.994Z","credits":"Henry Lopez","content_owner":"magazine","tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"title_sort":"main-wallace -kid","resource_raw":{"public_id":"clients/newmexico/main_wallace_kid_b59c235f-8431-433f-a8f8-fb9bc7543c7b","version":1488237129,"signature":"0ead7d49dfce8ca4271ec886e230a7a6fa735f03","width":490,"height":544,"format":"jpg","resource_type":"image","created_at":"2017-02-27T23:12:09.000Z","bytes":82187,"type":"upload","etag":"4192d079de52e151ddbdd7eab672b3e2","url":"http://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1488237129/clients/newmexico/main_wallace_kid_b59c235f-8431-433f-a8f8-fb9bc7543c7b.jpg","secure_url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1488237129/clients/newmexico/main_wallace_kid_b59c235f-8431-433f-a8f8-fb9bc7543c7b.jpg","original_filename":"main-wallace-kid"},"deleted":false,"id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4fc","type":"image","resource":{"raw":{"resource_type":"image","format":"jpg","public_id":"clients/newmexico/main_wallace_kid_b59c235f-8431-433f-a8f8-fb9bc7543c7b"}},"inAssetRequest":false,"alt_text":"main-wallace -kid"},"teaser":"

James Cameron’s effects-laden Titanic was 1997’s biggest box-office smash, sailing into the 70th Academy Awards with 14 nominations and expectations the size of icebergs. The film won all but three of

","description":"James Cameron’s effects-laden Titanic was 1997’s biggest box-office smash, sailing into the 70th Academy Awards with 14 nominations and expectations the size of icebergs. The film won all but three of those statues, and tied a record that had stood for 38 years; until Titanic, no other film could match Ben-Hur at the Oscars. And, while the 1959 film never shot a day in New Mexico, the story came to life on the Santa Fe Plaza. If General Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ , came to the Territory of New Mexico in 1878 in search of a writer’s retreat, he came to the wrong place. Range wars ripped the territory into pieces. The U.S. Army struggled to suppress local Apaches while a consortium of corrupt businessmen dominated the region and almost all of its commercial interests. Wallace had survived worse. When he was a young general during the Civil War, he made his regiment late for the Battle of Shiloh, which the Union won despite enduring heavy losses of life. The mistake cost Wallace his command and damaged his reputation. The stigma stuck with Wallace even as he went on to sit on the tribunal for Lincoln’s assassination, and to a later career as a lawyer in his native Indiana. When the drama subsided, Wallace grew bored by his life in Indiana. His law practice and occasional forays into government failed to match his ambitions. Fortunately, Wallace had a big favor coming from President Rutherford B. Hayes. As thanks for helping Hayes in Indiana during the election, Hayes gave Wallace a choice between two positions: territorial governorship of New Mexico, or delegate to Bolivia. Wallace knew almost nothing about either place, but chose New Mexico. Maybe he thought it would resemble old Mexico. He had participated in the invasion of the country during the U.S.-Mexican War, and used the experience as the basis for his first novel. The move to New Mexico set the tone for Wallace’s tenure. It was a few years prior to the installation of the rail to Santa Fe, and he traveled by wagon from Trinidad, Colorado. The primitive suspension on the carriage did little to cushion the bumpy trail. “A deadlier instrument of torture was never used in the days of Torquemada,” he wrote in a letter to his wife, Susan, describing the journey. Conditions in the territory shocked him. The adobe of the ancient Palace of the Governors building had received relatively little upkeep prior to Wallace’s arrival, and the structure’s contents had been neglected, too. He and his wife, who had joined him, found a pile of rotting papers in the back of the old building and recognized their importance almost immediately; those papers would eventually become the Spanish Archives of New Mexico. Worse yet, Wallace received a very cold welcome from his predecessor. As territorial governor, Samuel B. Axtell used his position to better his business affairs, and consequently those of a loose cohort of like-minded entrepreneurs called the Santa Fe Ring. Its members ran an intricate vertical-control scheme in which they exercised political power to manipulate cattle, land, and retail operations in the territory. Members of the ring, including Axtell, were none too happy about Wallace’s inauguration. But the ring created its own troubles. A few of its associates, Lincoln County mercantilists named Murphy and Dolan, allowed their scheme to become national news. Their established storefront, The House, enjoyed a virtual monopoly on sales of goods and lucrative government beef contracts, until John Tunstall arrived in the area and created a rival enterprise. Tunstall hired a few ranch hands with special talents to protect him from the House. One of those young men, William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, went on to become the most famous soldier in the resulting Lincoln County War. The fighting between Tunstall’s group and the House captured the popular imagination, becoming fodder for newspapers and dime novels. But for the federal government, it was an embarrassment. More than a decade after the Civil War, it did not want to appear unable to control an unruly bunch of cowboys, much less the nearby “insurgent” Apaches. Wallace was assigned to cleanup duty. Reluctant to embroil himself with the powerful ring, Wallace responded with diplomacy. He issued a general pardon to everyone who had participated in the war, a blanket exoneration for a slew of rather violent individuals. Only those with preexisting infractions would not be excused; chief among them was Billy the Kid. The Kid wrote to Wallace in search of a pardon. “I have heard that you will give one thousand $ dollars which as I can understand it means alive as a Witness … but I have indictments against me for things that happened in the late Lincoln County War and am afraid to give up because my enemies would kill me.” Wallace responded, and so the strangest pair of pen pals in New Mexico history was born. The governor even convinced the Kid to help capture criminals. The two met secretly in Lincoln County and agreed that the Kid would testify against other local do-badders in exchange for exoneration. Afterwards, the Kid repeatedly wrote Wallace, begging for the pardon that Wallace promised him at that rendezvous. The pleas fell upon deaf ears. Wallace stopped responding to the letters and, on December 13, 1880, he issued a warrant for the Kid’s arrest— the same warrant that led Sheriff Pat Garrett to shoot Billy the Kid dead in Fort Sumner in 1881. Wallace had lost interest in the Kid long before his death. For the general, outlaws posed less of a threat to the territory than the Apaches. Victorio, a chief of the Chihenne band of the Chiricahua Apaches, and his fellow tribesmen in the southern part of New Mexico, proved increasingly difficult for the American Army to corral. Only after Victorio trapped himself between Mexican and American forces along the border did his impressive resilience come to an end. “Now that Victorio is dead, this Territory is peaceful,” Wallace said. Wallace had other troubles in the south. He invested in a series of mines near Silver City. “I have held the office [of governor] until I have accomplished what I wanted the acquirement of which I consider good mining property as there is in the territory,” he wrote to his son. But the mines proved unprofitable, depriving Wallace of what was perhaps his single greatest interest in New Mexico. The territory may have failed to provide for Wallace, but he had plans for making it on his own. Prior to arriving in New Mexico, Wallace had begun working on his second novel, which was inspired by a serendipitous meeting on a train with the nation’s most famous agnostic, Robert Ingersoll. Wallace’s conversation with Ingersoll motivated him to explore faith and the life of Christ in his new book, a grand and sweeping tale that began with the magi and ended with salvation through Christ. Much of it had been written before Wallace set foot in New Mexico, so he had only a few chapters to complete in the territory. On rare days, he would devote 12 full hours to writing. But the demands of the governorship often meant Wallace could only make time to write at night. The process was hectic. He paced around the Palace scribbling notes as he went, and pored over the many revisions and suggestions sent to him by his wife, who had returned to their home in Indiana. He wrote in a Plaza-facing room, or he’d hide. “Once there, at my rough pitch table, the Count of Monte Cristo was not more lost to the world,” he later wrote of one of his spots. Some reports insist that he would close the blinds to keep his exact location a secret from the revenge-minded Billy the Kid. Ben-Hur is a massive tome, and Wallace devoted a great deal of time to keeping the details straight. He finished the book in March of 1880. Not long after, he followed his manuscript to New York, where he met with Harper & Brothers, which published the novel despite wariness of its religious overtones. At first, the book did not sell particularly well. Within a few years, however, Ben- Hur would gain an audience. James Garfield, the incoming president, joined legions of readers who admired the book, but he had a singular reaction to the novel—he reassigned Wallace to the consulate of Turkey. What better post for the author of such a sweeping epic? Moreover, Wallace could use the time in Turkey to complete another novel. The new assignment also meant that Wallace could finally escape New Mexico. He would ultimately deliver this famous, biting verdict of the state: “Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.” Susan’s swing at the territory was even more vitriolic. She wrote, “We should have another war with Old Mexico to make her take back New Mexico.” The success of Ben-Hur swept away any lingering troubles Wallace might have retained from New Mexico. It would eventually become one of the best-selling novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries, attracting interest from stage producers in New York. Wallace rebuffed them until finally consenting to put the book on stage in 1889. The production of Ben-Hur raised the bar for staged effects. To re-create the integral chariot race, it used a sort of treadmill on which horses trotted. Unfortunately for the producers, the horses rarely went by the script, and the wrong charioteer would sometimes finish first. Wallace lived long enough to see his beloved novel become a success on stage, but not on the screen. In 1905, he died of stomach cancer at the age of 77 in his home in Crawsfordville, Indiana. As he lay in his study, hundreds of people came to pay their respects. A passage from Ben-Hur was inscribed on his headstone. Susan would soon finish and publish his autobiography, but his true legacy was about to gain an even wider audience. An infantile Hollywood took notice of the literary and theatrical spectacles, and rallied to put Ben-Hur on film in 1907. The producers neglected to compensate the Wallace family for use of Lew’s intellectual property, and the Wallace family took legal action. The case reached the Supreme Court, and eventually set precedent for copyright laws still in use. Fortunately for the Wallace family, the judges ruled in its favor. Ben-Hur still had profitable days ahead. Filmmakers attempted to board the chariot again in the early 1920s. It wasn’t just the horses that ran wild this time, though— the entire film went off track. It was scheduled to shoot in Italy, and production costs skyrocketed. Louis B. Mayer, then head of production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, pulled in the reins. He threw away much of the footage, brought the film back to California, and selected Ramon Navarro to be the film’s new lead. Mayer’s intuitions were validated as Ben-Hur brought in $9 million in ticket sales. It fit squarely into the golden age of silent films and, along with many other movies, propelled Hollywood through two decades of growth. But by the 1950s, a competitor threatened the silver screen—television. The major film studios wanted spectacular cinema that could not be replicated in living rooms. They turned, once again, to Lew Wallace. Not only did Ben-Hur promise action and scenery too large for the television screen, but the story offered a distinct fringe benefit— religious overtones. Hollywood took a beating in the 1950s at the hands of Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. The Communist-hunting tribunal blacklisted a number of filmmaking elites, and gave the entire industry a black eye. A successful adaptation of Wallace’s classic would shore up both MGM’s bottom line and public image. Two-time Academy Award winner William Wyler was hired to direct the film. Charlton Heston, a veteran of another biblical blockbuster, was brought on board to be the film’s star. Although he had a few reservations about the project, Heston wrote in his production journal, “The picture itself in Willie’s hands looks pretty staggering.” That was putting it mildly. It took more than a year to construct the film’s 300 sets, 1 million props, 18 chariots, and 20 ships. One hundred seamstresses were employed to sew the multitude of costumes, while 15,000 extras populated the stands during the chariot race. The investment of time and money provided a huge return. The film made $80 million at the box office, and the number of Oscars it received set a record that lasted for decades. The chariot ride, however, has yet to end. A straight-to-video miniseries of Ben-Hur was released in 2010. MGM now has plans for another version of the epic, to be helmed by the Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. This would be the first big-screen version of the film to include computer-generated imagery. Bekmambetov has a reputation for stunning visuals like those that appear in his latest efforts, Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This new take on Ben-Hur focuses on Judah Ben-Hur and his Roman friend and betrayer, Messala. John Ridley, who wrote the Academy Award–winning adaptation of 12 Years a Slave , authored the most recent screenplay. The extremely successful novel that was partially written in New Mexico will reach a whole new generation. But while Judah Ben-Hur may reappear on screen from time to time, he has yet to achieve the same legendary status as Wallace’s one-time collaborator, Billy the Kid. The gunslinger, cut down in his early 20s, is the most famous of Wild West outlaws and has been the focus of dozens of films, including Young Guns , Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid , and The Left Handed Gun . In a case of irony an author might best appreciate, Wallace may ultimately be most remembered as the man who betrayed Billy the Kid, and not as a Civil War general, territorial governor, or best-selling author. ✜ Jason Strykowski wrote about Taos-based mountaineer Dave Hahn in the May issue.","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f989","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/ben-hur-vs-billy-the-kid-86277/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/ben-hur-vs-billy-the-kid-86277/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/ben-hur-vs-billy-the-kid-86277/","metaTitle":"Ben-Hur vs. Billy the Kid","metaDescription":"

James Cameron’s effects-laden Titanic was 1997’s biggest box-office smash, sailing into the 70th Academy Awards with 14 nominations and expectations the size of icebergs. The film won all but three of

","cleanDescription":"James Cameron’s effects-laden Titanic was 1997’s biggest box-office smash, sailing into the 70th Academy Awards with 14 nominations and expectations the size of icebergs. The film won all but three of those statues, and tied a record that had stood for 38 years; until Titanic, no other film could match Ben-Hur at the Oscars. And, while the 1959 film never shot a day in New Mexico, the story came to life on the Santa Fe Plaza. If General Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ , came to the Territory of New Mexico in 1878 in search of a writer’s retreat, he came to the wrong place. Range wars ripped the territory into pieces. The U.S. Army struggled to suppress local Apaches while a consortium of corrupt businessmen dominated the region and almost all of its commercial interests. Wallace had survived worse. When he was a young general during the Civil War, he made his regiment late for the Battle of Shiloh, which the Union won despite enduring heavy losses of life. The mistake cost Wallace his command and damaged his reputation. The stigma stuck with Wallace even as he went on to sit on the tribunal for Lincoln’s assassination, and to a later career as a lawyer in his native Indiana. When the drama subsided, Wallace grew bored by his life in Indiana. His law practice and occasional forays into government failed to match his ambitions. Fortunately, Wallace had a big favor coming from President Rutherford B. Hayes. As thanks for helping Hayes in Indiana during the election, Hayes gave Wallace a choice between two positions: territorial governorship of New Mexico, or delegate to Bolivia. Wallace knew almost nothing about either place, but chose New Mexico. Maybe he thought it would resemble old Mexico. He had participated in the invasion of the country during the U.S.-Mexican War, and used the experience as the basis for his first novel. The move to New Mexico set the tone for Wallace’s tenure. It was a few years prior to the installation of the rail to Santa Fe, and he traveled by wagon from Trinidad, Colorado. The primitive suspension on the carriage did little to cushion the bumpy trail. “A deadlier instrument of torture was never used in the days of Torquemada,” he wrote in a letter to his wife, Susan, describing the journey. Conditions in the territory shocked him. The adobe of the ancient Palace of the Governors building had received relatively little upkeep prior to Wallace’s arrival, and the structure’s contents had been neglected, too. He and his wife, who had joined him, found a pile of rotting papers in the back of the old building and recognized their importance almost immediately; those papers would eventually become the Spanish Archives of New Mexico. Worse yet, Wallace received a very cold welcome from his predecessor. As territorial governor, Samuel B. Axtell used his position to better his business affairs, and consequently those of a loose cohort of like-minded entrepreneurs called the Santa Fe Ring. Its members ran an intricate vertical-control scheme in which they exercised political power to manipulate cattle, land, and retail operations in the territory. Members of the ring, including Axtell, were none too happy about Wallace’s inauguration. But the ring created its own troubles. A few of its associates, Lincoln County mercantilists named Murphy and Dolan, allowed their scheme to become national news. Their established storefront, The House, enjoyed a virtual monopoly on sales of goods and lucrative government beef contracts, until John Tunstall arrived in the area and created a rival enterprise. Tunstall hired a few ranch hands with special talents to protect him from the House. One of those young men, William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, went on to become the most famous soldier in the resulting Lincoln County War. The fighting between Tunstall’s group and the House captured the popular imagination, becoming fodder for newspapers and dime novels. But for the federal government, it was an embarrassment. More than a decade after the Civil War, it did not want to appear unable to control an unruly bunch of cowboys, much less the nearby “insurgent” Apaches. Wallace was assigned to cleanup duty. Reluctant to embroil himself with the powerful ring, Wallace responded with diplomacy. He issued a general pardon to everyone who had participated in the war, a blanket exoneration for a slew of rather violent individuals. Only those with preexisting infractions would not be excused; chief among them was Billy the Kid. The Kid wrote to Wallace in search of a pardon. “I have heard that you will give one thousand $ dollars which as I can understand it means alive as a Witness … but I have indictments against me for things that happened in the late Lincoln County War and am afraid to give up because my enemies would kill me.” Wallace responded, and so the strangest pair of pen pals in New Mexico history was born. The governor even convinced the Kid to help capture criminals. The two met secretly in Lincoln County and agreed that the Kid would testify against other local do-badders in exchange for exoneration. Afterwards, the Kid repeatedly wrote Wallace, begging for the pardon that Wallace promised him at that rendezvous. The pleas fell upon deaf ears. Wallace stopped responding to the letters and, on December 13, 1880, he issued a warrant for the Kid’s arrest— the same warrant that led Sheriff Pat Garrett to shoot Billy the Kid dead in Fort Sumner in 1881. Wallace had lost interest in the Kid long before his death. For the general, outlaws posed less of a threat to the territory than the Apaches. Victorio, a chief of the Chihenne band of the Chiricahua Apaches, and his fellow tribesmen in the southern part of New Mexico, proved increasingly difficult for the American Army to corral. Only after Victorio trapped himself between Mexican and American forces along the border did his impressive resilience come to an end. “Now that Victorio is dead, this Territory is peaceful,” Wallace said. Wallace had other troubles in the south. He invested in a series of mines near Silver City. “I have held the office [of governor] until I have accomplished what I wanted the acquirement of which I consider good mining property as there is in the territory,” he wrote to his son. But the mines proved unprofitable, depriving Wallace of what was perhaps his single greatest interest in New Mexico. The territory may have failed to provide for Wallace, but he had plans for making it on his own. Prior to arriving in New Mexico, Wallace had begun working on his second novel, which was inspired by a serendipitous meeting on a train with the nation’s most famous agnostic, Robert Ingersoll. Wallace’s conversation with Ingersoll motivated him to explore faith and the life of Christ in his new book, a grand and sweeping tale that began with the magi and ended with salvation through Christ. Much of it had been written before Wallace set foot in New Mexico, so he had only a few chapters to complete in the territory. On rare days, he would devote 12 full hours to writing. But the demands of the governorship often meant Wallace could only make time to write at night. The process was hectic. He paced around the Palace scribbling notes as he went, and pored over the many revisions and suggestions sent to him by his wife, who had returned to their home in Indiana. He wrote in a Plaza-facing room, or he’d hide. “Once there, at my rough pitch table, the Count of Monte Cristo was not more lost to the world,” he later wrote of one of his spots. Some reports insist that he would close the blinds to keep his exact location a secret from the revenge-minded Billy the Kid. Ben-Hur is a massive tome, and Wallace devoted a great deal of time to keeping the details straight. He finished the book in March of 1880. Not long after, he followed his manuscript to New York, where he met with Harper & Brothers, which published the novel despite wariness of its religious overtones. At first, the book did not sell particularly well. Within a few years, however, Ben- Hur would gain an audience. James Garfield, the incoming president, joined legions of readers who admired the book, but he had a singular reaction to the novel—he reassigned Wallace to the consulate of Turkey. What better post for the author of such a sweeping epic? Moreover, Wallace could use the time in Turkey to complete another novel. The new assignment also meant that Wallace could finally escape New Mexico. He would ultimately deliver this famous, biting verdict of the state: “Every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico.” Susan’s swing at the territory was even more vitriolic. She wrote, “We should have another war with Old Mexico to make her take back New Mexico.” The success of Ben-Hur swept away any lingering troubles Wallace might have retained from New Mexico. It would eventually become one of the best-selling novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries, attracting interest from stage producers in New York. Wallace rebuffed them until finally consenting to put the book on stage in 1889. The production of Ben-Hur raised the bar for staged effects. To re-create the integral chariot race, it used a sort of treadmill on which horses trotted. Unfortunately for the producers, the horses rarely went by the script, and the wrong charioteer would sometimes finish first. Wallace lived long enough to see his beloved novel become a success on stage, but not on the screen. In 1905, he died of stomach cancer at the age of 77 in his home in Crawsfordville, Indiana. As he lay in his study, hundreds of people came to pay their respects. A passage from Ben-Hur was inscribed on his headstone. Susan would soon finish and publish his autobiography, but his true legacy was about to gain an even wider audience. An infantile Hollywood took notice of the literary and theatrical spectacles, and rallied to put Ben-Hur on film in 1907. The producers neglected to compensate the Wallace family for use of Lew’s intellectual property, and the Wallace family took legal action. The case reached the Supreme Court, and eventually set precedent for copyright laws still in use. Fortunately for the Wallace family, the judges ruled in its favor. Ben-Hur still had profitable days ahead. Filmmakers attempted to board the chariot again in the early 1920s. It wasn’t just the horses that ran wild this time, though— the entire film went off track. It was scheduled to shoot in Italy, and production costs skyrocketed. Louis B. Mayer, then head of production for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, pulled in the reins. He threw away much of the footage, brought the film back to California, and selected Ramon Navarro to be the film’s new lead. Mayer’s intuitions were validated as Ben-Hur brought in $9 million in ticket sales. It fit squarely into the golden age of silent films and, along with many other movies, propelled Hollywood through two decades of growth. But by the 1950s, a competitor threatened the silver screen—television. The major film studios wanted spectacular cinema that could not be replicated in living rooms. They turned, once again, to Lew Wallace. Not only did Ben-Hur promise action and scenery too large for the television screen, but the story offered a distinct fringe benefit— religious overtones. Hollywood took a beating in the 1950s at the hands of Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. The Communist-hunting tribunal blacklisted a number of filmmaking elites, and gave the entire industry a black eye. A successful adaptation of Wallace’s classic would shore up both MGM’s bottom line and public image. Two-time Academy Award winner William Wyler was hired to direct the film. Charlton Heston, a veteran of another biblical blockbuster, was brought on board to be the film’s star. Although he had a few reservations about the project, Heston wrote in his production journal, “The picture itself in Willie’s hands looks pretty staggering.” That was putting it mildly. It took more than a year to construct the film’s 300 sets, 1 million props, 18 chariots, and 20 ships. One hundred seamstresses were employed to sew the multitude of costumes, while 15,000 extras populated the stands during the chariot race. The investment of time and money provided a huge return. The film made $80 million at the box office, and the number of Oscars it received set a record that lasted for decades. The chariot ride, however, has yet to end. A straight-to-video miniseries of Ben-Hur was released in 2010. MGM now has plans for another version of the epic, to be helmed by the Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. This would be the first big-screen version of the film to include computer-generated imagery. Bekmambetov has a reputation for stunning visuals like those that appear in his latest efforts, Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. This new take on Ben-Hur focuses on Judah Ben-Hur and his Roman friend and betrayer, Messala. John Ridley, who wrote the Academy Award–winning adaptation of 12 Years a Slave , authored the most recent screenplay. The extremely successful novel that was partially written in New Mexico will reach a whole new generation. But while Judah Ben-Hur may reappear on screen from time to time, he has yet to achieve the same legendary status as Wallace’s one-time collaborator, Billy the Kid. The gunslinger, cut down in his early 20s, is the most famous of Wild West outlaws and has been the focus of dozens of films, including Young Guns , Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid , and The Left Handed Gun . In a case of irony an author might best appreciate, Wallace may ultimately be most remembered as the man who betrayed Billy the Kid, and not as a Civil War general, territorial governor, or best-selling author. ✜ Jason Strykowski wrote about Taos-based mountaineer Dave Hahn in the May issue.","publish_start_moment":"2014-06-03T15:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.578Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f987","author_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f187","title":"Latitude Adjustment","slug":"chama-road-trip-86073","meta_title":"Chama: New Mexico's secret high-altitude river-land","meta_description":"The Chama river roars through this quaint and serene town, a lush escape from the lower New Mexican desert.","open_graph_title":"Chama: New Mexico's secret high-altitude river-land","open_graph_description":"The Chama river roars through this quaint and serene town, a lush escape from the lower New Mexican desert.","publish_start":"2014-05-27T11:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58c834b11f16f9392cf0992a","58b4b2404c2774661570f2b4","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090ca9e1efff4c9916fa20"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"Beloved for its scenic narrow-gauge railway, Chama makes for an idyllic, high-altitude summer-weekend retreat.","created":"2014-05-27T11:44:05.000Z","legacy_id":"86073","version_id":"5b60a7c325bdbb3371bc37ef","description_raw":"

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IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF EXPLAINING New Mexico’s tremendous geographical diversity to a skeptical outsider who imagines the state as one vast, cactus-studded desert landscape straight out of a Road Runner cartoon, recommend a trip to Chama. This friendly little railroad hub lies at an elevation of 7,800 feet, in a high valley surrounded by wildflower meadows and craggy mountains forested with aspen and ponderosa-pine groves. Less than 10 miles from the Colorado state line, Chama offers visitors a cool taste of Rocky Mountain ruggedness.

\r\n\r\n

The town is home to the nation’s highest scenic narrow-gauge steam railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec. From late May through mid-October, the railroad offers daily excursions north through the Chama Valley, and up over the 10,022-foot Cumbres Pass. It’s the region’s most well-known attraction, a hit with kids and adults. But even if a scenic rail excursion isn’t the path to your heart, picturesque Chama has a pleasing mix of relaxing diversions, including the opportunity to read a book beside—or cast a line into—the roaring mountain river for which the town is named.

\r\n\r\n

WHERE TO STAY
\r\nChama has a handful of lodging options; a couple of the best are in the village heart, steps from the Cumbres & Toltec railroad depot. The Parlor Car B&B occupies a striking Victorian with a steep hipped roof, period antiques, and three guest rooms named for railroad luminaries of the Old West—William J. Palmer, Fred Harvey, and George Pullman. Just up the street is Chama Station Inn, a 1926 adobe that contains nine cheerfully furnished, reasonably priced rooms that open to a sunny, fragrant garden.

\r\n\r\n

A little off the beaten path, Corkins Lodge can rightly claim one of the most dramatic and enticing settings of any accommodation in the state. It’s surrounded by acres of lush wilderness at the end of N.M. 512 (a 30-minute drive from Chama proper), beneath a wall of 2,500-foot cliffs in the densely forested Brazos Mountains. Guests can choose from among 11 rustic but warmly outfitted cabins, some dating to the 1930s and others built more recently. Most sleep four to six guests, making them ideal for families and friends traveling together. On-site activities include trout fishing, hiking, and swimming in a heated pool.

\r\n\r\n

FRIDAY
\r\nYou can reach Chama most easily via U.S. 285/84. From Albuquerque, take I-25 to Santa Fe, and pick up U.S. 285/84 at exit 282. The route jogs north-northwest, passing through the cottonwood-laced Española Valley, and up through the brilliant red-rock canyons of Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. From Santa Fe, it’s a two-hour drive without stops. However, you could easily break up the trip with a light lunch at Bode’s General Store in Abiquiú (try the red-chile cheese fries) or a hike at Ghost Ranch Retreat Center, amid the very buttes and mesas that Georgia O’Keeffe captured on canvas. Try to arrive in Chama no later than 7 p.m., as restaurants in these parts close early. A good bet for a tasty dinner your first evening is the bustling Boxcar Café, set in a historic building known for its green-chile enchiladas and green-chile cheeseburgers.

\r\n\r\n

SATURDAY
\r\nIt may sound a little counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to “see” Chama is to leave Chama. The town’s most famous tourist draw is the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad, whose formidable steam locomotives chug for some 64 miles along a serpentine track through the San Juan Mountains. If you have kids in tow, opt for
\r\nthe playful Cinder Bear Experience, a two-hour ride led by a costumed, ursine conductor that includes storytelling, sing-alongs, and games. The classic all-ages rides last as much as a full day and include lunch. Fun theme trains are scheduled
\r\nthroughout the summer, including weekly sunset dinner rides and a Moonlight & Wine Tasting train on July 12.

\r\n\r\n

Before or after riding the rails, spend some time exploring the short but animated stretch of Terrace Avenue lined with souvenir shops and galleries, many of them installed inside erstwhile brothels and saloons that date to the town’s late-19th-century commercial railroad heyday. The town and surrounding valley is also a mecca for outdoor recreation. The Chama Valley Chamber of Commerce can direct you to several local outfitters that offer hunting- and fishing-guide services. If you have your own gear, consider casting a rod in the Río Chama or in the reservoirs at nearby Heron Lake State Park (20 miles southwest) and El Vado Lake State Park (a few miles southwest of Heron Lake), both of which are rife with trout and kokanee salmon.

\r\n\r\n

Arguably Chama’s most celebrated eatery, the timber-faced High Country Restaurant and Saloon is an atmospheric dinner option. The menu focuses on stick-to-your-ribs Southwestern and Western classics like 20-ounce porterhouse steaks, pan-fried cornmeal-crusted trout, and carne adovada. The walls of the dining room are hung with works by Chama artists.

\r\n\r\n

SUNDAY
\r\nFor a quick breakfast, try Fina’s Diner, an endearingly modest family-operated spot festooned with vintage Coca-Cola signs and photos of local high-school sports teams. It’s a good bet for biscuits and gravy, and eggs with chicken-fried steak. Also keep in mind that High Country Restaurant serves a popular breakfast buffet on Sunday mornings, featuring made-to-order omelets and waffles.

\r\n\r\n

Some of the Chama Valley’s most interesting sites lie south of town, including the tiny village of Los Ojos, reached by taking N.M. 514, just off U.S. 84 about 10 miles south of Chama. Around the corner from the village’s handsomely restored San Jose Church, which boasts a corrugated metal roof and adobe belfry, you’ll find the renowned weaving collective Tierra Wools, whose talented artisans produce stunningly handcrafted rugs, blankets, felted hats, and other textiles. In a room off the gallery showroom, you can sometimes watch weavers skirting and scouring the wool from Churro sheep raised at nearby Shepherd’s Lamb ranch. Or you might catch a peek of them dyeing the yarn in huge pots, and warping and weaving the colorful materials on intricate looms.

\r\n\r\n

From Los Ojos, it’s easy to make your way home, returning on U.S. 84. If you have some time to spare, you can cut east from Tierra Amarilla (just south of Los Ojos) on U.S. 64, which climbs dramatically over the Brazos Mountains for 50 miles to Tres Piedras, where you can pick up U.S. 285 south to Santa Fe (1½ hours). Or you can continue east from Tres Piedras on U.S. 64 another 32 miles to Taos. The drive from Chama to Santa Fe via Taos takes about 3½ to 4 hours without stops. ✜

\r\n\r\n

Andrew Collins has written about New Mexico for more than a dozen publications.

","teaser_raw":"

","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"latitude adjustment","updated":"2018-07-31T18:19:55.057Z","active":true,"author":{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f187","name":"Andrew Collins","image_id":"59139dd6da8f9b60115b37c5","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.226Z","blog":"magazine","_name_sort":"andrew collins","updated":"2017-05-10T23:10:20.308Z","image":{"_id":"59139dd6da8f9b60115b37c5","original_public_id":"clients/newmexico/AC_BW_e8f801c1-2f30-4955-b5dd-d7b115268b85","title":"Andrew Collins","resource_raw":{"public_id":"clients/newmexico/AC_BW_e8f801c1-2f30-4955-b5dd-d7b115268b85","version":1494457812,"signature":"451c9c0b132a549712f3cbb2a93abc75c6df8065","width":2482,"height":2482,"format":"jpg","resource_type":"image","created_at":"2017-05-10T23:10:12.000Z","bytes":1055023,"type":"upload","etag":"8e5857dd66cfa4317fb2b4cbae5943e3","url":"http://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1494457812/clients/newmexico/AC_BW_e8f801c1-2f30-4955-b5dd-d7b115268b85.jpg","secure_url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1494457812/clients/newmexico/AC_BW_e8f801c1-2f30-4955-b5dd-d7b115268b85.jpg","exif":{"Copyright":"JURRIAAN TEULINGS"},"original_filename":"file"},"alt_text_raw":"Andrew Collins","content_owner":"magazine","title_sort":"andrew collins","updated":"2017-05-10T23:10:14.757Z","deleted":false,"created":"2017-05-10T23:10:14.763Z","id":"59139dd6da8f9b60115b37c5","type":"image","resource":{"raw":{"resource_type":"image","format":"jpg","public_id":"clients/newmexico/AC_BW_e8f801c1-2f30-4955-b5dd-d7b115268b85"}},"inAssetRequest":false,"alt_text":"Andrew Collins"},"_totalPosts":39,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f187","title":"Andrew Collins","slug":"andrew-collins","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/andrew-collins/58b4b2404c2774661570f187/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/andrew-collins/58b4b2404c2774661570f187/#comments","totalPosts":39},"categories":[{"_id":"58c834b11f16f9392cf0992a","title":"Travel","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"travel","updated":"2017-03-14T18:21:37.155Z","created":"2017-03-14T18:21:37.156Z","_totalPosts":256,"id":"58c834b11f16f9392cf0992a","slug":"travel","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/travel/58c834b11f16f9392cf0992a/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/travel/58c834b11f16f9392cf0992a/#comments","totalPosts":256},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2b4","blog":"magazine","title":"Going Places","_title_sort":"going places","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.493Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.506Z","_totalPosts":78,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2b4","slug":"going-places","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/going-places/58b4b2404c2774661570f2b4/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/going-places/58b4b2404c2774661570f2b4/#comments","totalPosts":78},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"tags":[{"_id":"59090ca9e1efff4c9916fa20","title":"Events","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"events","updated":"2017-05-02T22:48:09.170Z","created":"2017-05-02T22:48:09.171Z","_totalPosts":90,"id":"59090ca9e1efff4c9916fa20","slug":"events","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/events/59090ca9e1efff4c9916fa20/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/events/59090ca9e1efff4c9916fa20/#comments","totalPosts":90}],"teaser":"

","description":"Need To Know Bode’s General Store 21196 U.S. 84, Abiquiú; (505) 685-4422; bodes.com Boxcar Café 425 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-2706 Chama Station Inn 423 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-2315; chamastationinn.com Chama Valley Chamber of Commerce (800) 477-0149, (575) 756-2306; chamavalley.com Corkins Lodge 750 N.M. 512, Chama; (575) 588-7261; corkinslodge.com Cumbres & Toltec Railroad 500 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-2151; cumbrestoltec.com El Vado Lake State Park N.M. 112, Tierra Amarilla; (575) 588-7247; mynm.us/elvado Fina’s Diner 2298 N.M. 17, Chama; (575) 756-9195 Ghost Ranch Retreat Center 1708 U.S. 84, Abiquiú; (505) 685-4333; ghostranch.org Heron Lake State Park 640 N.M. 95, Los Ojos; (575) 588-7470; mynm.us/heronlake High Country Restaurant & Saloon 2289 N.M. 17, Chama; (575) 756-2384; thehighcountrychama.com Parlor Car B&B 311 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-1946; parlorcar.com San Jose Church 101 Main St., Los Ojos; (575) 588-7473 Tierra Wools 91 Main St., Los Ojos; (575) 588-7231; handweavers.com IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF EXPLAINING New Mexico’s tremendous geographical diversity to a skeptical outsider who imagines the state as one vast, cactus-studded desert landscape straight out of a Road Runner cartoon, recommend a trip to Chama. This friendly little railroad hub lies at an elevation of 7,800 feet, in a high valley surrounded by wildflower meadows and craggy mountains forested with aspen and ponderosa-pine groves. Less than 10 miles from the Colorado state line, Chama offers visitors a cool taste of Rocky Mountain ruggedness. The town is home to the nation’s highest scenic narrow-gauge steam railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec. From late May through mid-October, the railroad offers daily excursions north through the Chama Valley, and up over the 10,022-foot Cumbres Pass. It’s the region’s most well-known attraction, a hit with kids and adults. But even if a scenic rail excursion isn’t the path to your heart, picturesque Chama has a pleasing mix of relaxing diversions, including the opportunity to read a book beside—or cast a line into—the roaring mountain river for which the town is named. WHERE TO STAY Chama has a handful of lodging options; a couple of the best are in the village heart, steps from the Cumbres & Toltec railroad depot. The Parlor Car B&B occupies a striking Victorian with a steep hipped roof, period antiques, and three guest rooms named for railroad luminaries of the Old West—William J. Palmer, Fred Harvey, and George Pullman. Just up the street is Chama Station Inn, a 1926 adobe that contains nine cheerfully furnished, reasonably priced rooms that open to a sunny, fragrant garden. A little off the beaten path, Corkins Lodge can rightly claim one of the most dramatic and enticing settings of any accommodation in the state. It’s surrounded by acres of lush wilderness at the end of N.M. 512 (a 30-minute drive from Chama proper), beneath a wall of 2,500-foot cliffs in the densely forested Brazos Mountains. Guests can choose from among 11 rustic but warmly outfitted cabins, some dating to the 1930s and others built more recently. Most sleep four to six guests, making them ideal for families and friends traveling together. On-site activities include trout fishing, hiking, and swimming in a heated pool. FRIDAY You can reach Chama most easily via U.S. 285/84. From Albuquerque, take I-25 to Santa Fe, and pick up U.S. 285/84 at exit 282. The route jogs north-northwest, passing through the cottonwood-laced Española Valley, and up through the brilliant red-rock canyons of Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. From Santa Fe, it’s a two-hour drive without stops. However, you could easily break up the trip with a light lunch at Bode’s General Store in Abiquiú (try the red-chile cheese fries) or a hike at Ghost Ranch Retreat Center, amid the very buttes and mesas that Georgia O’Keeffe captured on canvas. Try to arrive in Chama no later than 7 p.m., as restaurants in these parts close early. A good bet for a tasty dinner your first evening is the bustling Boxcar Café, set in a historic building known for its green-chile enchiladas and green-chile cheeseburgers. SATURDAY It may sound a little counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to “see” Chama is to leave Chama. The town’s most famous tourist draw is the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad, whose formidable steam locomotives chug for some 64 miles along a serpentine track through the San Juan Mountains. If you have kids in tow, opt for the playful Cinder Bear Experience, a two-hour ride led by a costumed, ursine conductor that includes storytelling, sing-alongs, and games. The classic all-ages rides last as much as a full day and include lunch. Fun theme trains are scheduled throughout the summer, including weekly sunset dinner rides and a Moonlight & Wine Tasting train on July 12. Before or after riding the rails, spend some time exploring the short but animated stretch of Terrace Avenue lined with souvenir shops and galleries, many of them installed inside erstwhile brothels and saloons that date to the town’s late-19th-century commercial railroad heyday. The town and surrounding valley is also a mecca for outdoor recreation. The Chama Valley Chamber of Commerce can direct you to several local outfitters that offer hunting- and fishing-guide services. If you have your own gear, consider casting a rod in the Río Chama or in the reservoirs at nearby Heron Lake State Park (20 miles southwest) and El Vado Lake State Park (a few miles southwest of Heron Lake), both of which are rife with trout and kokanee salmon. Arguably Chama’s most celebrated eatery, the timber-faced High Country Restaurant and Saloon is an atmospheric dinner option. The menu focuses on stick-to-your-ribs Southwestern and Western classics like 20-ounce porterhouse steaks, pan-fried cornmeal-crusted trout, and carne adovada. The walls of the dining room are hung with works by Chama artists. SUNDAY For a quick breakfast, try Fina’s Diner, an endearingly modest family-operated spot festooned with vintage Coca-Cola signs and photos of local high-school sports teams. It’s a good bet for biscuits and gravy, and eggs with chicken-fried steak. Also keep in mind that High Country Restaurant serves a popular breakfast buffet on Sunday mornings, featuring made-to-order omelets and waffles. Some of the Chama Valley’s most interesting sites lie south of town, including the tiny village of Los Ojos, reached by taking N.M. 514, just off U.S. 84 about 10 miles south of Chama. Around the corner from the village’s handsomely restored San Jose Church, which boasts a corrugated metal roof and adobe belfry, you’ll find the renowned weaving collective Tierra Wools, whose talented artisans produce stunningly handcrafted rugs, blankets, felted hats, and other textiles. In a room off the gallery showroom, you can sometimes watch weavers skirting and scouring the wool from Churro sheep raised at nearby Shepherd’s Lamb ranch. Or you might catch a peek of them dyeing the yarn in huge pots, and warping and weaving the colorful materials on intricate looms. From Los Ojos, it’s easy to make your way home, returning on U.S. 84. If you have some time to spare, you can cut east from Tierra Amarilla (just south of Los Ojos) on U.S. 64, which climbs dramatically over the Brazos Mountains for 50 miles to Tres Piedras, where you can pick up U.S. 285 south to Santa Fe (1½ hours). Or you can continue east from Tres Piedras on U.S. 64 another 32 miles to Taos. The drive from Chama to Santa Fe via Taos takes about 3½ to 4 hours without stops. ✜ Andrew Collins has written about New Mexico for more than a dozen publications.","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f987","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/chama-road-trip-86073/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/chama-road-trip-86073/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/chama-road-trip-86073/","metaTitle":"Chama: New Mexico's secret high-altitude river-land","metaDescription":"The Chama river roars through this quaint and serene town, a lush escape from the lower New Mexican desert.","cleanDescription":"Need To Know Bode’s General Store 21196 U.S. 84, Abiquiú; (505) 685-4422; bodes.com Boxcar Café 425 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-2706 Chama Station Inn 423 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-2315; chamastationinn.com Chama Valley Chamber of Commerce (800) 477-0149, (575) 756-2306; chamavalley.com Corkins Lodge 750 N.M. 512, Chama; (575) 588-7261; corkinslodge.com Cumbres & Toltec Railroad 500 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-2151; cumbrestoltec.com El Vado Lake State Park N.M. 112, Tierra Amarilla; (575) 588-7247; mynm.us/elvado Fina’s Diner 2298 N.M. 17, Chama; (575) 756-9195 Ghost Ranch Retreat Center 1708 U.S. 84, Abiquiú; (505) 685-4333; ghostranch.org Heron Lake State Park 640 N.M. 95, Los Ojos; (575) 588-7470; mynm.us/heronlake High Country Restaurant & Saloon 2289 N.M. 17, Chama; (575) 756-2384; thehighcountrychama.com Parlor Car B&B 311 S. Terrace Ave., Chama; (575) 756-1946; parlorcar.com San Jose Church 101 Main St., Los Ojos; (575) 588-7473 Tierra Wools 91 Main St., Los Ojos; (575) 588-7231; handweavers.com IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF EXPLAINING New Mexico’s tremendous geographical diversity to a skeptical outsider who imagines the state as one vast, cactus-studded desert landscape straight out of a Road Runner cartoon, recommend a trip to Chama. This friendly little railroad hub lies at an elevation of 7,800 feet, in a high valley surrounded by wildflower meadows and craggy mountains forested with aspen and ponderosa-pine groves. Less than 10 miles from the Colorado state line, Chama offers visitors a cool taste of Rocky Mountain ruggedness. The town is home to the nation’s highest scenic narrow-gauge steam railroad, the Cumbres & Toltec. From late May through mid-October, the railroad offers daily excursions north through the Chama Valley, and up over the 10,022-foot Cumbres Pass. It’s the region’s most well-known attraction, a hit with kids and adults. But even if a scenic rail excursion isn’t the path to your heart, picturesque Chama has a pleasing mix of relaxing diversions, including the opportunity to read a book beside—or cast a line into—the roaring mountain river for which the town is named. WHERE TO STAY Chama has a handful of lodging options; a couple of the best are in the village heart, steps from the Cumbres & Toltec railroad depot. The Parlor Car B&B occupies a striking Victorian with a steep hipped roof, period antiques, and three guest rooms named for railroad luminaries of the Old West—William J. Palmer, Fred Harvey, and George Pullman. Just up the street is Chama Station Inn, a 1926 adobe that contains nine cheerfully furnished, reasonably priced rooms that open to a sunny, fragrant garden. A little off the beaten path, Corkins Lodge can rightly claim one of the most dramatic and enticing settings of any accommodation in the state. It’s surrounded by acres of lush wilderness at the end of N.M. 512 (a 30-minute drive from Chama proper), beneath a wall of 2,500-foot cliffs in the densely forested Brazos Mountains. Guests can choose from among 11 rustic but warmly outfitted cabins, some dating to the 1930s and others built more recently. Most sleep four to six guests, making them ideal for families and friends traveling together. On-site activities include trout fishing, hiking, and swimming in a heated pool. FRIDAY You can reach Chama most easily via U.S. 285/84. From Albuquerque, take I-25 to Santa Fe, and pick up U.S. 285/84 at exit 282. The route jogs north-northwest, passing through the cottonwood-laced Española Valley, and up through the brilliant red-rock canyons of Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch. From Santa Fe, it’s a two-hour drive without stops. However, you could easily break up the trip with a light lunch at Bode’s General Store in Abiquiú (try the red-chile cheese fries) or a hike at Ghost Ranch Retreat Center, amid the very buttes and mesas that Georgia O’Keeffe captured on canvas. Try to arrive in Chama no later than 7 p.m., as restaurants in these parts close early. A good bet for a tasty dinner your first evening is the bustling Boxcar Café, set in a historic building known for its green-chile enchiladas and green-chile cheeseburgers. SATURDAY It may sound a little counterintuitive, but one of the best ways to “see” Chama is to leave Chama. The town’s most famous tourist draw is the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad, whose formidable steam locomotives chug for some 64 miles along a serpentine track through the San Juan Mountains. If you have kids in tow, opt for the playful Cinder Bear Experience, a two-hour ride led by a costumed, ursine conductor that includes storytelling, sing-alongs, and games. The classic all-ages rides last as much as a full day and include lunch. Fun theme trains are scheduled throughout the summer, including weekly sunset dinner rides and a Moonlight & Wine Tasting train on July 12. Before or after riding the rails, spend some time exploring the short but animated stretch of Terrace Avenue lined with souvenir shops and galleries, many of them installed inside erstwhile brothels and saloons that date to the town’s late-19th-century commercial railroad heyday. The town and surrounding valley is also a mecca for outdoor recreation. The Chama Valley Chamber of Commerce can direct you to several local outfitters that offer hunting- and fishing-guide services. If you have your own gear, consider casting a rod in the Río Chama or in the reservoirs at nearby Heron Lake State Park (20 miles southwest) and El Vado Lake State Park (a few miles southwest of Heron Lake), both of which are rife with trout and kokanee salmon. Arguably Chama’s most celebrated eatery, the timber-faced High Country Restaurant and Saloon is an atmospheric dinner option. The menu focuses on stick-to-your-ribs Southwestern and Western classics like 20-ounce porterhouse steaks, pan-fried cornmeal-crusted trout, and carne adovada. The walls of the dining room are hung with works by Chama artists. SUNDAY For a quick breakfast, try Fina’s Diner, an endearingly modest family-operated spot festooned with vintage Coca-Cola signs and photos of local high-school sports teams. It’s a good bet for biscuits and gravy, and eggs with chicken-fried steak. Also keep in mind that High Country Restaurant serves a popular breakfast buffet on Sunday mornings, featuring made-to-order omelets and waffles. Some of the Chama Valley’s most interesting sites lie south of town, including the tiny village of Los Ojos, reached by taking N.M. 514, just off U.S. 84 about 10 miles south of Chama. Around the corner from the village’s handsomely restored San Jose Church, which boasts a corrugated metal roof and adobe belfry, you’ll find the renowned weaving collective Tierra Wools, whose talented artisans produce stunningly handcrafted rugs, blankets, felted hats, and other textiles. In a room off the gallery showroom, you can sometimes watch weavers skirting and scouring the wool from Churro sheep raised at nearby Shepherd’s Lamb ranch. Or you might catch a peek of them dyeing the yarn in huge pots, and warping and weaving the colorful materials on intricate looms. From Los Ojos, it’s easy to make your way home, returning on U.S. 84. If you have some time to spare, you can cut east from Tierra Amarilla (just south of Los Ojos) on U.S. 64, which climbs dramatically over the Brazos Mountains for 50 miles to Tres Piedras, where you can pick up U.S. 285 south to Santa Fe (1½ hours). Or you can continue east from Tres Piedras on U.S. 64 another 32 miles to Taos. The drive from Chama to Santa Fe via Taos takes about 3½ to 4 hours without stops. ✜ Andrew Collins has written about New Mexico for more than a dozen publications.","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-27T11:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.578Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f986","author_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f240","title":"Bandstand Rocks","slug":"summer-music-festivals-86070","image_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4ec","publish_start":"2014-05-27T11:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","58b4b2404c2774661570f2f5","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090c80e1efff4c9916fa05","59090d93e1efff4c9916fac9","59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"The Santa Fe Bandstand free summer concert series keeps getting bigger and stronger.","created":"2014-05-27T11:32:34.000Z","legacy_id":"86070","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"bandstand rocks","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.732Z","active":true,"description_raw":"\r\n\r\n

AS HUNDREDS of thousands of visitors well know, every summer Santa Fe Plaza becomes the epicenter of Southwestern culture, hosting landmark events like Spanish Market and Indian Market. When these star-studded affairs aren’t stealing the show, the Plaza presents what has become another big-time attraction, at least for locals: the Santa Fe Bandstand free concert series.

\r\n\r\n

Since its humble beginnings in 2002 as a small gathering of local musicians and fans, the Bandstand series has become a robust showcase for homegrown New Mexico musical talent and international touring acts. In 2013, its shows drew an impressive audience, averaging 820 music lovers per night. One evening, when Austin-based honky-tonkers The Derailers played, attendance surpassed 2,200. This year, the series expands to 100 day and evening concerts over 10 weeks.

\r\n\r\n

Despite the growth, the festival retains its distinct Santa Fe charm. It’s common to see locals on their lunch breaks picnicking in the shade and dancing on the plaza’s cool grass while taking in a Grammynominated act. In the evenings, the town’s free spirits unfailingly take to two-stepping, salsa dancing, and hippie twirling at the very first downbeat.

\r\n\r\n

“The Plaza and the Bandstand stage are sort of like the great human equalizers in downtown Santa Fe,” says Michael Dellheim, executive director of Outside In Productions, which oversees the series. The Santa Fe nonprofit was established in 1995 to bring free, live, professional music to underserved populations in New Mexico. “The great universal equalizer is music. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t ever go to a nightclub but will come to Bandstand. There are a lot of people who say they don’t dance, but they dance at Bandstand. There are no social rules about who gets to enjoy it.”

\r\n\r\n

As least as far back as the early 1860s, a gazebo bandstand was situated in the middle of the Plaza, until the American Indian War Memorial monument was erected on the spot in 1868. For at least as long as the gazebo first enticed musicians to the stage, the family of Santa Fe Latin-music queen Nacha Mendez has carried tunes to the people in the streets, from Mendez’s buskergrandmother in La Fe, Coahuila, Mexico, to the local songstress herself.

\r\n\r\n

“Why the Santa Fe Bandstand has not reached the status of the must-see festival or event everyone in the world should flock to is beyond me,” says Mendez. “We have some of the finest musicians and performers here in Santa Fe and the surrounding areas. I know people who plan their vacations around who is playing on what day.” (For the record: She performs on July 16.)

\r\n\r\n

With 100 concerts to choose from, there’s something for almost every music taste to enjoy this year. (A notable exception is classical; for that, see the sidebar “Summer Festivals & Series.”) Dellheim has secured plenty of aces among the 16-plus touring acts this year, including opening-night headliner and Zydeco dynamo Terrance Simien (June 23), who took home a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Album; Bill Monroe protégé Peter Rowan (July 29), a singer-songwriter (“Panama Red”) who has worked with other greats such as Jerry Garcia and David Grisman; and rockabilly/honky-tonk piano man Earle Poole Ball (August 25), who played alongside Johnny Cash for more than 20 years.

\r\n\r\n

The newly crowned Best Country Act at the 2013–2014 Austin Music Awards, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis (The Bruce and Kelly Show), takes the stage on July 23, and the Wheeler Brothers, who brought home the Austin Music Award for Best Roots Rock Band, play on June 24. Tex-Mex “Nuevo-Wavo” wildman and lifelong New Mexico maven Joe King Carrasco, who returns to the Plaza from his home in Mexico on July 9, was thrilled to be invited back.

\r\n\r\n

“The crowds are just so enthusiastic!” says Carrasco. “There’s this alternative lifestyle thing in Santa Fe that gravitates to the natural rock ’n’ roll animal in me. No matter how long I’m gone, I feel like I’m around family and friends when I’m on that stage. And because there’s no barrier between the audiences and the performers, everybody on the Plaza picks up that same vibe.”

\r\n\r\n

New Mexico–based talent constitutes the bulk of the lineup. “One of the biggest lineup scores is The Handsome Family,” Dellheim says (July 31). The Albuquerquebased alt-country duo has been on an upward trajectory as of late, since providing the theme song to the hit HBO series True Detective. (You can listen to “Far from Any Road” here: mynm.us/1mbqV5C.) “We just caught them before they became eternally booked.”

\r\n\r\n

Concertgoers can also look forward to performances by New Mexico–based Grammy-winning guitarist/producer Larry Mitchell (August 20) and Native American Music Award winner Joy Harjo (August 20).

\r\n\r\n

The local roster includes the winners of last year’s Bandstand listeners’ poll, guitarist Jay Boy Adams and three-time Grammynominated singer Zenobia (August 16), who play sizzling R&B and soul. Also returning is last year’s second-largest draw at Bandstand, the Chicano-rock band Lumbre del Sol (July 18). Dellheim chose “twisted-country” singer-songwriter Joe West to close out the series on August 28. “Joe is a real character, and he also sort of embodies that Santa Fe folk/alt-country tradition that goes back generations here.”

\r\n\r\n

Dellheim, who became executive director in 2012 after the sudden passing of the nonprofit’s founder, David Lescht, describes the past few years of Bandstand as “playing catch-up.” Lescht had always brought in major performers, such as explosive blues legend Guitar Shorty and reggae singer Sister Carol. Still, says Dellheim, about 80 percent of the performers this year are from New Mexico, and that ratio will probably never change.

\r\n\r\n

Although the Plaza is the heart of the action, the series expands to the south side of Santa Fe this year. The San Isidro Plaza shopping center off Cerrillos Road hosts two Bandstand concerts in July and two in August. And while Lescht may be gone, his family carries on his legacy. His son, Tobias, is Dellheim’s “right-hand man,” and his daughter Theona is a strong presence at the Outside In booth during concerts. “With the series continuing and becoming so big,” Dellheim says, “it’s a way for David’s family and friends to acknowledge that his life’s work wasn’t just a flash in the pan.” ✜

","teaser_raw":"","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725eea","author":{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f240","blog":"magazine","name":"Rob DeWalt","_name_sort":"rob dewalt","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.394Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.405Z","_totalPosts":22,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f240","title":"Rob DeWalt","slug":"rob-dewalt","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/rob-dewalt/58b4b2404c2774661570f240/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/rob-dewalt/58b4b2404c2774661570f240/#comments","totalPosts":22},"categories":[{"_id":"58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","title":"Culture","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"culture","updated":"2017-03-14T18:41:36.747Z","created":"2017-03-14T18:41:36.748Z","_totalPosts":258,"id":"58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","slug":"culture","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/culture/58c839601f16f9392cf09a98/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/culture/58c839601f16f9392cf09a98/#comments","totalPosts":258},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"image":{"_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4ec","legacy_id":"86072","title":"Main -music","created":"2014-05-27T11:40:52.000Z","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:08.990Z","credits":"Henry Lopez","content_owner":"magazine","tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"title_sort":"main -music","resource_raw":{"public_id":"clients/newmexico/main_music_25b3cb3d-2de9-4f0b-92fb-19b91573ac4d","version":1488237129,"signature":"30e1c78a92cac5c7bf6916f1211705c0479ed079","width":490,"height":236,"format":"jpg","resource_type":"image","created_at":"2017-02-27T23:12:09.000Z","bytes":64743,"type":"upload","etag":"9f040278b96e9f5e60b538090db53e5a","url":"http://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1488237129/clients/newmexico/main_music_25b3cb3d-2de9-4f0b-92fb-19b91573ac4d.jpg","secure_url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1488237129/clients/newmexico/main_music_25b3cb3d-2de9-4f0b-92fb-19b91573ac4d.jpg","original_filename":"main-music"},"deleted":false,"id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4ec","type":"image","resource":{"raw":{"resource_type":"image","format":"jpg","public_id":"clients/newmexico/main_music_25b3cb3d-2de9-4f0b-92fb-19b91573ac4d"}},"inAssetRequest":false,"alt_text":"Main -music"},"tags":[{"_id":"59090d93e1efff4c9916fac9","title":"Music","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"music","updated":"2017-05-02T22:52:03.432Z","created":"2017-05-02T22:52:03.432Z","_totalPosts":44,"id":"59090d93e1efff4c9916fac9","slug":"music","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/music/59090d93e1efff4c9916fac9/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/music/59090d93e1efff4c9916fac9/#comments","totalPosts":44}],"teaser":"","description":"Need To Know Outside In Productions’ 2014 Santa Fe Bandstand One hundred noontime and evening outdoor concerts in 10 weeks, June 23–August 28, in the Santa Fe Plaza and San Isidro Plaza shopping center. (505) 986-6054; santafebandstand.org . Disclosure: New Mexico Magazine is a sponsor of Santa Fe Bandstand. SUMMER FESTIVALS & SERIES THROUGH AUGUST 24 LAS CRUCES Music in the Park Americana, country, mariachi, classical, blues, Tejano, and more fill the air during this free unday evening series at Apodaca, Klein, and Young parks. Lawn chairs and blankets are a must. (575) 541-2200; lascruces.org THROUGH AUGUST 29 LOS ALAMOS 25th Anniversary Los Alamos County Summer Concert Series The series serves up Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard, Albuquerque blues-rock king Ryan McGarvey, and many more local and touring acts. (505) 690-2484; gordonssummerconcerts.com THROUGH AUGUST 30 TAOS Taos Mountain Summer Music Series Enjoy concerts, arts and crafts, and food every Saturday in Taos Ski Valley against the backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. (575) 776-1413; taosskivalley.com THROUGH SEPTEMBER 6 RATÓN Music on Main Street Full summer season of concerts, food vendors, kids’ activities. (575) 445-4760; ratonmainstreet.org MAY 22–SEPTEMBER 4 TAOS Taos Plaza Live Local acts perform jazz, country, rock, ranchera, and more. (505) 751-8800; taoschamber.com MAY 30–AUGUST 8 ALBUQUERQUE Salsa Under the Stars Salsa music and dancing at the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater on Friday nights. Free dancing lessons are offered. (505) 255-9798; nmjazz.org MAY 30–AUGUST 9 ALBUQUERQUE Jazz and Blues Under the Stars Saturday evenings at the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater Highlights include Son Como Son, Team Havana, and the Kanoa Kaluhiwa Group. (505) 255-9798; nmjazz.org JUNE 6–7 RED RIVER River & Brews Blues Fest Concerts at the Red River Ski Area Chalet, microbrew and barbecue tastings, food booths featuring cuisine from local restaurants, and an open-mic night. (575) 754-2366; redriverbluesfest.com JUNE 6–7 ROSWELL Fiddle & Griddle Festival The country’s best fiddle players compete for thousands of dollars in prizes on multiple stages along Main Street. Plus: a barbecue competition, and art and crafts booths. (575) 420-5718; fiddlegriddle.com AS HUNDREDS of thousands of visitors well know, every summer Santa Fe Plaza becomes the epicenter of Southwestern culture, hosting landmark events like Spanish Market and Indian Market. When these star-studded affairs aren’t stealing the show, the Plaza presents what has become another big-time attraction, at least for locals: the Santa Fe Bandstand free concert series. Since its humble beginnings in 2002 as a small gathering of local musicians and fans, the Bandstand series has become a robust showcase for homegrown New Mexico musical talent and international touring acts. In 2013, its shows drew an impressive audience, averaging 820 music lovers per night. One evening, when Austin-based honky-tonkers The Derailers played, attendance surpassed 2,200. This year, the series expands to 100 day and evening concerts over 10 weeks. Despite the growth, the festival retains its distinct Santa Fe charm. It’s common to see locals on their lunch breaks picnicking in the shade and dancing on the plaza’s cool grass while taking in a Grammynominated act. In the evenings, the town’s free spirits unfailingly take to two-stepping, salsa dancing, and hippie twirling at the very first downbeat. “The Plaza and the Bandstand stage are sort of like the great human equalizers in downtown Santa Fe,” says Michael Dellheim, executive director of Outside In Productions, which oversees the series. The Santa Fe nonprofit was established in 1995 to bring free, live, professional music to underserved populations in New Mexico. “The great universal equalizer is music. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t ever go to a nightclub but will come to Bandstand. There are a lot of people who say they don’t dance, but they dance at Bandstand. There are no social rules about who gets to enjoy it.” As least as far back as the early 1860s, a gazebo bandstand was situated in the middle of the Plaza, until the American Indian War Memorial monument was erected on the spot in 1868. For at least as long as the gazebo first enticed musicians to the stage, the family of Santa Fe Latin-music queen Nacha Mendez has carried tunes to the people in the streets, from Mendez’s buskergrandmother in La Fe, Coahuila, Mexico, to the local songstress herself. “Why the Santa Fe Bandstand has not reached the status of the must-see festival or event everyone in the world should flock to is beyond me,” says Mendez. “We have some of the finest musicians and performers here in Santa Fe and the surrounding areas. I know people who plan their vacations around who is playing on what day.” (For the record: She performs on July 16.) With 100 concerts to choose from, there’s something for almost every music taste to enjoy this year. (A notable exception is classical; for that, see the sidebar “Summer Festivals & Series.”) Dellheim has secured plenty of aces among the 16-plus touring acts this year, including opening-night headliner and Zydeco dynamo Terrance Simien (June 23), who took home a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Album; Bill Monroe protégé Peter Rowan (July 29), a singer-songwriter (“Panama Red”) who has worked with other greats such as Jerry Garcia and David Grisman; and rockabilly/honky-tonk piano man Earle Poole Ball (August 25), who played alongside Johnny Cash for more than 20 years. The newly crowned Best Country Act at the 2013–2014 Austin Music Awards, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis (The Bruce and Kelly Show), takes the stage on July 23, and the Wheeler Brothers, who brought home the Austin Music Award for Best Roots Rock Band, play on June 24. Tex-Mex “Nuevo-Wavo” wildman and lifelong New Mexico maven Joe King Carrasco, who returns to the Plaza from his home in Mexico on July 9, was thrilled to be invited back. “The crowds are just so enthusiastic!” says Carrasco. “There’s this alternative lifestyle thing in Santa Fe that gravitates to the natural rock ’n’ roll animal in me. No matter how long I’m gone, I feel like I’m around family and friends when I’m on that stage. And because there’s no barrier between the audiences and the performers, everybody on the Plaza picks up that same vibe.” New Mexico–based talent constitutes the bulk of the lineup. “One of the biggest lineup scores is The Handsome Family,” Dellheim says (July 31). The Albuquerquebased alt-country duo has been on an upward trajectory as of late, since providing the theme song to the hit HBO series True Detective. (You can listen to “Far from Any Road” here: mynm.us/1mbqV5C.) “We just caught them before they became eternally booked.” Concertgoers can also look forward to performances by New Mexico–based Grammy-winning guitarist/producer Larry Mitchell (August 20) and Native American Music Award winner Joy Harjo (August 20). The local roster includes the winners of last year’s Bandstand listeners’ poll, guitarist Jay Boy Adams and three-time Grammynominated singer Zenobia (August 16), who play sizzling R&B and soul. Also returning is last year’s second-largest draw at Bandstand, the Chicano-rock band Lumbre del Sol (July 18). Dellheim chose “twisted-country” singer-songwriter Joe West to close out the series on August 28. “Joe is a real character, and he also sort of embodies that Santa Fe folk/alt-country tradition that goes back generations here.” Dellheim, who became executive director in 2012 after the sudden passing of the nonprofit’s founder, David Lescht, describes the past few years of Bandstand as “playing catch-up.” Lescht had always brought in major performers, such as explosive blues legend Guitar Shorty and reggae singer Sister Carol. Still, says Dellheim, about 80 percent of the performers this year are from New Mexico, and that ratio will probably never change. Although the Plaza is the heart of the action, the series expands to the south side of Santa Fe this year. The San Isidro Plaza shopping center off Cerrillos Road hosts two Bandstand concerts in July and two in August. And while Lescht may be gone, his family carries on his legacy. His son, Tobias, is Dellheim’s “right-hand man,” and his daughter Theona is a strong presence at the Outside In booth during concerts. “With the series continuing and becoming so big,” Dellheim says, “it’s a way for David’s family and friends to acknowledge that his life’s work wasn’t just a flash in the pan.” ✜","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f986","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/summer-music-festivals-86070/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/summer-music-festivals-86070/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/summer-music-festivals-86070/","metaTitle":"Bandstand Rocks","metaDescription":"","cleanDescription":"Need To Know Outside In Productions’ 2014 Santa Fe Bandstand One hundred noontime and evening outdoor concerts in 10 weeks, June 23–August 28, in the Santa Fe Plaza and San Isidro Plaza shopping center. (505) 986-6054; santafebandstand.org . Disclosure: New Mexico Magazine is a sponsor of Santa Fe Bandstand. SUMMER FESTIVALS & SERIES THROUGH AUGUST 24 LAS CRUCES Music in the Park Americana, country, mariachi, classical, blues, Tejano, and more fill the air during this free unday evening series at Apodaca, Klein, and Young parks. Lawn chairs and blankets are a must. (575) 541-2200; lascruces.org THROUGH AUGUST 29 LOS ALAMOS 25th Anniversary Los Alamos County Summer Concert Series The series serves up Texas troubadour Ray Wylie Hubbard, Albuquerque blues-rock king Ryan McGarvey, and many more local and touring acts. (505) 690-2484; gordonssummerconcerts.com THROUGH AUGUST 30 TAOS Taos Mountain Summer Music Series Enjoy concerts, arts and crafts, and food every Saturday in Taos Ski Valley against the backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. (575) 776-1413; taosskivalley.com THROUGH SEPTEMBER 6 RATÓN Music on Main Street Full summer season of concerts, food vendors, kids’ activities. (575) 445-4760; ratonmainstreet.org MAY 22–SEPTEMBER 4 TAOS Taos Plaza Live Local acts perform jazz, country, rock, ranchera, and more. (505) 751-8800; taoschamber.com MAY 30–AUGUST 8 ALBUQUERQUE Salsa Under the Stars Salsa music and dancing at the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater on Friday nights. Free dancing lessons are offered. (505) 255-9798; nmjazz.org MAY 30–AUGUST 9 ALBUQUERQUE Jazz and Blues Under the Stars Saturday evenings at the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater Highlights include Son Como Son, Team Havana, and the Kanoa Kaluhiwa Group. (505) 255-9798; nmjazz.org JUNE 6–7 RED RIVER River & Brews Blues Fest Concerts at the Red River Ski Area Chalet, microbrew and barbecue tastings, food booths featuring cuisine from local restaurants, and an open-mic night. (575) 754-2366; redriverbluesfest.com JUNE 6–7 ROSWELL Fiddle & Griddle Festival The country’s best fiddle players compete for thousands of dollars in prizes on multiple stages along Main Street. Plus: a barbecue competition, and art and crafts booths. (575) 420-5718; fiddlegriddle.com AS HUNDREDS of thousands of visitors well know, every summer Santa Fe Plaza becomes the epicenter of Southwestern culture, hosting landmark events like Spanish Market and Indian Market. When these star-studded affairs aren’t stealing the show, the Plaza presents what has become another big-time attraction, at least for locals: the Santa Fe Bandstand free concert series. Since its humble beginnings in 2002 as a small gathering of local musicians and fans, the Bandstand series has become a robust showcase for homegrown New Mexico musical talent and international touring acts. In 2013, its shows drew an impressive audience, averaging 820 music lovers per night. One evening, when Austin-based honky-tonkers The Derailers played, attendance surpassed 2,200. This year, the series expands to 100 day and evening concerts over 10 weeks. Despite the growth, the festival retains its distinct Santa Fe charm. It’s common to see locals on their lunch breaks picnicking in the shade and dancing on the plaza’s cool grass while taking in a Grammynominated act. In the evenings, the town’s free spirits unfailingly take to two-stepping, salsa dancing, and hippie twirling at the very first downbeat. “The Plaza and the Bandstand stage are sort of like the great human equalizers in downtown Santa Fe,” says Michael Dellheim, executive director of Outside In Productions, which oversees the series. The Santa Fe nonprofit was established in 1995 to bring free, live, professional music to underserved populations in New Mexico. “The great universal equalizer is music. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t ever go to a nightclub but will come to Bandstand. There are a lot of people who say they don’t dance, but they dance at Bandstand. There are no social rules about who gets to enjoy it.” As least as far back as the early 1860s, a gazebo bandstand was situated in the middle of the Plaza, until the American Indian War Memorial monument was erected on the spot in 1868. For at least as long as the gazebo first enticed musicians to the stage, the family of Santa Fe Latin-music queen Nacha Mendez has carried tunes to the people in the streets, from Mendez’s buskergrandmother in La Fe, Coahuila, Mexico, to the local songstress herself. “Why the Santa Fe Bandstand has not reached the status of the must-see festival or event everyone in the world should flock to is beyond me,” says Mendez. “We have some of the finest musicians and performers here in Santa Fe and the surrounding areas. I know people who plan their vacations around who is playing on what day.” (For the record: She performs on July 16.) With 100 concerts to choose from, there’s something for almost every music taste to enjoy this year. (A notable exception is classical; for that, see the sidebar “Summer Festivals & Series.”) Dellheim has secured plenty of aces among the 16-plus touring acts this year, including opening-night headliner and Zydeco dynamo Terrance Simien (June 23), who took home a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Album; Bill Monroe protégé Peter Rowan (July 29), a singer-songwriter (“Panama Red”) who has worked with other greats such as Jerry Garcia and David Grisman; and rockabilly/honky-tonk piano man Earle Poole Ball (August 25), who played alongside Johnny Cash for more than 20 years. The newly crowned Best Country Act at the 2013–2014 Austin Music Awards, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis (The Bruce and Kelly Show), takes the stage on July 23, and the Wheeler Brothers, who brought home the Austin Music Award for Best Roots Rock Band, play on June 24. Tex-Mex “Nuevo-Wavo” wildman and lifelong New Mexico maven Joe King Carrasco, who returns to the Plaza from his home in Mexico on July 9, was thrilled to be invited back. “The crowds are just so enthusiastic!” says Carrasco. “There’s this alternative lifestyle thing in Santa Fe that gravitates to the natural rock ’n’ roll animal in me. No matter how long I’m gone, I feel like I’m around family and friends when I’m on that stage. And because there’s no barrier between the audiences and the performers, everybody on the Plaza picks up that same vibe.” New Mexico–based talent constitutes the bulk of the lineup. “One of the biggest lineup scores is The Handsome Family,” Dellheim says (July 31). The Albuquerquebased alt-country duo has been on an upward trajectory as of late, since providing the theme song to the hit HBO series True Detective. (You can listen to “Far from Any Road” here: mynm.us/1mbqV5C.) “We just caught them before they became eternally booked.” Concertgoers can also look forward to performances by New Mexico–based Grammy-winning guitarist/producer Larry Mitchell (August 20) and Native American Music Award winner Joy Harjo (August 20). The local roster includes the winners of last year’s Bandstand listeners’ poll, guitarist Jay Boy Adams and three-time Grammynominated singer Zenobia (August 16), who play sizzling R&B and soul. Also returning is last year’s second-largest draw at Bandstand, the Chicano-rock band Lumbre del Sol (July 18). Dellheim chose “twisted-country” singer-songwriter Joe West to close out the series on August 28. “Joe is a real character, and he also sort of embodies that Santa Fe folk/alt-country tradition that goes back generations here.” Dellheim, who became executive director in 2012 after the sudden passing of the nonprofit’s founder, David Lescht, describes the past few years of Bandstand as “playing catch-up.” Lescht had always brought in major performers, such as explosive blues legend Guitar Shorty and reggae singer Sister Carol. Still, says Dellheim, about 80 percent of the performers this year are from New Mexico, and that ratio will probably never change. Although the Plaza is the heart of the action, the series expands to the south side of Santa Fe this year. The San Isidro Plaza shopping center off Cerrillos Road hosts two Bandstand concerts in July and two in August. And while Lescht may be gone, his family carries on his legacy. His son, Tobias, is Dellheim’s “right-hand man,” and his daughter Theona is a strong presence at the Outside In booth during concerts. “With the series continuing and becoming so big,” Dellheim says, “it’s a way for David’s family and friends to acknowledge that his life’s work wasn’t just a flash in the pan.” ✜","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-27T11:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.579Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f985","author_id":"58c98d0de9100750bc309114","title":"Gravity Games","slug":"gravity-games-angel-fire-86038","publish_start":"2014-05-23T16:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58b4b2404c2774661570f271","58c83bb81f16f9392cf09b52","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090c1ce1efff4c9916f961","59090d4be1efff4c9916fa90","59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_photo_credit":"RYAN HEFFERNAN","custom_tagline":"Come summer, our ski resorts shift into a different kind of high gear, especially at Angel Fire, with its epic zipline tour.","created":"2014-05-23T16:14:00.000Z","legacy_id":"86038","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"gravity games","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.296Z","active":true,"description_raw":"

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Last year, I took a friend—and her abiding fear of heights—to Angel Fire Resort, where the two hour RockyMountain Zipline Adventure Tour awaited us.

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For the uninitiated, a zipline is a thick steel cable set between two fixed points, one lower than the other. Riders dangle from the cable in harnesses and zoom through the air from one point to the other, with the greatest of ease. The rides are among the more popular attractions in the burgeoning off-season mountain-resort industry. Angel Fire’s begins at a 10,600-foot summit and features a series of lines, including one that spans a distance of more than five football fields. It whisks the brave from point A to point B at highway speeds—20 stories above the forest floor.

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“Oh my God!” a terrified Lisa declared when she heard this detail.

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Suspecting her acrophobia might make her less than keen on ziplining, I went ahead and made reservations, remembering the adage that it’s sometimes better to apologize afterward than to ask—and not receive—permission beforehand. Selflessly, I could argue that it would be liberating for her to confront her fears. (After all, I was prepared to confront mine in the form of an irate Lisa.) But selfishly, I knew at least one of us would have fun: The zipline tour had been on my to-do list since it opened the previous year.

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Lisa was reluctantly willing to oblige me. “Look,” I told her, pointing at my phone on the drive up, “the website says: ‘Trained and certified zipline operators will be on site at all times to ensure the safety of riders.’” (Trained and certified! I reflexively conjured up late-night TV commercials advertising training for careers in the burgeoning zipline operator field. “Call now or register online at zipline-university.com.”)

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If this wasn’t consoling enough for my skittish friend, at least the drive through northern New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains made a pleasant distraction. Located some 40 miles east of Taos, the resort is situated along the beautiful Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway. This 83-mile loop encircles 13,167-foot Wheeler Peak, the state’s highest point.

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Not that the summit at Angel Fire isn’t, uh, dauntingly altitudinous. After checking in and signing liability waivers, Lisa and I boarded a chairlift that carried us painstakingly over a set of seemingly endless peaks. Below us, where skiers were just months prior tearing down snowy slopes, mountain bikers were blasting down the trails in apocalyptic-looking protective regalia. (See “Need to Know,” p. 47.)

\r\n\r\n

Finally at the top, the stunning panoramic vistas did little to appease Lisa’s fraying nerves. Here we met the six others, who  ranged from teens to seniors, in our tour group, and our zipline operators, Kevin and Jenny, twentysomethings who radiated the glow of contentment that comes from living the ski-bum dream, even off-season. Our guides attended to the sobering business of harnesses, helmets, heavy synthetic straps, buckles, carabiners—all the accoutrements associated with dangling above mountainous terrain from wire. They demonstrated the proper application of equipment with the sprightly reassurance of camp counselors prodding kids into life vests before their first time in a canoe.

\r\n\r\n

“Have there been any serious injuries?” my companion asked.

\r\n\r\n

“Not today,” replied Kevin, with a wink and a grin. The group laughed. Mostly. Lisa shot me a look that said, “If we live, I’m going to kill you.”

\r\n\r\n

Fortunately, the first few ziplines were far from death-defying; they were warm-ups of sorts. After Kevin, who was hanging 35 feet above ground, nonchalantly flew from an upper platform to a lower one 700 feet away, he radioed his partner to give clearance. Jenny helped prepare the first rider for departure; Kevin would greet the arrivals.

\r\n\r\n

One by one, we were instructed to grip a set of handlebars overhead, kick our feet forward, keep them extended for maximal speed, and let gravity do its thing. This is one of those anomalous activities in which a person’s heaviness positively relates to speed. Fortunately, Lisa is a diminutive woman. In turn, we sailed through tall stands of ponderosa, spruce, and bristlecone pines. Those on the landing platform were in markedly more animated spirits, bolted by the rush of flight, even if they’d flown at the relatively slow rate of 20 mph. Lisa’s face was no longer a mask of suppressed terror. I could easily imagine her conceding pleasure if she didn’t want to relish my guilt, which I now no longer harbored, for insisting on this escapade.

\r\n\r\n

A short 10-minute hike helped to stanch the collective flow of adrenaline before we reached what might be dubbed the blackdiamond run—a 1,600-foot line that sweeps passengers 205 feet aboveground at around 50 mph.

\r\n\r\n

“And this, folks, is where it gets real,” Kevin announced.

\r\n\r\n

This was also where Lisa’s panic instantaneously returned. Except for her, the group was awestruck. The line stretched over earth that dropped abruptly away from it. The landing platform was so far away that it was difficult to see from our perch in the sky. I went first, eager to fly. Kicking my legs out and pulling my weight against the cable above, I yielded to the rapid acceleration of my body, topping out at perhaps 50 mph for a precious few eternities. I may not have resembled much of a falcon, my feet thrust before me and my tail facing ground, but I sure felt like I was flying.

\r\n\r\n

Given the sustained rush that flushed through me during the swoop, it occurred to me that ziplining’s appeal is that it’s more accessible—and a whole lot safer—than extreme flightsimulating activities such as skydiving, BASE jumping, or that most recent and perilous craze involving winged suits. It sure got my heart racing.

\r\n\r\n

Six others, all thrilled, joined me on the landing platform. Lisa put off the inevitable for as long as she could. But sooner or later, even when one’s immediate fate is not stretched visibly ahead like a cord of woven steel, we allmust surrender our attachment to sure footing and … let go. Physical annihilation isn’t always the outcome. In fact, I now knew that the drive back to Albuquerque would be considerably less tense—an unmistakable grin lit up Lisa’s windblown face as she flew toward me.✜

","teaser_raw":"

","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725ef0","author":{"_id":"58c98d0de9100750bc309114","name":"Ben Ikenson","blog":"magazine","_name_sort":"ben ikenson","updated":"2017-03-15T18:50:53.641Z","created":"2017-03-15T18:50:53.641Z","_totalPosts":1,"id":"58c98d0de9100750bc309114","title":"Ben Ikenson","slug":"ben-ikenson","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/ben-ikenson/58c98d0de9100750bc309114/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/ben-ikenson/58c98d0de9100750bc309114/#comments","totalPosts":1},"categories":[{"_id":"58c83bb81f16f9392cf09b52","title":"Lifestyle","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"lifestyle","updated":"2017-03-14T18:51:36.346Z","created":"2017-03-14T18:51:36.346Z","_totalPosts":102,"id":"58c83bb81f16f9392cf09b52","slug":"lifestyle","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/lifestyle/58c83bb81f16f9392cf09b52/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/lifestyle/58c83bb81f16f9392cf09b52/#comments","totalPosts":102},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"tags":[{"_id":"59090c1ce1efff4c9916f961","title":"Angel Fire","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"angel fire","updated":"2017-05-02T22:45:48.632Z","created":"2017-05-02T22:45:48.632Z","_totalPosts":2,"id":"59090c1ce1efff4c9916f961","slug":"angel-fire","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/angel-fire/59090c1ce1efff4c9916f961/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/angel-fire/59090c1ce1efff4c9916f961/#comments","totalPosts":2}],"teaser":"

","description":"    NEED TO KNOW Angel Fire Resort ziplining season: May 16– October 12. $129 per person. Reservations mandatory. Weight limits: 90–270 pounds. Short, steep hikes at high elevation are part of the drill. Not recommended for pregnant women or people with heart, back, hip, or knee problems. With its lift service and more than 50 miles of trails, Angel Fire Resort also offers world-class mountain biking; from May through October, it hosts what it calls “the longest mountain biking season in the West.” The resort has recently expanded to provide new trails for beginner and intermediate riders. 10 Miller Ln.; Angel Fire; (800) 633-7463, (575) 377-4320; angelfireresort.com INN OF THE MOUNTAIN GODS RESORT AND CASINO (SKI APACHE) Located in the mountains near Ruidoso in southern New Mexico, this challenging 18-hole championship golf course boasts an island fairway in the middle of Lake Mescalero. Designed by formidable golf course architect Ted Robinson, Sr., it’s consistently recognized on top U.S. golf course lists. You can also catch a gondola ride to Sierra Blanca Peak, which stands 12,000 feet above sea level. There are more than five miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. Fishing, boating, hunting, and skeet shooting are also on the menu. 1286 Ski Run Rd., Mescalero; (800) 545-9011, (575) 464-3600; skiapache.com PAJARITO MOUNTAIN SKI AREA Located on the north face of the Jémez Mountains above Los Alamos, this ski area is renowned for its mountain biking. It has plenty of downhill and cross-country trails, including its newest one, which leads the more ambitious (and fit) to the summit. Cross-country trails offer numerous switchbacks and challenging terrain, while downhill trails include ramps, dramatic embankments, wooden teetertotters, and steep descents. 397 Camp May Rd., Los Alamos; (505) 662-5725; skipajarito.com RED RIVER SKI AREA Imagine snow-tubing, minusbs the snow. Red River, 45 minutes north of Taos, claims to have the “longest summer tubing lanes in the country.” The two 800-foot lanes, accessed by chairlift, are made from a slippery synthetic material manufactured by an Italian company that specializes in artificial ski slopes. A kid-friendly hill, for ages 4 and up, features two 400-foot lanes. Scenic chairlift rides and disc golf are also available. 400 Pioneer Rd., Red River; (505) 754-2223; redriverskiarea.com SANDIA PEAK SKI AND TRAMWAY The base of the tram is located on the eastern edge of Albuquerque. Enjoy a 2.7-mile ascent to the crest of the Sandías, where you can take in the panoramic views overlooking New Mexico’s largest city and gaze at Mount Taylor on the horizon. Check out the many trails that wind through the Cíbola National Forest, and refuel at the restaurant before descending via the tram. Alternatively, you can drive to the crest and explore by foot or mountain bike. Feeling energetic? La Luz Trail offers a popular and rigorous hike that leads from near the base of the tram to the crest. A return via tram may be in order after that. Tramway 30 Tramway Rd. NE, Albuquerque; (505) 856-7325; sandiapeak.com. Ski Area Mile Marker 6, N.M. 536, Sandia Park; (505) 242-9052; sandiapeak.com SIPAPU SKI & SUMMER RESORT Many New Mexico resorts, including Angel Fire Resort and Red River Ski Area, cater to the increasingly popular sport of disc golf, in which players throw Frisbee-like discs toward baskets mounted on poles. Located about 20 miles southeast of Taos in the Carson National Forest in Vadito, Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort is home to a 20-basket disc-golf course, which was named one of the nation’s top five scenic courses by Disc Golf Digest. Here, disc jockeys can enjoy a leisurely round or two in a setting that includes dramatic elevation changes and crossings over the Río Pueblo. 5224 N.M. 518; (800) 587- 2240; Vadito; sipapunm.com SKI CLOUDCROFT Just over an hour south of Ruidoso, Ski Cloudcroft is the southernmost ski resort in the United States. Along with hiking trails, the small, family-owned and -operated resort is also planning to open a downhill bike park this summer, with chairlift access to eight or nine trails for beginners, intermediates, and advanced bicyclists. 1920 ½ U.S. 82, Cloudcroft; (575) 682- 2333; skicloudcroft.net TAOS SKI VALLEY TSV’s new mountain bike park opens June 28, with trails geared toward beginner and intermediate riders. Per usual, enjoy its backcountry horseback riding, hot air balloon tours, rafting, and rock climbing, as well as music fests, concerts, and the annual high-altitude 10K run. 116 Sutton Pl., Taos Ski Valley; (866) 968-7386, (575) 776-2291; skitaos.org     Last year, I took a friend—and her abiding fear of heights—to Angel Fire Resort, where the two hour RockyMountain Zipline Adventure Tour awaited us. For the uninitiated, a zipline is a thick steel cable set between two fixed points, one lower than the other. Riders dangle from the cable in harnesses and zoom through the air from one point to the other, with the greatest of ease. The rides are among the more popular attractions in the burgeoning off-season mountain-resort industry. Angel Fire’s begins at a 10,600-foot summit and features a series of lines, including one that spans a distance of more than five football fields. It whisks the brave from point A to point B at highway speeds—20 stories above the forest floor. “Oh my God!” a terrified Lisa declared when she heard this detail. Suspecting her acrophobia might make her less than keen on ziplining, I went ahead and made reservations, remembering the adage that it’s sometimes better to apologize afterward than to ask—and not receive—permission beforehand. Selflessly, I could argue that it would be liberating for her to confront her fears. (After all, I was prepared to confront mine in the form of an irate Lisa.) But selfishly, I knew at least one of us would have fun: The zipline tour had been on my to-do list since it opened the previous year. Lisa was reluctantly willing to oblige me. “Look,” I told her, pointing at my phone on the drive up, “the website says: ‘Trained and certified zipline operators will be on site at all times to ensure the safety of riders.’” (Trained and certified! I reflexively conjured up late-night TV commercials advertising training for careers in the burgeoning zipline operator field. “Call now or register online at zipline-university.com.”) If this wasn’t consoling enough for my skittish friend, at least the drive through northern New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains made a pleasant distraction. Located some 40 miles east of Taos, the resort is situated along the beautiful Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway. This 83-mile loop encircles 13,167-foot Wheeler Peak, the state’s highest point. Not that the summit at Angel Fire isn’t, uh, dauntingly altitudinous. After checking in and signing liability waivers, Lisa and I boarded a chairlift that carried us painstakingly over a set of seemingly endless peaks. Below us, where skiers were just months prior tearing down snowy slopes, mountain bikers were blasting down the trails in apocalyptic-looking protective regalia. (See “Need to Know,” p. 47.) Finally at the top, the stunning panoramic vistas did little to appease Lisa’s fraying nerves. Here we met the six others, who  ranged from teens to seniors, in our tour group, and our zipline operators, Kevin and Jenny, twentysomethings who radiated the glow of contentment that comes from living the ski-bum dream, even off-season. Our guides attended to the sobering business of harnesses, helmets, heavy synthetic straps, buckles, carabiners—all the accoutrements associated with dangling above mountainous terrain from wire. They demonstrated the proper application of equipment with the sprightly reassurance of camp counselors prodding kids into life vests before their first time in a canoe. “Have there been any serious injuries?” my companion asked. “Not today,” replied Kevin, with a wink and a grin. The group laughed. Mostly. Lisa shot me a look that said, “If we live, I’m going to kill you.” Fortunately, the first few ziplines were far from death-defying; they were warm-ups of sorts. After Kevin, who was hanging 35 feet above ground, nonchalantly flew from an upper platform to a lower one 700 feet away, he radioed his partner to give clearance. Jenny helped prepare the first rider for departure; Kevin would greet the arrivals. One by one, we were instructed to grip a set of handlebars overhead, kick our feet forward, keep them extended for maximal speed, and let gravity do its thing. This is one of those anomalous activities in which a person’s heaviness positively relates to speed. Fortunately, Lisa is a diminutive woman. In turn, we sailed through tall stands of ponderosa, spruce, and bristlecone pines. Those on the landing platform were in markedly more animated spirits, bolted by the rush of flight, even if they’d flown at the relatively slow rate of 20 mph. Lisa’s face was no longer a mask of suppressed terror. I could easily imagine her conceding pleasure if she didn’t want to relish my guilt, which I now no longer harbored, for insisting on this escapade. A short 10-minute hike helped to stanch the collective flow of adrenaline before we reached what might be dubbed the blackdiamond run—a 1,600-foot line that sweeps passengers 205 feet aboveground at around 50 mph. “And this, folks, is where it gets real,” Kevin announced. This was also where Lisa’s panic instantaneously returned. Except for her, the group was awestruck. The line stretched over earth that dropped abruptly away from it. The landing platform was so far away that it was difficult to see from our perch in the sky. I went first, eager to fly. Kicking my legs out and pulling my weight against the cable above, I yielded to the rapid acceleration of my body, topping out at perhaps 50 mph for a precious few eternities. I may not have resembled much of a falcon, my feet thrust before me and my tail facing ground, but I sure felt like I was flying. Given the sustained rush that flushed through me during the swoop, it occurred to me that ziplining’s appeal is that it’s more accessible—and a whole lot safer—than extreme flightsimulating activities such as skydiving, BASE jumping, or that most recent and perilous craze involving winged suits. It sure got my heart racing. Six others, all thrilled, joined me on the landing platform. Lisa put off the inevitable for as long as she could. But sooner or later, even when one’s immediate fate is not stretched visibly ahead like a cord of woven steel, we allmust surrender our attachment to sure footing and … let go. Physical annihilation isn’t always the outcome. In fact, I now knew that the drive back to Albuquerque would be considerably less tense—an unmistakable grin lit up Lisa’s windblown face as she flew toward me. ✜","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f985","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/gravity-games-angel-fire-86038/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/gravity-games-angel-fire-86038/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/gravity-games-angel-fire-86038/","metaTitle":"Gravity Games","metaDescription":"

","cleanDescription":"    NEED TO KNOW Angel Fire Resort ziplining season: May 16– October 12. $129 per person. Reservations mandatory. Weight limits: 90–270 pounds. Short, steep hikes at high elevation are part of the drill. Not recommended for pregnant women or people with heart, back, hip, or knee problems. With its lift service and more than 50 miles of trails, Angel Fire Resort also offers world-class mountain biking; from May through October, it hosts what it calls “the longest mountain biking season in the West.” The resort has recently expanded to provide new trails for beginner and intermediate riders. 10 Miller Ln.; Angel Fire; (800) 633-7463, (575) 377-4320; angelfireresort.com INN OF THE MOUNTAIN GODS RESORT AND CASINO (SKI APACHE) Located in the mountains near Ruidoso in southern New Mexico, this challenging 18-hole championship golf course boasts an island fairway in the middle of Lake Mescalero. Designed by formidable golf course architect Ted Robinson, Sr., it’s consistently recognized on top U.S. golf course lists. You can also catch a gondola ride to Sierra Blanca Peak, which stands 12,000 feet above sea level. There are more than five miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. Fishing, boating, hunting, and skeet shooting are also on the menu. 1286 Ski Run Rd., Mescalero; (800) 545-9011, (575) 464-3600; skiapache.com PAJARITO MOUNTAIN SKI AREA Located on the north face of the Jémez Mountains above Los Alamos, this ski area is renowned for its mountain biking. It has plenty of downhill and cross-country trails, including its newest one, which leads the more ambitious (and fit) to the summit. Cross-country trails offer numerous switchbacks and challenging terrain, while downhill trails include ramps, dramatic embankments, wooden teetertotters, and steep descents. 397 Camp May Rd., Los Alamos; (505) 662-5725; skipajarito.com RED RIVER SKI AREA Imagine snow-tubing, minusbs the snow. Red River, 45 minutes north of Taos, claims to have the “longest summer tubing lanes in the country.” The two 800-foot lanes, accessed by chairlift, are made from a slippery synthetic material manufactured by an Italian company that specializes in artificial ski slopes. A kid-friendly hill, for ages 4 and up, features two 400-foot lanes. Scenic chairlift rides and disc golf are also available. 400 Pioneer Rd., Red River; (505) 754-2223; redriverskiarea.com SANDIA PEAK SKI AND TRAMWAY The base of the tram is located on the eastern edge of Albuquerque. Enjoy a 2.7-mile ascent to the crest of the Sandías, where you can take in the panoramic views overlooking New Mexico’s largest city and gaze at Mount Taylor on the horizon. Check out the many trails that wind through the Cíbola National Forest, and refuel at the restaurant before descending via the tram. Alternatively, you can drive to the crest and explore by foot or mountain bike. Feeling energetic? La Luz Trail offers a popular and rigorous hike that leads from near the base of the tram to the crest. A return via tram may be in order after that. Tramway 30 Tramway Rd. NE, Albuquerque; (505) 856-7325; sandiapeak.com. Ski Area Mile Marker 6, N.M. 536, Sandia Park; (505) 242-9052; sandiapeak.com SIPAPU SKI & SUMMER RESORT Many New Mexico resorts, including Angel Fire Resort and Red River Ski Area, cater to the increasingly popular sport of disc golf, in which players throw Frisbee-like discs toward baskets mounted on poles. Located about 20 miles southeast of Taos in the Carson National Forest in Vadito, Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort is home to a 20-basket disc-golf course, which was named one of the nation’s top five scenic courses by Disc Golf Digest. Here, disc jockeys can enjoy a leisurely round or two in a setting that includes dramatic elevation changes and crossings over the Río Pueblo. 5224 N.M. 518; (800) 587- 2240; Vadito; sipapunm.com SKI CLOUDCROFT Just over an hour south of Ruidoso, Ski Cloudcroft is the southernmost ski resort in the United States. Along with hiking trails, the small, family-owned and -operated resort is also planning to open a downhill bike park this summer, with chairlift access to eight or nine trails for beginners, intermediates, and advanced bicyclists. 1920 ½ U.S. 82, Cloudcroft; (575) 682- 2333; skicloudcroft.net TAOS SKI VALLEY TSV’s new mountain bike park opens June 28, with trails geared toward beginner and intermediate riders. Per usual, enjoy its backcountry horseback riding, hot air balloon tours, rafting, and rock climbing, as well as music fests, concerts, and the annual high-altitude 10K run. 116 Sutton Pl., Taos Ski Valley; (866) 968-7386, (575) 776-2291; skitaos.org     Last year, I took a friend—and her abiding fear of heights—to Angel Fire Resort, where the two hour RockyMountain Zipline Adventure Tour awaited us. For the uninitiated, a zipline is a thick steel cable set between two fixed points, one lower than the other. Riders dangle from the cable in harnesses and zoom through the air from one point to the other, with the greatest of ease. The rides are among the more popular attractions in the burgeoning off-season mountain-resort industry. Angel Fire’s begins at a 10,600-foot summit and features a series of lines, including one that spans a distance of more than five football fields. It whisks the brave from point A to point B at highway speeds—20 stories above the forest floor. “Oh my God!” a terrified Lisa declared when she heard this detail. Suspecting her acrophobia might make her less than keen on ziplining, I went ahead and made reservations, remembering the adage that it’s sometimes better to apologize afterward than to ask—and not receive—permission beforehand. Selflessly, I could argue that it would be liberating for her to confront her fears. (After all, I was prepared to confront mine in the form of an irate Lisa.) But selfishly, I knew at least one of us would have fun: The zipline tour had been on my to-do list since it opened the previous year. Lisa was reluctantly willing to oblige me. “Look,” I told her, pointing at my phone on the drive up, “the website says: ‘Trained and certified zipline operators will be on site at all times to ensure the safety of riders.’” (Trained and certified! I reflexively conjured up late-night TV commercials advertising training for careers in the burgeoning zipline operator field. “Call now or register online at zipline-university.com.”) If this wasn’t consoling enough for my skittish friend, at least the drive through northern New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains made a pleasant distraction. Located some 40 miles east of Taos, the resort is situated along the beautiful Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway. This 83-mile loop encircles 13,167-foot Wheeler Peak, the state’s highest point. Not that the summit at Angel Fire isn’t, uh, dauntingly altitudinous. After checking in and signing liability waivers, Lisa and I boarded a chairlift that carried us painstakingly over a set of seemingly endless peaks. Below us, where skiers were just months prior tearing down snowy slopes, mountain bikers were blasting down the trails in apocalyptic-looking protective regalia. (See “Need to Know,” p. 47.) Finally at the top, the stunning panoramic vistas did little to appease Lisa’s fraying nerves. Here we met the six others, who  ranged from teens to seniors, in our tour group, and our zipline operators, Kevin and Jenny, twentysomethings who radiated the glow of contentment that comes from living the ski-bum dream, even off-season. Our guides attended to the sobering business of harnesses, helmets, heavy synthetic straps, buckles, carabiners—all the accoutrements associated with dangling above mountainous terrain from wire. They demonstrated the proper application of equipment with the sprightly reassurance of camp counselors prodding kids into life vests before their first time in a canoe. “Have there been any serious injuries?” my companion asked. “Not today,” replied Kevin, with a wink and a grin. The group laughed. Mostly. Lisa shot me a look that said, “If we live, I’m going to kill you.” Fortunately, the first few ziplines were far from death-defying; they were warm-ups of sorts. After Kevin, who was hanging 35 feet above ground, nonchalantly flew from an upper platform to a lower one 700 feet away, he radioed his partner to give clearance. Jenny helped prepare the first rider for departure; Kevin would greet the arrivals. One by one, we were instructed to grip a set of handlebars overhead, kick our feet forward, keep them extended for maximal speed, and let gravity do its thing. This is one of those anomalous activities in which a person’s heaviness positively relates to speed. Fortunately, Lisa is a diminutive woman. In turn, we sailed through tall stands of ponderosa, spruce, and bristlecone pines. Those on the landing platform were in markedly more animated spirits, bolted by the rush of flight, even if they’d flown at the relatively slow rate of 20 mph. Lisa’s face was no longer a mask of suppressed terror. I could easily imagine her conceding pleasure if she didn’t want to relish my guilt, which I now no longer harbored, for insisting on this escapade. A short 10-minute hike helped to stanch the collective flow of adrenaline before we reached what might be dubbed the blackdiamond run—a 1,600-foot line that sweeps passengers 205 feet aboveground at around 50 mph. “And this, folks, is where it gets real,” Kevin announced. This was also where Lisa’s panic instantaneously returned. Except for her, the group was awestruck. The line stretched over earth that dropped abruptly away from it. The landing platform was so far away that it was difficult to see from our perch in the sky. I went first, eager to fly. Kicking my legs out and pulling my weight against the cable above, I yielded to the rapid acceleration of my body, topping out at perhaps 50 mph for a precious few eternities. I may not have resembled much of a falcon, my feet thrust before me and my tail facing ground, but I sure felt like I was flying. Given the sustained rush that flushed through me during the swoop, it occurred to me that ziplining’s appeal is that it’s more accessible—and a whole lot safer—than extreme flightsimulating activities such as skydiving, BASE jumping, or that most recent and perilous craze involving winged suits. It sure got my heart racing. Six others, all thrilled, joined me on the landing platform. Lisa put off the inevitable for as long as she could. But sooner or later, even when one’s immediate fate is not stretched visibly ahead like a cord of woven steel, we allmust surrender our attachment to sure footing and … let go. Physical annihilation isn’t always the outcome. In fact, I now knew that the drive back to Albuquerque would be considerably less tense—an unmistakable grin lit up Lisa’s windblown face as she flew toward me. ✜","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-23T16:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.579Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f982","title":"One of Our Fifty Is Found!","slug":"one-of-our-fifty-is-found-85935","image_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4e1","publish_start":"2014-05-21T13:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","58b4b2404c2774661570f266"],"tags_ids":["59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f","59090c0be1efff4c9916f953"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"A-ha! moments when our readers realized that New Mexico was the place for them.","created":"2014-05-21T13:37:56.000Z","legacy_id":"85935","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"one of our fifty is found!","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:31.957Z","active":true,"description_raw":"

COLOR THEORY
\r\nIn 1992, my wife, Marsha, and I saw a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in New York City, and were totally taken by the fantastical colors and forms. We assumed that she had embellished what we thought of as the bland, lifeless landscape of the Southwest desert. In O’Keeffe’s own words, “What is my experience … if not color?” So we decided to go to New Mexico to see the places that inspired her inventiveness, and quickly realized that we needed to keep coming back to get the full picture. Two years later, at the Taos Art Festival, we saw another artist’s work of a sierra that featured an impossible combination of abstractly shaped purples, oranges, maroons, and reds. The next morning before daybreak, Marsha and I drove to the Río Grande Gorge Bridge, outside of Taos. As the sun rose, we saw that very same multicolor medley wash over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. What is our experience if it is not color? A-ha!
\r\nJim Meehan
\r\nWethersfield, CT

\r\n\r\n

THE HONEYMOONERS
\r\nMy wife and I first came to Ruidoso on our honeymoon in August of 1961. We fell in love with the mild climate, beautiful scenery, landscapes, rivers, lakes, and pine trees. We moved 18 times during our career, but we always came back to Ruidoso, settling permanently in this little slice of heaven 14 years ago. Every day, we enjoy the view of Sierra Blanca Peak from our deck. We also enjoy the Flying J Wrangler cowboy shows, Spencer Theater, Inn of the Mountain Gods, Cowboy Symposium, Ellis Store Country Inn cuisine, and Lincoln County’s Billy the Kid history. What more could we ask for?
\r\nEarl and Jean Gremillion
\r\nRuidoso

\r\n\r\n

CREATURE COMFORTS
\r\nMy “A-ha!” moment arrived when my husband and I took a vacation at the Gila River House, outside Silver City. Our drive west from I-25 on N.M. 152 took us over the Continental Divide, with deep canyons falling away to our right and a peregrine falcon flying below us.

\r\n\r\n

At the house, hummingbirds landed by the feeders and a mule near the fence begged for apples. We relaxed, went birding, and visited the Gila Wilderness.

\r\n\r\n

At night, I would stand outside and gaze upward, enthralled by the clear skies and the sight of the Milky Way. The last night of our stay, we witnessed cattle bawling in search of their kin in the pasture adjacent to us. We found out about irrigation systems as water suddenly flowed in a channel next to the property. In the wee hours of the night, we were awakened by howling; we decided it was coyotes, apparently attracted by lost calves. We enjoyed our calf-and-coyote chorus as much as we enjoyed the abundant wildlife. We left definitely hooked on New Mexico.

\r\n\r\n

The next year, I bought a lot near Datil, where I hope to retire one day. I am constantly amazed by the wide-open spaces, clear azure-and-cobalt skies, laid-back, friendly people, unique and colorful geologic formations, and the lack of humidity. Hopefully, Pennsylvania will soon become my former home.
\r\nJane Smith-Decker
\r\nMillersburg, PA

\r\n\r\n

EXIT HERE
\r\nIn 1998, my son and I drove from the East to visit friends in Tucson. As we crossed from Texas into New Mexico, the beauty of the huge, dark sky overwhelmed me. We spent our first night in New Mexico at a Tucumcari motel across the road from a grazing horse. It was an enchanting night, with a light wind blowing.

\r\n\r\n

As we approached Albuquerque on I-40, I spotted the Petroglyph National Monument in the distance. It looked like a scene from a million years ago, and left me with such a strong impression that I still feel it today. I said to my son, “I could live here.” He felt the same way. We only spent a total of three nights coming and going across New Mexico, but I knew this was where I belonged. The next 10 years, while working in the rat race of New York City, I focused on the goal of moving to Albuquerque. After being here for nearly six years, I don’t care if I ever see the East again.
\r\nCarol Williams
\r\nAlbuquerque

\r\n\r\n

HAPPENING ON HOME
\r\nI was born and raised in Michigan. In 1973, I accompanied a friend on a vacation to New Mexico. We arrived in Albuquerque, and the fun began: a trip to Jemez Pueblo, where we played basketball with the Pueblo kids; a relaxing soak in the Spence Hot Springs, under both starry sky and snowfall; and horseback riding at a stable on Tramway Boulevard.

\r\n\r\n

I immediately fell in love with the state and brought my then-fiancée here. We visited Old Town, and camped out in Madrid and near Taos. We decided to try to save every dollar we made for the next year, and moved here in early June 1975. I towed a small U-Haul with my van, and she followed me in her Pinto. We were without a place to live or jobs.

\r\n\r\n

Obviously, everything worked out. Our two children were born and raised here, and are proud of their parents’ adopted state. Thirty-six years later, I’ve been everywhere there is to go in New Mexico and have never regretted leaving the “Great Rain State.” There’s no place I’d rather live. Favorite places to visit? Kelly, Lincoln, Chama … and Isotopes Park.
\r\nGary Herron
\r\nAlbuquerque

","teaser_raw":"

COLOR THEORY
In 1992, my wife, Marsha, and I saw a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in New York City, and were totally taken by the fantastical colors and forms. We assumed that she had embellished what

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COLOR THEORY
In 1992, my wife, Marsha, and I saw a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in New York City, and were totally taken by the fantastical colors and forms. We assumed that she had embellished what

","description":"COLOR THEORY In 1992, my wife, Marsha, and I saw a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in New York City, and were totally taken by the fantastical colors and forms. We assumed that she had embellished what we thought of as the bland, lifeless landscape of the Southwest desert. In O’Keeffe’s own words, “What is my experience … if not color?” So we decided to go to New Mexico to see the places that inspired her inventiveness, and quickly realized that we needed to keep coming back to get the full picture. Two years later, at the Taos Art Festival, we saw another artist’s work of a sierra that featured an impossible combination of abstractly shaped purples, oranges, maroons, and reds. The next morning before daybreak, Marsha and I drove to the Río Grande Gorge Bridge, outside of Taos. As the sun rose, we saw that very same multicolor medley wash over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. What is our experience if it is not color? A-ha! Jim Meehan Wethersfield, CT THE HONEYMOONERS My wife and I first came to Ruidoso on our honeymoon in August of 1961. We fell in love with the mild climate, beautiful scenery, landscapes, rivers, lakes, and pine trees. We moved 18 times during our career, but we always came back to Ruidoso, settling permanently in this little slice of heaven 14 years ago. Every day, we enjoy the view of Sierra Blanca Peak from our deck. We also enjoy the Flying J Wrangler cowboy shows, Spencer Theater, Inn of the Mountain Gods, Cowboy Symposium, Ellis Store Country Inn cuisine, and Lincoln County’s Billy the Kid history. What more could we ask for? Earl and Jean Gremillion Ruidoso CREATURE COMFORTS My “A-ha!” moment arrived when my husband and I took a vacation at the Gila River House, outside Silver City. Our drive west from I-25 on N.M. 152 took us over the Continental Divide, with deep canyons falling away to our right and a peregrine falcon flying below us. At the house, hummingbirds landed by the feeders and a mule near the fence begged for apples. We relaxed, went birding, and visited the Gila Wilderness. At night, I would stand outside and gaze upward, enthralled by the clear skies and the sight of the Milky Way. The last night of our stay, we witnessed cattle bawling in search of their kin in the pasture adjacent to us. We found out about irrigation systems as water suddenly flowed in a channel next to the property. In the wee hours of the night, we were awakened by howling; we decided it was coyotes, apparently attracted by lost calves. We enjoyed our calf-and-coyote chorus as much as we enjoyed the abundant wildlife. We left definitely hooked on New Mexico. The next year, I bought a lot near Datil, where I hope to retire one day. I am constantly amazed by the wide-open spaces, clear azure-and-cobalt skies, laid-back, friendly people, unique and colorful geologic formations, and the lack of humidity. Hopefully, Pennsylvania will soon become my former home. Jane Smith-Decker Millersburg, PA EXIT HERE In 1998, my son and I drove from the East to visit friends in Tucson. As we crossed from Texas into New Mexico, the beauty of the huge, dark sky overwhelmed me. We spent our first night in New Mexico at a Tucumcari motel across the road from a grazing horse. It was an enchanting night, with a light wind blowing. As we approached Albuquerque on I-40, I spotted the Petroglyph National Monument in the distance. It looked like a scene from a million years ago, and left me with such a strong impression that I still feel it today. I said to my son, “I could live here.” He felt the same way. We only spent a total of three nights coming and going across New Mexico, but I knew this was where I belonged. The next 10 years, while working in the rat race of New York City, I focused on the goal of moving to Albuquerque. After being here for nearly six years, I don’t care if I ever see the East again. Carol Williams Albuquerque HAPPENING ON HOME I was born and raised in Michigan. In 1973, I accompanied a friend on a vacation to New Mexico. We arrived in Albuquerque, and the fun began: a trip to Jemez Pueblo, where we played basketball with the Pueblo kids; a relaxing soak in the Spence Hot Springs, under both starry sky and snowfall; and horseback riding at a stable on Tramway Boulevard. I immediately fell in love with the state and brought my then-fiancée here. We visited Old Town, and camped out in Madrid and near Taos. We decided to try to save every dollar we made for the next year, and moved here in early June 1975. I towed a small U-Haul with my van, and she followed me in her Pinto. We were without a place to live or jobs. Obviously, everything worked out. Our two children were born and raised here, and are proud of their parents’ adopted state. Thirty-six years later, I’ve been everywhere there is to go in New Mexico and have never regretted leaving the “Great Rain State.” There’s no place I’d rather live. Favorite places to visit? Kelly, Lincoln, Chama … and Isotopes Park. Gary Herron Albuquerque","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f982","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/one-of-our-fifty-is-found-85935/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/one-of-our-fifty-is-found-85935/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/one-of-our-fifty-is-found-85935/","metaTitle":"One of Our Fifty Is Found!","metaDescription":"

COLOR THEORY
In 1992, my wife, Marsha, and I saw a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in New York City, and were totally taken by the fantastical colors and forms. We assumed that she had embellished what

","cleanDescription":"COLOR THEORY In 1992, my wife, Marsha, and I saw a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective in New York City, and were totally taken by the fantastical colors and forms. We assumed that she had embellished what we thought of as the bland, lifeless landscape of the Southwest desert. In O’Keeffe’s own words, “What is my experience … if not color?” So we decided to go to New Mexico to see the places that inspired her inventiveness, and quickly realized that we needed to keep coming back to get the full picture. Two years later, at the Taos Art Festival, we saw another artist’s work of a sierra that featured an impossible combination of abstractly shaped purples, oranges, maroons, and reds. The next morning before daybreak, Marsha and I drove to the Río Grande Gorge Bridge, outside of Taos. As the sun rose, we saw that very same multicolor medley wash over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. What is our experience if it is not color? A-ha! Jim Meehan Wethersfield, CT THE HONEYMOONERS My wife and I first came to Ruidoso on our honeymoon in August of 1961. We fell in love with the mild climate, beautiful scenery, landscapes, rivers, lakes, and pine trees. We moved 18 times during our career, but we always came back to Ruidoso, settling permanently in this little slice of heaven 14 years ago. Every day, we enjoy the view of Sierra Blanca Peak from our deck. We also enjoy the Flying J Wrangler cowboy shows, Spencer Theater, Inn of the Mountain Gods, Cowboy Symposium, Ellis Store Country Inn cuisine, and Lincoln County’s Billy the Kid history. What more could we ask for? Earl and Jean Gremillion Ruidoso CREATURE COMFORTS My “A-ha!” moment arrived when my husband and I took a vacation at the Gila River House, outside Silver City. Our drive west from I-25 on N.M. 152 took us over the Continental Divide, with deep canyons falling away to our right and a peregrine falcon flying below us. At the house, hummingbirds landed by the feeders and a mule near the fence begged for apples. We relaxed, went birding, and visited the Gila Wilderness. At night, I would stand outside and gaze upward, enthralled by the clear skies and the sight of the Milky Way. The last night of our stay, we witnessed cattle bawling in search of their kin in the pasture adjacent to us. We found out about irrigation systems as water suddenly flowed in a channel next to the property. In the wee hours of the night, we were awakened by howling; we decided it was coyotes, apparently attracted by lost calves. We enjoyed our calf-and-coyote chorus as much as we enjoyed the abundant wildlife. We left definitely hooked on New Mexico. The next year, I bought a lot near Datil, where I hope to retire one day. I am constantly amazed by the wide-open spaces, clear azure-and-cobalt skies, laid-back, friendly people, unique and colorful geologic formations, and the lack of humidity. Hopefully, Pennsylvania will soon become my former home. Jane Smith-Decker Millersburg, PA EXIT HERE In 1998, my son and I drove from the East to visit friends in Tucson. As we crossed from Texas into New Mexico, the beauty of the huge, dark sky overwhelmed me. We spent our first night in New Mexico at a Tucumcari motel across the road from a grazing horse. It was an enchanting night, with a light wind blowing. As we approached Albuquerque on I-40, I spotted the Petroglyph National Monument in the distance. It looked like a scene from a million years ago, and left me with such a strong impression that I still feel it today. I said to my son, “I could live here.” He felt the same way. We only spent a total of three nights coming and going across New Mexico, but I knew this was where I belonged. The next 10 years, while working in the rat race of New York City, I focused on the goal of moving to Albuquerque. After being here for nearly six years, I don’t care if I ever see the East again. Carol Williams Albuquerque HAPPENING ON HOME I was born and raised in Michigan. In 1973, I accompanied a friend on a vacation to New Mexico. We arrived in Albuquerque, and the fun began: a trip to Jemez Pueblo, where we played basketball with the Pueblo kids; a relaxing soak in the Spence Hot Springs, under both starry sky and snowfall; and horseback riding at a stable on Tramway Boulevard. I immediately fell in love with the state and brought my then-fiancée here. We visited Old Town, and camped out in Madrid and near Taos. We decided to try to save every dollar we made for the next year, and moved here in early June 1975. I towed a small U-Haul with my van, and she followed me in her Pinto. We were without a place to live or jobs. Obviously, everything worked out. Our two children were born and raised here, and are proud of their parents’ adopted state. Thirty-six years later, I’ve been everywhere there is to go in New Mexico and have never regretted leaving the “Great Rain State.” There’s no place I’d rather live. Favorite places to visit? Kelly, Lincoln, Chama … and Isotopes Park. Gary Herron Albuquerque","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-21T13:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.580Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f981","author_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1c9","title":"Chicago, NM","slug":"artscapes-judy-chicago-85934","image_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4f8","publish_start":"2014-05-21T13:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58b4b2404c2774661570f27b","58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","58ed168096df945d13d07701","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090c53e1efff4c9916f9ec","59090c80e1efff4c9916fa05","59090c49e1efff4c9916f9e6","59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"International art star and Belén denizen Judy Chicago brings new work to the table.","created":"2014-05-21T13:37:24.000Z","legacy_id":"85934","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"chicago, nm","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.212Z","active":true,"description_raw":"\r\n\r\n

A V-SHAPED TABLE SET for a celebratory feast, The Dinner Party, with its 39 porcelain plates, depicts florid, undulating butterfly and vulva symbols. Its lavish linens come with equally elaborate embroidery that stitched a total of 1,038 women’s names into art history. If The Dinner Party’s morning-glory colors and petticoat-wavy styling raise a metaphoric toast, it’s with a glass that has been emphatically lifted by tens of millions of people ever since the work’s debut in 1979. Since 2002, the piece has lived at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where it accounts for a third of the museum’s traffic.

\r\n\r\n

The artist who masterminded it, Judy Chicago, became a celebrity in one fell swoop. But the level of revilement from prominent critics came as a bit of a shock. “Mainly cliché…with the colors of a Taiwanese souvenir factory,” wrote Robert Hughes. Hilton Kramer called The Dinner Party “failed art…so mired in the pieties of a cause that it quite fails to capture any independent artistic life of its own.” As critics slammed its methods—handicrafts such as needlework and ceramics—their rage seemed equally directed toward its inherent politics.

\r\n\r\n

It wasn’t the first time Chicago had stepped into the ring. She advanced the notion of her own toughness in a photograph promoting her exhibit at Cal State Fullerton. It shows her leaning against the ropes of a boxing ring, wearing satin shorts, boxing gloves, and a sweatshirt with her name emblazoned across her chest. In the history of Judy Chicago as icon, this portrait lives alongside another one that finds her perched at the edge of The Dinner Party table, dolled up in burgundy lipstick and sequined eyeglasses. Regard the two together and you’ll find that the images indeed speak: Not only has Judy Chicago fought her way out of corners and sailed her trimaran of a table over the high-art threshold, she also demanded the art world admit women.

\r\n\r\n

Now 75, Chicago is still a fast-talking, fast-moving target. As always, she prefers high-tops to high heels, and revels in the fact that re-imagining history really can change it.

\r\n\r\n

With the June 6 opening of Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984–2014, the New Mexico Museum of Art (NMMA) spotlights both the large and small creations that have marked Chicago’s 30 years of living and working in New Mexico. The Brooklyn Museum, in the exhibition Chicago in L.A., revisits her earlier, emergent years, which she spent in California doing things like setting off Roman candles and fireworks in public parks to experiment with “mixing colors” in the air.

\r\n\r\n

These exhibits come on the heels of multiple London shows last year, and, between 2011and 2012, at least nine appearances of her work in the immense, multi-location Southern California art retrospective, Pacific Standard Time. “Pacific Standard Time blasted a hole in the notion that Judy Chicago is only about The Dinner Party,” Chicago said recently by phone. “Since then, there has been increasing interest in my work across my career. That’s been great.”

\r\n\r\n

It’s also opened up an opportunity to focus on what she’s done here.

\r\n\r\n

“Judy’s years in New Mexico give us some bookends to start looking at work that people probably haven’t seen,” says New Mexico Museum of Art curator Merry Scully.

\r\n\r\n

Scully says her curatorial focus for Local Color was to show Chicago’s rangy use of media, from tapestry to glass to painting, as well as to include more personal objects such as watercolors of the Los Lunas hills, or glass seder plates that Chicago made when she was beginning to reclaim her Jewish faith.

\r\n\r\n

“We not only wanted to bring peoples’ impressions of Judy up-to-date, we wanted to add things that wouldn’t necessarily be associated with her, to show a more personal side of the artist,” Scully says.

\r\n\r\n

After she moved to New Mexico in the 1980s, Chicago turned toward deconstructions of masculinity. In 1982, she took a trip to Rome and saw in person the masterworks that she’d seen in art history books. “The Renaissance ushered in not only modern society, but also our concept of the heroic,” Chicago says.

\r\n\r\n

Then she holed up in a friend’s Canyon Road studio, purposely isolating herself to make paintings that scared her. She grappled explicitly with everything those heroic-male poses really conveyed. The resulting body of work is called Powerplay, and selections from it will constitute the 1984 “bookend” of the NMMA show.

\r\n\r\n

As fate would have it, not long after creating Powerplay, Chicago met and fell in love with photographer Donald Woodman, an original metrosexual who sported a manicure and pastel-colored eyeglass frames. They married in 1985 on New Year’s Eve. Since 1996, their home and work studios have been in the historic Belen Hotel, which they own. As they renovated the hotel, traveling between Albuquerque and Belén, Chicago captured the Los Lunas hills. To refine her technique, she enrolled anonymously in a community college class. They share the hotel with half a dozen cats. Over the years, Chicago has cast likenesses of these pets into colorful ceramics that will watch over the NMMA show like household deities.

\r\n\r\n

Wherever light goes, heavy is sure to follow. This is true, says Scully, specifically in large-scale works such as the painting-photo combinations from The Holocaust Project and Nuclear Wasted that Chicago completed in collaboration with Woodman. Scully explains how important works such as Four Questions use a kind of accordion-like screen to juxtapose and examine pieces of international and New Mexico history.

\r\n\r\n

Approached from one side, an image appears to be a documentary photograph of a World War II German soldier, or from the other side, a seemingly benign suburban fifties house. A picture of a man in a chef’s hat grilling outdoors shifts into a nuclear arsenal secreted in a mountainside. When the image is approached dead-on, it dissolves into visual nonsense. “Images blur and questions appear as metaphor for how blurry the answers are,” Chicago says.

\r\n\r\n

More easily definable, embroidery and weaving selections from Resolutions: A Stitch in Time share evidence of how Chicago’s Belén studio became a place to gather large groups of needle-working women, such as the peers with whom she created The Dinner Party. They met in Belén to stitch work that combined traditional proverbs with multicultural imagery.

\r\n\r\n

Uniting Judy Chicago’s exuberant oeuvre—“small-c” catholic in media and “big-A” activist in message—has “a humanist quality,” says Scully.

\r\n\r\n

“It’s the opposite of a legacy show. It’s a ‘she’s alive’ show.” ✜

","teaser_raw":"","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725ec7","author":{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1c9","name":"Ellen Berkovitch","image_id":"59139eb0da8f9b60115b37d2","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.243Z","blog":"magazine","_name_sort":"ellen berkovitch","updated":"2017-05-10T23:13:57.752Z","image":{"_id":"59139eb0da8f9b60115b37d2","original_public_id":"clients/newmexico/EB_BW_e390e804-81b3-4224-b817-a4288ad98367","title":"Ellen Berkovitch","resource_raw":{"public_id":"clients/newmexico/EB_BW_e390e804-81b3-4224-b817-a4288ad98367","version":1494458028,"signature":"640f0ffc9e2f7e991e371e7f931b069366a9fdfb","width":2436,"height":2436,"format":"jpg","resource_type":"image","created_at":"2017-05-10T23:13:48.000Z","bytes":606647,"type":"upload","etag":"75dedc361c4ff752cbd67fd57cee3eda","url":"http://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1494458028/clients/newmexico/EB_BW_e390e804-81b3-4224-b817-a4288ad98367.jpg","secure_url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1494458028/clients/newmexico/EB_BW_e390e804-81b3-4224-b817-a4288ad98367.jpg","exif":{"Copyright":"(C) 2014"},"original_filename":"file"},"alt_text_raw":"Ellen Berkovitch","content_owner":"magazine","title_sort":"ellen berkovitch","updated":"2017-05-10T23:13:52.120Z","deleted":false,"created":"2017-05-10T23:13:52.121Z","id":"59139eb0da8f9b60115b37d2","type":"image","resource":{"raw":{"resource_type":"image","format":"jpg","public_id":"clients/newmexico/EB_BW_e390e804-81b3-4224-b817-a4288ad98367"}},"inAssetRequest":false,"alt_text":"Ellen Berkovitch"},"_totalPosts":2,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1c9","title":"Ellen Berkovitch","slug":"ellen-berkovitch","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/ellen-berkovitch/58b4b2404c2774661570f1c9/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/ellen-berkovitch/58b4b2404c2774661570f1c9/#comments","totalPosts":2},"categories":[{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f27b","blog":"magazine","title":"Artscapes","_title_sort":"artscapes","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.491Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.499Z","_totalPosts":30,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f27b","slug":"artscapes","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/artscapes/58b4b2404c2774661570f27b/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/artscapes/58b4b2404c2774661570f27b/#comments","totalPosts":30},{"_id":"58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","title":"Culture","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"culture","updated":"2017-03-14T18:41:36.747Z","created":"2017-03-14T18:41:36.748Z","_totalPosts":258,"id":"58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","slug":"culture","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/culture/58c839601f16f9392cf09a98/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/culture/58c839601f16f9392cf09a98/#comments","totalPosts":258},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"image":{"_id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4f8","legacy_id":"85944","title":"Main -judy -chicago","created":"2014-05-21T16:12:34.000Z","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:08.983Z","credits":"Henry Lopez","content_owner":"magazine","tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"title_sort":"main -judy -chicago","resource_raw":{"public_id":"clients/newmexico/main_judy_chicago_9d53f4cb-d95b-419b-b11f-6d49da2e6b8f","version":1488237129,"signature":"456293749a27701050c97b9d1ecd6d6d662827b5","width":490,"height":440,"format":"jpg","resource_type":"image","created_at":"2017-02-27T23:12:09.000Z","bytes":39717,"type":"upload","etag":"53b44a3f041d41318432c1d1ad6a7b7f","url":"http://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1488237129/clients/newmexico/main_judy_chicago_9d53f4cb-d95b-419b-b11f-6d49da2e6b8f.jpg","secure_url":"https://res.cloudinary.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1488237129/clients/newmexico/main_judy_chicago_9d53f4cb-d95b-419b-b11f-6d49da2e6b8f.jpg","original_filename":"main-judy-chicago"},"deleted":false,"id":"58b4b2494c2774661570f4f8","type":"image","resource":{"raw":{"resource_type":"image","format":"jpg","public_id":"clients/newmexico/main_judy_chicago_9d53f4cb-d95b-419b-b11f-6d49da2e6b8f"}},"inAssetRequest":false,"alt_text":"Main -judy -chicago"},"tags":[{"_id":"59090c49e1efff4c9916f9e6","title":"Art","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"art","updated":"2017-05-02T22:46:33.341Z","created":"2017-05-02T22:46:33.341Z","_totalPosts":105,"id":"59090c49e1efff4c9916f9e6","slug":"art","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/art/59090c49e1efff4c9916f9e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/tag/art/59090c49e1efff4c9916f9e6/#comments","totalPosts":105}],"teaser":"","description":"Need To Know Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984–2014 New Mexico Museum of Art. June 6–Oct. 12. Admission: $6 for residents; $9 for nonresidents. 107 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe; (505) 476-5072; nmartmuseum.com A V-SHAPED TABLE SET for a celebratory feast, The Dinner Party, with its 39 porcelain plates, depicts florid, undulating butterfly and vulva symbols. Its lavish linens come with equally elaborate embroidery that stitched a total of 1,038 women’s names into art history. If The Dinner Party’s morning-glory colors and petticoat-wavy styling raise a metaphoric toast, it’s with a glass that has been emphatically lifted by tens of millions of people ever since the work’s debut in 1979. Since 2002, the piece has lived at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where it accounts for a third of the museum’s traffic. The artist who masterminded it, Judy Chicago, became a celebrity in one fell swoop. But the level of revilement from prominent critics came as a bit of a shock. “Mainly cliché…with the colors of a Taiwanese souvenir factory,” wrote Robert Hughes. Hilton Kramer called The Dinner Party “failed art…so mired in the pieties of a cause that it quite fails to capture any independent artistic life of its own.” As critics slammed its methods—handicrafts such as needlework and ceramics—their rage seemed equally directed toward its inherent politics. It wasn’t the first time Chicago had stepped into the ring. She advanced the notion of her own toughness in a photograph promoting her exhibit at Cal State Fullerton. It shows her leaning against the ropes of a boxing ring, wearing satin shorts, boxing gloves, and a sweatshirt with her name emblazoned across her chest. In the history of Judy Chicago as icon, this portrait lives alongside another one that finds her perched at the edge of The Dinner Party table, dolled up in burgundy lipstick and sequined eyeglasses. Regard the two together and you’ll find that the images indeed speak: Not only has Judy Chicago fought her way out of corners and sailed her trimaran of a table over the high-art threshold, she also demanded the art world admit women. Now 75, Chicago is still a fast-talking, fast-moving target. As always, she prefers high-tops to high heels, and revels in the fact that re-imagining history really can change it. With the June 6 opening of Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984–2014 , the New Mexico Museum of Art (NMMA) spotlights both the large and small creations that have marked Chicago’s 30 years of living and working in New Mexico. The Brooklyn Museum, in the exhibition Chicago in L.A., revisits her earlier, emergent years, which she spent in California doing things like setting off Roman candles and fireworks in public parks to experiment with “mixing colors” in the air. These exhibits come on the heels of multiple London shows last year, and, between 2011and 2012, at least nine appearances of her work in the immense, multi-location Southern California art retrospective, Pacific Standard Time . “ Pacific Standard Time blasted a hole in the notion that Judy Chicago is only about The Dinner Party,” Chicago said recently by phone. “Since then, there has been increasing interest in my work across my career. That’s been great.” It’s also opened up an opportunity to focus on what she’s done here. “Judy’s years in New Mexico give us some bookends to start looking at work that people probably haven’t seen,” says New Mexico Museum of Art curator Merry Scully. Scully says her curatorial focus for Local Color was to show Chicago’s rangy use of media, from tapestry to glass to painting, as well as to include more personal objects such as watercolors of the Los Lunas hills, or glass seder plates that Chicago made when she was beginning to reclaim her Jewish faith. “We not only wanted to bring peoples’ impressions of Judy up-to-date, we wanted to add things that wouldn’t necessarily be associated with her, to show a more personal side of the artist,” Scully says. After she moved to New Mexico in the 1980s, Chicago turned toward deconstructions of masculinity. In 1982, she took a trip to Rome and saw in person the masterworks that she’d seen in art history books. “The Renaissance ushered in not only modern society, but also our concept of the heroic,” Chicago says. Then she holed up in a friend’s Canyon Road studio, purposely isolating herself to make paintings that scared her. She grappled explicitly with everything those heroic-male poses really conveyed. The resulting body of work is called Powerplay, and selections from it will constitute the 1984 “bookend” of the NMMA show. As fate would have it, not long after creating Powerplay, Chicago met and fell in love with photographer Donald Woodman, an original metrosexual who sported a manicure and pastel-colored eyeglass frames. They married in 1985 on New Year’s Eve. Since 1996, their home and work studios have been in the historic Belen Hotel, which they own. As they renovated the hotel, traveling between Albuquerque and Belén, Chicago captured the Los Lunas hills. To refine her technique, she enrolled anonymously in a community college class. They share the hotel with half a dozen cats. Over the years, Chicago has cast likenesses of these pets into colorful ceramics that will watch over the NMMA show like household deities. Wherever light goes, heavy is sure to follow. This is true, says Scully, specifically in large-scale works such as the painting-photo combinations from The Holocaust Project and Nuclear Wasted that Chicago completed in collaboration with Woodman. Scully explains how important works such as Four Questions use a kind of accordion-like screen to juxtapose and examine pieces of international and New Mexico history. Approached from one side, an image appears to be a documentary photograph of a World War II German soldier, or from the other side, a seemingly benign suburban fifties house. A picture of a man in a chef’s hat grilling outdoors shifts into a nuclear arsenal secreted in a mountainside. When the image is approached dead-on, it dissolves into visual nonsense. “Images blur and questions appear as metaphor for how blurry the answers are,” Chicago says. More easily definable, embroidery and weaving selections from Resolutions: A Stitch in Time share evidence of how Chicago’s Belén studio became a place to gather large groups of needle-working women, such as the peers with whom she created The Dinner Party. They met in Belén to stitch work that combined traditional proverbs with multicultural imagery. Uniting Judy Chicago’s exuberant oeuvre—“small-c” catholic in media and “big-A” activist in message—has “a humanist quality,” says Scully. “It’s the opposite of a legacy show. It’s a ‘she’s alive’ show.” ✜","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f981","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/artscapes-judy-chicago-85934/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/artscapes-judy-chicago-85934/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/artscapes-judy-chicago-85934/","metaTitle":"Chicago, NM","metaDescription":"","cleanDescription":"Need To Know Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984–2014 New Mexico Museum of Art. June 6–Oct. 12. Admission: $6 for residents; $9 for nonresidents. 107 W. Palace Ave., Santa Fe; (505) 476-5072; nmartmuseum.com A V-SHAPED TABLE SET for a celebratory feast, The Dinner Party, with its 39 porcelain plates, depicts florid, undulating butterfly and vulva symbols. Its lavish linens come with equally elaborate embroidery that stitched a total of 1,038 women’s names into art history. If The Dinner Party’s morning-glory colors and petticoat-wavy styling raise a metaphoric toast, it’s with a glass that has been emphatically lifted by tens of millions of people ever since the work’s debut in 1979. Since 2002, the piece has lived at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where it accounts for a third of the museum’s traffic. The artist who masterminded it, Judy Chicago, became a celebrity in one fell swoop. But the level of revilement from prominent critics came as a bit of a shock. “Mainly cliché…with the colors of a Taiwanese souvenir factory,” wrote Robert Hughes. Hilton Kramer called The Dinner Party “failed art…so mired in the pieties of a cause that it quite fails to capture any independent artistic life of its own.” As critics slammed its methods—handicrafts such as needlework and ceramics—their rage seemed equally directed toward its inherent politics. It wasn’t the first time Chicago had stepped into the ring. She advanced the notion of her own toughness in a photograph promoting her exhibit at Cal State Fullerton. It shows her leaning against the ropes of a boxing ring, wearing satin shorts, boxing gloves, and a sweatshirt with her name emblazoned across her chest. In the history of Judy Chicago as icon, this portrait lives alongside another one that finds her perched at the edge of The Dinner Party table, dolled up in burgundy lipstick and sequined eyeglasses. Regard the two together and you’ll find that the images indeed speak: Not only has Judy Chicago fought her way out of corners and sailed her trimaran of a table over the high-art threshold, she also demanded the art world admit women. Now 75, Chicago is still a fast-talking, fast-moving target. As always, she prefers high-tops to high heels, and revels in the fact that re-imagining history really can change it. With the June 6 opening of Local Color: Judy Chicago in New Mexico 1984–2014 , the New Mexico Museum of Art (NMMA) spotlights both the large and small creations that have marked Chicago’s 30 years of living and working in New Mexico. The Brooklyn Museum, in the exhibition Chicago in L.A., revisits her earlier, emergent years, which she spent in California doing things like setting off Roman candles and fireworks in public parks to experiment with “mixing colors” in the air. These exhibits come on the heels of multiple London shows last year, and, between 2011and 2012, at least nine appearances of her work in the immense, multi-location Southern California art retrospective, Pacific Standard Time . “ Pacific Standard Time blasted a hole in the notion that Judy Chicago is only about The Dinner Party,” Chicago said recently by phone. “Since then, there has been increasing interest in my work across my career. That’s been great.” It’s also opened up an opportunity to focus on what she’s done here. “Judy’s years in New Mexico give us some bookends to start looking at work that people probably haven’t seen,” says New Mexico Museum of Art curator Merry Scully. Scully says her curatorial focus for Local Color was to show Chicago’s rangy use of media, from tapestry to glass to painting, as well as to include more personal objects such as watercolors of the Los Lunas hills, or glass seder plates that Chicago made when she was beginning to reclaim her Jewish faith. “We not only wanted to bring peoples’ impressions of Judy up-to-date, we wanted to add things that wouldn’t necessarily be associated with her, to show a more personal side of the artist,” Scully says. After she moved to New Mexico in the 1980s, Chicago turned toward deconstructions of masculinity. In 1982, she took a trip to Rome and saw in person the masterworks that she’d seen in art history books. “The Renaissance ushered in not only modern society, but also our concept of the heroic,” Chicago says. Then she holed up in a friend’s Canyon Road studio, purposely isolating herself to make paintings that scared her. She grappled explicitly with everything those heroic-male poses really conveyed. The resulting body of work is called Powerplay, and selections from it will constitute the 1984 “bookend” of the NMMA show. As fate would have it, not long after creating Powerplay, Chicago met and fell in love with photographer Donald Woodman, an original metrosexual who sported a manicure and pastel-colored eyeglass frames. They married in 1985 on New Year’s Eve. Since 1996, their home and work studios have been in the historic Belen Hotel, which they own. As they renovated the hotel, traveling between Albuquerque and Belén, Chicago captured the Los Lunas hills. To refine her technique, she enrolled anonymously in a community college class. They share the hotel with half a dozen cats. Over the years, Chicago has cast likenesses of these pets into colorful ceramics that will watch over the NMMA show like household deities. Wherever light goes, heavy is sure to follow. This is true, says Scully, specifically in large-scale works such as the painting-photo combinations from The Holocaust Project and Nuclear Wasted that Chicago completed in collaboration with Woodman. Scully explains how important works such as Four Questions use a kind of accordion-like screen to juxtapose and examine pieces of international and New Mexico history. Approached from one side, an image appears to be a documentary photograph of a World War II German soldier, or from the other side, a seemingly benign suburban fifties house. A picture of a man in a chef’s hat grilling outdoors shifts into a nuclear arsenal secreted in a mountainside. When the image is approached dead-on, it dissolves into visual nonsense. “Images blur and questions appear as metaphor for how blurry the answers are,” Chicago says. More easily definable, embroidery and weaving selections from Resolutions: A Stitch in Time share evidence of how Chicago’s Belén studio became a place to gather large groups of needle-working women, such as the peers with whom she created The Dinner Party. They met in Belén to stitch work that combined traditional proverbs with multicultural imagery. Uniting Judy Chicago’s exuberant oeuvre—“small-c” catholic in media and “big-A” activist in message—has “a humanist quality,” says Scully. “It’s the opposite of a legacy show. It’s a ‘she’s alive’ show.” ✜","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-21T13:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.580Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f980","author_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1a8","title":"Surreal Estates","slug":"living-nm-85932","publish_start":"2014-05-19T16:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58b4b2404c2774661570f2fb","58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090da3e1efff4c9916fad6","59090c80e1efff4c9916fa05","59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_tagline":"A pink Masonic temple, a haunted hacienda, a ranch where Billy the Kid once trespassed ... in other words: real estate, NM-style.","created":"2014-05-19T16:49:18.000Z","legacy_id":"85932","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"surreal estates","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.579Z","active":true,"description_raw":"\r\n\r\n

MEETING THE MAJOR’S GHOST
\r\nCasa Vieja, Corrales
\r\nAlthough owner Floyd Wilson hasn’t personally bumped into the ghost of the Major in the aptly named Casa Vieja (old house), other people swear that he exists. “He’s got epaulets on his shoulders,” Wilson says, explaining the apparition’s military apparel.

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The rambling 300-year-old home and restaurant is a landmark in Corrales. Built in the 1700s, its origins are “shrouded in legend,” Wilson says. With a curriculum vitae that includes possibly apocryphal engagements as a courthouse, insane asylum, brothel, and convent, the place sounds like an aristocrat’s dacha in a Dostoyevsky novel.

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During one renovation, Wilson says, workers chiseling into a thick adobe wall excavated a portrait of the Duke of Épernon; a similar painting of the 17th-century French nobleman hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Who hid the duke’s image in the walls of a Corrales adobe, and why? Wilson implicates the Major in the house’s mysteries. “I’d be over there cleaning up, and I’d swear I’d lock a door, and the next time I’d go, it would be unlocked,” he says.

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Deemed a “cultural property” by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, and blessed by a structural engineer’s approval, the house is ready to go, says Wilson.

\r\n\r\n

Casa Vieja: 4541 Corrales Rd. $579,000 or $5,000 monthly lease. 5,422 sq. ft.; concert patio seats 40. Land: 1.6 acres. Commercial or residential. Broker: Dave Wesley, Roger Cox and Associates, Albuquerque; (505) 379-1554, (505) 268-2800; mynm.us/casavieja

\r\n\r\n

LIFE INSIDE AN O’KEEFFE
\r\nRancho de Abiquiú
\r\nUp the Río Chama, the sprawling Rancho de Abiquiú includes a gracious 12,000-square-foot 19th-century hacienda restored by premier builder and Santa Fe– style maven Sharon Woods. You enter the fortified courtyard through a classic zaguán, or gated passageway, typical of defensive haciendas on New Mexico’s Spanish frontier. Other buildings include a brick Victorian house, various casitas and offices, a full equestrian facility with an apartment and veterinarian’s office, Quonset huts, corrals, cattle-loading chutes, and scales—the works for an operating ranch.

\r\n\r\n

The ranch’s 263 acres extend along the fertile irrigated river bottom, below hulking black basalt mesas and craggy white cliffs that look like melted candle wax. Need a little more elbow room? You can add an adjacent 6,000 acres.

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The setting has enticed various Hollywood filmmakers, who’ve kept horses and livestock in the corrals for films like The Lone Ranger and Cowboys & Aliens. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas slept in the hacienda when filming Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

\r\n\r\n

If you bought this place—asking price, $7.5 million—it’d be like taking up residence inside a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

\r\n\r\n

Rancho de Abiquiú: $7,500,000. 8 bedrooms, 8 full baths, 2 partial baths. Total interior: approx. 23,690 sq. ft. Land: approx. 263 acres. Broker: Maureen Mestas, Sotheby’s International Realty, Santa Fe; (505) 310-1050; mynm.us/abiquiuranch

\r\n\r\n

A WIDOW’S WALK OVER ADOBE WALLS
\r\nAmador House, Las Cruces
\r\nWith 18-inch-thick adobe walls, 12-foot ceilings, tapered Doric columns on the porch, and a rooftop “widow’s walk” crowning the whole shooting match, the Frank Amador home in Las Cruces showcases southern New Mexico Territorial style, circa 1905. The defining trait might be the central-hallway floor plan, a design imported from the East as the military and the railroad brought ideas, tools, and craftsmen to the New Mexico Territory in the late 1800s. First, owner Frank Amador helped his father run the Amador Hotel, then he took over the livery stables and handled the town’s mail. Though recently renovated, the home’s unspoiled historical detailing includes the original front door and wavy-glass windows throughout. Amador House: 117 S. Miranda St. 3 bedrooms, 3 baths. $429,000. Land: .33 acre. Broker: Elaine Szalay, RE/MAX Classic Realty, Las Cruces; (575) 650-5151; mynm.us/amadorhouse.

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BACK AT THE RANCH WITH CUSTER’S PIANO
\r\nJornado Ranch
\r\nWhen Bob Brown bought the Jornado Ranch east of Truth or Consequences 30 years ago, he found an old piano in a crate in a lone building, a shed along the railroad tracks. “After thorough checking, we found the owner was General George Armstrong Custer’s wife,” he says. Around 1871, “It had been pulled off the train onto the siding and no one knew all those years.” That’s just an appetizer in the fourcourse history of Jornado Ranch, homesteaded in 1868. The cast of characters who passed through this land of wild horse herds and Native ruins could feature in a highlight reel of south-central New Mexico pageantry: Don Juan de Oñate, who in 1598 came to New Mexico as its first governor, trekked across the ranch along the dreaded Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death), a shortcut on the Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Oñate lost his son in a skirmish and buried him here; he lingered at the site for a funeral mass, says Bob’s son Jerry Brown, the ranch historian. Kit Carson rode and Bishop Lamy walked through the ranch. Billy the Kid left tracks and later, in 1896, his nemesis Sheriff Pat Garrett avoided a shoot-out with accused murderer Oliver Lee. Author Eugene Manlove Rhodes set part of his classic 1926 story about Garrett, “Pasó por Aquí,” on the ranch, where he courted some of the girls of the long-established area families, Jerry says.

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Still a working cattle operation, Jornado Ranch has a front-row seat for the future: Across-the-road neighbor Spaceport America awaits Sir Richard Branson to initiate the era of space tourism with the first launch of SpaceShipTwo. Jornado Ranch: East of Truth or Consequences. $4.2 million. Main house; manager’s house; assorted outbuildings, corrals, and barns. Land: 28,028 acres (deeded and leased). Broker: Max Kiehne, Centerfire Real Estate, Los Lunas; (505) 321-6078; mynm.us/jornadoranch

\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

A GEM FROM THE MINING FRONTIER
\r\nAshton House, Silver City
\r\nFirst an Apache camping ground, then a frontier mining outpost, and now a college town, Silver City boasts plenty of classic Victorian architecture. Architect-builder Robert Black, who built the Charles Ashton home on West Broadway in 1883, helped kick-start the trend. Black ran a planing mill that turned out fine woodwork, a key ingredient of the style, according to Silver City historian Susan Berry.

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This two-story brick home with steeply peaked twin dormers and gently arched windows—one with a lovely star ornament— radiates urban-frontier allure. Berry says Ashton operated the Centennial and Red Onion saloons and their associated gambling parlors. His wife, Lida, was an accomplished singer.

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The next owner, Jo. E. Sheridan, editor of the Silver City Enterprise, bought the place three years later. Today, an updated kitchen blends old and new with simple tile, contemporary appliances, and glass-front cabinets echoing Craftsman style. Modifications aside, this charmer maintains its Victorian-era modest elegance.

\r\n\r\n

Ashton House: 515 W. Broadway. $279,000. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,520 sq. ft. Land: .23 acre. Broker: Blake Farley, Real Living Hacienda Realty, Silver City; (575) 388-1921; mynm.us/ashtonhouse

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Charles C. Poling is a contributing editor specializing in homes and architecture.

","teaser_raw":"","version_id":"59f8ebb4648901d6cd725f00","author":{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f1a8","name":"Charles C. 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Poling","slug":"charles-c-poling","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/charles-c-poling/58b4b2404c2774661570f1a8/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/author/charles-c-poling/58b4b2404c2774661570f1a8/#comments","totalPosts":16},"categories":[{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2fb","blog":"magazine","title":"NM Living","_title_sort":"nm living","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.583Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.589Z","_totalPosts":18,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2fb","slug":"nm-living","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/nm-living/58b4b2404c2774661570f2fb/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/nm-living/58b4b2404c2774661570f2fb/#comments","totalPosts":18},{"_id":"58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","title":"Culture","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"culture","updated":"2017-03-14T18:41:36.747Z","created":"2017-03-14T18:41:36.748Z","_totalPosts":258,"id":"58c839601f16f9392cf09a98","slug":"culture","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/culture/58c839601f16f9392cf09a98/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/culture/58c839601f16f9392cf09a98/#comments","totalPosts":258},{"_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","blog":"magazine","title":"June 2014","_title_sort":"june 2014","updated":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.568Z","created":"2017-02-27T23:12:00.574Z","_totalPosts":13,"id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6","slug":"june-2014","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/category/june-2014/58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6/#comments","totalPosts":13}],"teaser":"","description":"ENCHANTED FORTRESS Scottish Rite Temple, Santa Fe The massive pink Scottish Rite Temple anchors the north end of downtown Santa Fe like a Moorish citadel. That’s no surprise, since architects Hunt and Burns modeled the Masonic temple after the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Thanks to that architectural ancestry, the 45,000-square-foot landmark harmonizes with the prevailing Pueblo Revival and Territorial Revival architecture codified in the capital city’s historic district. Built of poured concrete in 1912—the year New Mexico attained statehood—the temple includes a 400-seat theater with hand-painted mural backdrops, several large dormitories, a 3,000-square-foot commercial kitchen, and an enclosed courtyard. These features suggest future incarnations as a mixed-use condo/commercial development or educational center. Moorish arches and a crenellated parapet atop the main entry tower—where archers might repulse a siege—add to the enchanted-fortress mystique. Scottish Rite Temple: 463 Paseo de Peralta. $6,900,000. Building: approx. 44,000 sq. ft. (aggregate living space). Land: approx. 2 acres. Broker: Maureen Mestas, Sotheby’s International Realty, Santa Fe; (505) 310-1050; mynm.us/sftemple MEETING THE MAJOR’S GHOST Casa Vieja, Corrales Although owner Floyd Wilson hasn’t personally bumped into the ghost of the Major in the aptly named Casa Vieja (old house), other people swear that he exists. “He’s got epaulets on his shoulders,” Wilson says, explaining the apparition’s military apparel. The rambling 300-year-old home and restaurant is a landmark in Corrales. Built in the 1700s, its origins are “shrouded in legend,” Wilson says. With a curriculum vitae that includes possibly apocryphal engagements as a courthouse, insane asylum, brothel, and convent, the place sounds like an aristocrat’s dacha in a Dostoyevsky novel. During one renovation, Wilson says, workers chiseling into a thick adobe wall excavated a portrait of the Duke of Épernon; a similar painting of the 17th-century French nobleman hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Who hid the duke’s image in the walls of a Corrales adobe, and why? Wilson implicates the Major in the house’s mysteries. “I’d be over there cleaning up, and I’d swear I’d lock a door, and the next time I’d go, it would be unlocked,” he says. Deemed a “cultural property” by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, and blessed by a structural engineer’s approval, the house is ready to go, says Wilson. Casa Vieja: 4541 Corrales Rd. $579,000 or $5,000 monthly lease. 5,422 sq. ft.; concert patio seats 40. Land: 1.6 acres. Commercial or residential. Broker: Dave Wesley, Roger Cox and Associates, Albuquerque; (505) 379-1554, (505) 268-2800; mynm.us/casavieja LIFE INSIDE AN O’KEEFFE Rancho de Abiquiú Up the Río Chama, the sprawling Rancho de Abiquiú includes a gracious 12,000-square-foot 19th-century hacienda restored by premier builder and Santa Fe– style maven Sharon Woods. You enter the fortified courtyard through a classic zaguán, or gated passageway, typical of defensive haciendas on New Mexico’s Spanish frontier. Other buildings include a brick Victorian house, various casitas and offices, a full equestrian facility with an apartment and veterinarian’s office, Quonset huts, corrals, cattle-loading chutes, and scales—the works for an operating ranch. The ranch’s 263 acres extend along the fertile irrigated river bottom, below hulking black basalt mesas and craggy white cliffs that look like melted candle wax. Need a little more elbow room? You can add an adjacent 6,000 acres. The setting has enticed various Hollywood filmmakers, who’ve kept horses and livestock in the corrals for films like The Lone Ranger and Cowboys & Aliens. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas slept in the hacienda when filming Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. If you bought this place—asking price, $7.5 million—it’d be like taking up residence inside a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Rancho de Abiquiú: $7,500,000. 8 bedrooms, 8 full baths, 2 partial baths. Total interior: approx. 23,690 sq. ft. Land: approx. 263 acres. Broker: Maureen Mestas, Sotheby’s International Realty, Santa Fe; (505) 310-1050; mynm.us/abiquiuranch A WIDOW’S WALK OVER ADOBE WALLS Amador House, Las Cruces With 18-inch-thick adobe walls, 12-foot ceilings, tapered Doric columns on the porch, and a rooftop “widow’s walk” crowning the whole shooting match, the Frank Amador home in Las Cruces showcases southern New Mexico Territorial style, circa 1905. The defining trait might be the central-hallway floor plan, a design imported from the East as the military and the railroad brought ideas, tools, and craftsmen to the New Mexico Territory in the late 1800s. First, owner Frank Amador helped his father run the Amador Hotel, then he took over the livery stables and handled the town’s mail. Though recently renovated, the home’s unspoiled historical detailing includes the original front door and wavy-glass windows throughout. Amador House: 117 S. Miranda St. 3 bedrooms, 3 baths. $429,000. Land: .33 acre. Broker: Elaine Szalay, RE/MAX Classic Realty, Las Cruces; (575) 650-5151; mynm.us/amadorhouse . BACK AT THE RANCH WITH CUSTER’S PIANO Jornado Ranch When Bob Brown bought the Jornado Ranch east of Truth or Consequences 30 years ago, he found an old piano in a crate in a lone building, a shed along the railroad tracks. “After thorough checking, we found the owner was General George Armstrong Custer’s wife,” he says. Around 1871, “It had been pulled off the train onto the siding and no one knew all those years.” That’s just an appetizer in the fourcourse history of Jornado Ranch, homesteaded in 1868. The cast of characters who passed through this land of wild horse herds and Native ruins could feature in a highlight reel of south-central New Mexico pageantry: Don Juan de Oñate, who in 1598 came to New Mexico as its first governor, trekked across the ranch along the dreaded Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death), a shortcut on the Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Oñate lost his son in a skirmish and buried him here; he lingered at the site for a funeral mass, says Bob’s son Jerry Brown, the ranch historian. Kit Carson rode and Bishop Lamy walked through the ranch. Billy the Kid left tracks and later, in 1896, his nemesis Sheriff Pat Garrett avoided a shoot-out with accused murderer Oliver Lee. Author Eugene Manlove Rhodes set part of his classic 1926 story about Garrett, “Pasó por Aquí,” on the ranch, where he courted some of the girls of the long-established area families, Jerry says. Still a working cattle operation, Jornado Ranch has a front-row seat for the future: Across-the-road neighbor Spaceport America awaits Sir Richard Branson to initiate the era of space tourism with the first launch of SpaceShipTwo. Jornado Ranch: East of Truth or Consequences. $4.2 million. Main house; manager’s house; assorted outbuildings, corrals, and barns. Land: 28,028 acres (deeded and leased). Broker: Max Kiehne, Centerfire Real Estate, Los Lunas; (505) 321-6078; mynm.us/jornadoranch A GEM FROM THE MINING FRONTIER Ashton House, Silver City First an Apache camping ground, then a frontier mining outpost, and now a college town, Silver City boasts plenty of classic Victorian architecture. Architect-builder Robert Black, who built the Charles Ashton home on West Broadway in 1883, helped kick-start the trend. Black ran a planing mill that turned out fine woodwork, a key ingredient of the style, according to Silver City historian Susan Berry. This two-story brick home with steeply peaked twin dormers and gently arched windows—one with a lovely star ornament— radiates urban-frontier allure. Berry says Ashton operated the Centennial and Red Onion saloons and their associated gambling parlors. His wife, Lida, was an accomplished singer. The next owner, Jo. E. Sheridan, editor of the Silver City Enterprise, bought the place three years later. Today, an updated kitchen blends old and new with simple tile, contemporary appliances, and glass-front cabinets echoing Craftsman style. Modifications aside, this charmer maintains its Victorian-era modest elegance. Ashton House: 515 W. Broadway. $279,000. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,520 sq. ft. Land: .23 acre. Broker: Blake Farley, Real Living Hacienda Realty, Silver City; (575) 388-1921; mynm.us/ashtonhouse Charles C. Poling is a contributing editor specializing in homes and architecture.","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f980","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/living-nm-85932/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/living-nm-85932/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/living-nm-85932/","metaTitle":"Surreal Estates","metaDescription":"","cleanDescription":"ENCHANTED FORTRESS Scottish Rite Temple, Santa Fe The massive pink Scottish Rite Temple anchors the north end of downtown Santa Fe like a Moorish citadel. That’s no surprise, since architects Hunt and Burns modeled the Masonic temple after the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Thanks to that architectural ancestry, the 45,000-square-foot landmark harmonizes with the prevailing Pueblo Revival and Territorial Revival architecture codified in the capital city’s historic district. Built of poured concrete in 1912—the year New Mexico attained statehood—the temple includes a 400-seat theater with hand-painted mural backdrops, several large dormitories, a 3,000-square-foot commercial kitchen, and an enclosed courtyard. These features suggest future incarnations as a mixed-use condo/commercial development or educational center. Moorish arches and a crenellated parapet atop the main entry tower—where archers might repulse a siege—add to the enchanted-fortress mystique. Scottish Rite Temple: 463 Paseo de Peralta. $6,900,000. Building: approx. 44,000 sq. ft. (aggregate living space). Land: approx. 2 acres. Broker: Maureen Mestas, Sotheby’s International Realty, Santa Fe; (505) 310-1050; mynm.us/sftemple MEETING THE MAJOR’S GHOST Casa Vieja, Corrales Although owner Floyd Wilson hasn’t personally bumped into the ghost of the Major in the aptly named Casa Vieja (old house), other people swear that he exists. “He’s got epaulets on his shoulders,” Wilson says, explaining the apparition’s military apparel. The rambling 300-year-old home and restaurant is a landmark in Corrales. Built in the 1700s, its origins are “shrouded in legend,” Wilson says. With a curriculum vitae that includes possibly apocryphal engagements as a courthouse, insane asylum, brothel, and convent, the place sounds like an aristocrat’s dacha in a Dostoyevsky novel. During one renovation, Wilson says, workers chiseling into a thick adobe wall excavated a portrait of the Duke of Épernon; a similar painting of the 17th-century French nobleman hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Who hid the duke’s image in the walls of a Corrales adobe, and why? Wilson implicates the Major in the house’s mysteries. “I’d be over there cleaning up, and I’d swear I’d lock a door, and the next time I’d go, it would be unlocked,” he says. Deemed a “cultural property” by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, and blessed by a structural engineer’s approval, the house is ready to go, says Wilson. Casa Vieja: 4541 Corrales Rd. $579,000 or $5,000 monthly lease. 5,422 sq. ft.; concert patio seats 40. Land: 1.6 acres. Commercial or residential. Broker: Dave Wesley, Roger Cox and Associates, Albuquerque; (505) 379-1554, (505) 268-2800; mynm.us/casavieja LIFE INSIDE AN O’KEEFFE Rancho de Abiquiú Up the Río Chama, the sprawling Rancho de Abiquiú includes a gracious 12,000-square-foot 19th-century hacienda restored by premier builder and Santa Fe– style maven Sharon Woods. You enter the fortified courtyard through a classic zaguán, or gated passageway, typical of defensive haciendas on New Mexico’s Spanish frontier. Other buildings include a brick Victorian house, various casitas and offices, a full equestrian facility with an apartment and veterinarian’s office, Quonset huts, corrals, cattle-loading chutes, and scales—the works for an operating ranch. The ranch’s 263 acres extend along the fertile irrigated river bottom, below hulking black basalt mesas and craggy white cliffs that look like melted candle wax. Need a little more elbow room? You can add an adjacent 6,000 acres. The setting has enticed various Hollywood filmmakers, who’ve kept horses and livestock in the corrals for films like The Lone Ranger and Cowboys & Aliens. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas slept in the hacienda when filming Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. If you bought this place—asking price, $7.5 million—it’d be like taking up residence inside a Georgia O’Keeffe painting. Rancho de Abiquiú: $7,500,000. 8 bedrooms, 8 full baths, 2 partial baths. Total interior: approx. 23,690 sq. ft. Land: approx. 263 acres. Broker: Maureen Mestas, Sotheby’s International Realty, Santa Fe; (505) 310-1050; mynm.us/abiquiuranch A WIDOW’S WALK OVER ADOBE WALLS Amador House, Las Cruces With 18-inch-thick adobe walls, 12-foot ceilings, tapered Doric columns on the porch, and a rooftop “widow’s walk” crowning the whole shooting match, the Frank Amador home in Las Cruces showcases southern New Mexico Territorial style, circa 1905. The defining trait might be the central-hallway floor plan, a design imported from the East as the military and the railroad brought ideas, tools, and craftsmen to the New Mexico Territory in the late 1800s. First, owner Frank Amador helped his father run the Amador Hotel, then he took over the livery stables and handled the town’s mail. Though recently renovated, the home’s unspoiled historical detailing includes the original front door and wavy-glass windows throughout. Amador House: 117 S. Miranda St. 3 bedrooms, 3 baths. $429,000. Land: .33 acre. Broker: Elaine Szalay, RE/MAX Classic Realty, Las Cruces; (575) 650-5151; mynm.us/amadorhouse . BACK AT THE RANCH WITH CUSTER’S PIANO Jornado Ranch When Bob Brown bought the Jornado Ranch east of Truth or Consequences 30 years ago, he found an old piano in a crate in a lone building, a shed along the railroad tracks. “After thorough checking, we found the owner was General George Armstrong Custer’s wife,” he says. Around 1871, “It had been pulled off the train onto the siding and no one knew all those years.” That’s just an appetizer in the fourcourse history of Jornado Ranch, homesteaded in 1868. The cast of characters who passed through this land of wild horse herds and Native ruins could feature in a highlight reel of south-central New Mexico pageantry: Don Juan de Oñate, who in 1598 came to New Mexico as its first governor, trekked across the ranch along the dreaded Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death), a shortcut on the Camino Real from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Oñate lost his son in a skirmish and buried him here; he lingered at the site for a funeral mass, says Bob’s son Jerry Brown, the ranch historian. Kit Carson rode and Bishop Lamy walked through the ranch. Billy the Kid left tracks and later, in 1896, his nemesis Sheriff Pat Garrett avoided a shoot-out with accused murderer Oliver Lee. Author Eugene Manlove Rhodes set part of his classic 1926 story about Garrett, “Pasó por Aquí,” on the ranch, where he courted some of the girls of the long-established area families, Jerry says. Still a working cattle operation, Jornado Ranch has a front-row seat for the future: Across-the-road neighbor Spaceport America awaits Sir Richard Branson to initiate the era of space tourism with the first launch of SpaceShipTwo. Jornado Ranch: East of Truth or Consequences. $4.2 million. Main house; manager’s house; assorted outbuildings, corrals, and barns. Land: 28,028 acres (deeded and leased). Broker: Max Kiehne, Centerfire Real Estate, Los Lunas; (505) 321-6078; mynm.us/jornadoranch A GEM FROM THE MINING FRONTIER Ashton House, Silver City First an Apache camping ground, then a frontier mining outpost, and now a college town, Silver City boasts plenty of classic Victorian architecture. Architect-builder Robert Black, who built the Charles Ashton home on West Broadway in 1883, helped kick-start the trend. Black ran a planing mill that turned out fine woodwork, a key ingredient of the style, according to Silver City historian Susan Berry. This two-story brick home with steeply peaked twin dormers and gently arched windows—one with a lovely star ornament— radiates urban-frontier allure. Berry says Ashton operated the Centennial and Red Onion saloons and their associated gambling parlors. His wife, Lida, was an accomplished singer. The next owner, Jo. E. Sheridan, editor of the Silver City Enterprise, bought the place three years later. Today, an updated kitchen blends old and new with simple tile, contemporary appliances, and glass-front cabinets echoing Craftsman style. Modifications aside, this charmer maintains its Victorian-era modest elegance. Ashton House: 515 W. Broadway. $279,000. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,520 sq. ft. Land: .23 acre. Broker: Blake Farley, Real Living Hacienda Realty, Silver City; (575) 388-1921; mynm.us/ashtonhouse Charles C. Poling is a contributing editor specializing in homes and architecture.","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-19T16:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.581Z"},{"_id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f97f","author_id":"58b4b2404c2774661570f187","title":"Road Trip Ruidoso","slug":"road-trip-ruidoso-85907","publish_start":"2014-05-14T14:00:00.000Z","enable_comments":true,"categories_ids":["58c834b11f16f9392cf0992a","58b4b2404c2774661570f2a3","58b4b2404c2774661570f2e6"],"tags_ids":["59090e46e1efff4c9916fb37","59090cb1e1efff4c9916fa25","59090d36e1efff4c9916fa7f"],"cms_tags_ids":["58b061ec6a2b0936c34a23ea"],"enabled":true,"custom_photo_credit":"Jen Judge","custom_tagline":"The Lincoln County high country around Ruidoso offers a rarefied respite from summer heat. Ride a ski gondola to Sierra Blanca Peak, retrace the felonious footsteps of Billy the Kid, and stop to smell the irises.","created":"2014-05-14T14:22:39.000Z","legacy_id":"85907","blog":"magazine","_title_sort":"road trip ruidoso","updated":"2017-10-31T21:31:32.025Z","active":true,"description_raw":"

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WHY GO NOW

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Ruidoso and its surrounding string of low-key alpine villages is one of my favorite places to bring friends unfamiliar with the southeastern part of the state, especially during the warmer months of the year. I often segue into this road trip after a visit to White Sands National Monument. As we turn onto U.S. 70 and continue northeast toward Ruidoso, the landscape changes dramatically, from the arid, shrubby look of the desert valley to the verdant conifer groves of Lincoln National Forest. Upon reaching Ruidoso, the nearly 12,000-foot peaks of the White Mountains (aka Sierra Blanca) come into view, and the temperature has typically dropped 10 to 15 degrees since we left Tularosa, just 35 miles away—but 2,500 feet lower in elevation.

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For decades, the area’s cool mountain air has been a powerful drawing card, and not just for vacationers. The region supports a year-round population of about 21,000, making it one of New Mexico’s fastestgrowing areas. I usually combine my adventures in the White Mountains with a side trip from Ruidoso over to historic Lincoln, infamous as the site of Billy the Kid’s daring and deadly jail break. There’s nothing like a tale of Wild West gunfights to make you appreciate how times have changed in one of New Mexico’s most alluring mountainscapes.

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DAY 1: RUIDOSO SIDEWALK STROLL: Ruidoso’s inviting Midtown neighborhood is centered along a pedestrian-friendly, mile-long stretch of Sudderth Drive (N.M. 48) from about Country Club Drive to Mechem Drive. You’ll find small shopping plazas, family-style restaurants, quirky galleries, and colorful boutiques selling everything from the usual touristy knickknacks to high-end housewares and gifts. For a toothsome break from window-shopping, pop inside Rosa’s Roasted Corn, a modest A-frame caf. along the main drag that serves Mexican-style roasted corn (available “on the cob” or served in cups), doused liberally with queso fresco, chile powder, and salsa. For a more substantial midday meal, Hall of Flame Burgers serves up hefty bacon-Cheddar patties, avocado-chicken sandwiches, and steak tacos.

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HORSEPLAY: In the afternoon, drive a few miles east of town to the community of Ruidoso Downs—so named for the acclaimed racetrack that’s thrived here since the 1930s and holds live quarter-horse races from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Here you can also tour the exceptional Hubbard Museum of the American West, a treasure chest of memorabilia related to the Wild West. Highlights include a fine assortment of 19th-century pistols, rifles, and muskets, and the Anne C. Stradling Collection of art and artifacts. The latter features a diverse assortment of pieces, from an early Navajo bow and arrow to Sioux and Cree moccasins from the 1880s. You can also visit a showroom displaying antique surreys, Conestogas, chuck wagons, and other horse-drawn vehicles used during America’s westward expansion. Just outside the museum’s main entrance is a sculpture garden that boasts eight larger-than-life bronze horses created in 1995 by Dave McGary.

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DINING AROUND: You’ll find some of the best food in the region at Wendell’s, the tony steak-and-seafood restaurant at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, which is nestled in the tranquil, forested Mescalero Apache Reservation just south of Ruidoso. Dinner here will set you back a few shekels, but the service is stellar, and the creative Southwest cuisine consistently exceeds expectations. Try the flashseared local elk tenderloin with a blackberry-cognac reduction and roasted-corn-jalape.o custard, or the pecan-crusted Atlantic salmon poached in white wine, with asparagus and lemon gastrique. Alternatively, much lighter on the budget, if not the waistline, are the green-chile bread sticks, meatball sandwiches, and Mountain High meat-lover pies served at Ruidoso’s Mountain Top Pizza.

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OVERNIGHT: Home to the region’s swankiest quarters, the airy and sleek Inn of the Mountain Gods casino resort has 273 plush rooms, many of them facing the lake, golf course, and Sierra Blanca Peak in the distance. Shadow Mountain Lodge is a less pricey option situated within walking distance of shopping and dining in Ruidoso’s quiet, treeshaded Upper Canyon district. The lodge’s 19 suites and 4 cabins are designed with romance and relaxation in mind—all have outdoor hot tubs, reclining love seats, woodburning fireplaces, and full kitchenettes.

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DAY 2: RUIDOSO TO LINCOLN

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FUEL UP: Start your morning with breakfast at one of Ruidoso’s most beloved gathering spots, the Cornerstone Bakery Café, where you’ll be treated to prodigious helpings of baguette French toast, huevos rancheros, and fluffy biscuits and gravy. Clear a spot on your plate for one of Cornerstone’s legendarily delicious pecan sticky buns. Or try a treat from the bakery case, perhaps a whitechocolate pistachio cookie or a slice of coconut cream pie.

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GONDOLIERING: As you head north out of Ruidoso, plan a two- to four-hour side trip to southern New Mexico’s premier winter-sports venue, Ski Apache. In the summer, you can ride the gondola to 12,000-foot Sierra Blanca Peak, rent mountain bikes and tackle the new 5.5-mile track, or scamper up the hiking trails on the Crest or Sierra Blanca. (Love to golf? See “Summer Fun at Mountain Resorts,” p. 47.) From the top of the gondola, there’s also an easy 1/2-mile Lookout Trail that affords 360-degree views of the Ruidoso Valley and the Tularosa Basin.

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A HIGH ROAD TO LINCOLN: Once you’re back in Alto, make the picturesque 25-mile drive to Lincoln. But first, if you’ve worked up an appetite on the mountain, stop by Zocca Coffee & Tea, an inviting caf. with wood-paneled walls and comfy leather chairs. Panini sandwiches, muffins, and bagels are served in addition to well-crafted espresso drinks.

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As you continue northeast from Alto along N.M. 220, keep an eye out for the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts, a dazzling 514-seat concert hall that hosts a variety of shows in summer. Free tours of this architectural gem, which features several impressive glass-art works by Dale Chihuly, are given on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. About 10 miles farther along N.M. 220, stop to explore the museum at Fort Stanton Historic Site. It will shed light on this 1855 fortification’s role in U.S. military battles with the Mescalero Apache tribe. You’ll also find out about the Confederate Army’s brief seizure of the fort during the first year of the Civil War, and future General John J. Pershing’s two stints there as a junior officer.

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ON THE LAMB: Dining options are few in historic Lincoln, but on Friday and Saturday evenings, Laughing Sheep—a pastoral working farm just across the R.o Bonito from U.S. 380—serves hearty five-course dinners in a rustic, light-filled space overlooking a small pond. Pumpkin soup with Gruy.re, orange-glazed quail, and tender lamb steaks are among the offerings.

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OVERNIGHT: Owned at one time by none other than Sheriff Pat Garrett, the rambling, five-room Wortley Hotel makes an atmospheric, affordable overnight base. Rates include full breakfast.

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DAY 3: LINCOLN TO SAN PATRICIO

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BILLY THE KID’S LEGACY: Spend the first half of the day strolling around the village of Lincoln. At the Anderson–Freeman Visitors Center, administered by the Lincoln Historic Site, you can watch a short video and examine mementos and exhibits related to the town’s hurly-burly past, including the infamous Wild West battles between Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and the other colorful characters who fought in the Lincoln County Wars of 1878–1881. The violent turf wars escalated to the point that President Rutherford B. Hayes compelled Governor Lew Wallace to intercede. (See “Ben-Hur vs. Billy the Kid,” p. 48.) You can walk among and inside some of the 17 buildings that make up the Lincoln Historic District, including the Lincoln County Courthouse Museum, from which Billy the Kid escaped, gunning down two guards in the process. Be sure to check out the Tunstall Store Museum, a fascinating repository of hardware, lamps, clothing, and other unsold mercantile dating back more than a century. The Old Mission San Juan Bautista, a simple, dignified adobe chapel that dates to 1887, also deserves a visit.

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BLOOMIN’ BEAUTIFUL: Late spring and early summer are the perfect times to visit Hondo Iris Farm and Gallery. Find acres of glorious gardens blooming not only with countless varieties of aromatic irises, but also peonies, Oriental lilies, and a collection of plants and cacti that thrive in highdesert environments, such as agaves and red-tip yuccas. Watch dozens of tiny hummingbirds flit about the flower beds. Browse the farm’s gallery, where you can shop for local pewter jewelry, as well as textiles and clothing from Africa, the Caribbean, southeastern Asia, eastern Europe, and many other far-flung lands.

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CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH OR STEAK DINNER: Drive east from Lincoln to a hiccup of a town called Tinnie, which is home to one of the more dramatic buildings in the area, the Tinnie Silver Dollar. This adobe building with bright-red corrugated roofing and a lofty red-and-white tower contains a package store and deli. It also boasts an elegantly furnished steak house and saloon that serves dinner Thursday through Saturday evenings, and a highly popular Sunday Champagne brunch. The eggs Benedict with green-chile hollandaise sauce is a standout; pair it with a mimosa or Bloody Mary.

\r\n\r\n

OVERNIGHT: You could spend the night channeling the artistic creativity of the illustrious

\r\n\r\n

Hurd and Wyeth families at Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes. The picturesque compound—once the home of celebrated artists Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth Hurd—comprises six different adobe guest buildings, including the original 1930s hacienda-style Wyeth House (sleeps up to six) and the tree-shaded Apple House cottage (sleeps up to four), with a patio and grill overlooking the high-desert foothills. These very private units—furnished individually with family artworks and collectibles—have fully equipped kitchens and would make a nice home base for the entire road trip, as San Patricio is no more than a 45-minute drive from any point on this tour. Alternatively, continue 23 miles back to Ruidoso and spend your final night there. ✜

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","description":"THE ROUTE This entire loop drive covers a manageable 75 miles, so you could actually spend all three nights in any one community along the way, and explore the different sections of this itinerary on day outings. However, if you don’t want to retrace your steps, and you do want three distinctive overnight experiences, follow this plan: Spend your first day and night in Ruidoso, taking in the town’s key attractions and exploring the retail and dining district along N.M. 48. On day two, drive north 6 miles on N.M. 48 to the village of Alto, making a 25-mile round-trip detour on N.M. 532 to explore Ski Apache’s summertime charms. Continue 25 miles via N.M. 48, N.M. 220, and U.S. 380 to the Wild West town of Lincoln, where you can enjoy dinner and spend your second night. On day three, after checking out Lincoln’s historic sites on foot, drive east 13 miles on U.S. 380 to Hondo. Continue another 2 miles east on U.S. 70 to Tinnie, and then backtrack west on U.S. 70 for 7 miles to San Patricio, where you can spend your final night at the Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes, or continue 23 more miles back to Ruidoso. -- Need To Know RUIDOSO AND ENVIRONS Cornerstone Bakery Café 359 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-1842; cornerstonebakerycafe.com Fort Stanton Historic Site 104 Kit Carson Rd., Fort Stanton; (575) 258-5702; fortstanton.org Hall of Flame Burgers 2500 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-9987; hallofflameburgers.com Hubbard Museum of the American West 26301 U.S. 70, Ruidoso Downs;(575) 378-4142; hubbardmuseum.org Inn of the Mountain Gods and Wendell’s 287 Carrizo Canyon Rd., Mescalero; (800) 545-9011; innofthemountaingods.com Mountain Top Pizza 1501 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-4657; on Facebook Rosa’s Roasted Corn 2415 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-9651; on Facebook Ruidoso Valley Visitor Center 720 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-7395; ruidosonow.com Shadow Mountain Lodge 107 Main Rd.; (575) 257-4886; shadowmountainlodge.com Ski Apache 1286 Ski Run Rd., Mescalero (575) 336-4356; skiapache.com Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts N.M. 220, Alto; (575) 336-4800; spencertheater.com Zocca Coffee & Tea 1129 Mechem Dr.; (575) 258-1445; zoccacoffee.com LINCOLN Laughing Sheep 124 Orchard View Ln.; (575) 653-4041; laughingsheepfarm.com Lincoln Historic Site’s Visitor Center U.S. 380; (575) 653-4025; nmmonuments.org/lincoln Wortley Hotel 585 Calle La Placita; (575) 653-4300; wortleyhotel.com HONDO AND SAN PATRICIO Hondo Iris Farm and Gallery U.S. 70, Hondo; (575) 653-4062; hondoirisfarm.com Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes 105 La Rinconada Ln., San Patricio; (800) 658-6912; wyethartists.com Tinnie Silver Dollar 28842 U.S. 70, Tinnie; (575) 653-4425; tinniesilverdollar.com WHY GO NOW Ruidoso and its surrounding string of low-key alpine villages is one of my favorite places to bring friends unfamiliar with the southeastern part of the state, especially during the warmer months of the year. I often segue into this road trip after a visit to White Sands National Monument. As we turn onto U.S. 70 and continue northeast toward Ruidoso, the landscape changes dramatically, from the arid, shrubby look of the desert valley to the verdant conifer groves of Lincoln National Forest. Upon reaching Ruidoso, the nearly 12,000-foot peaks of the White Mountains (aka Sierra Blanca) come into view, and the temperature has typically dropped 10 to 15 degrees since we left Tularosa, just 35 miles away—but 2,500 feet lower in elevation. For decades, the area’s cool mountain air has been a powerful drawing card, and not just for vacationers. The region supports a year-round population of about 21,000, making it one of New Mexico’s fastestgrowing areas. I usually combine my adventures in the White Mountains with a side trip from Ruidoso over to historic Lincoln, infamous as the site of Billy the Kid’s daring and deadly jail break. There’s nothing like a tale of Wild West gunfights to make you appreciate how times have changed in one of New Mexico’s most alluring mountainscapes. DAY 1: RUIDOSO SIDEWALK STROLL: Ruidoso’s inviting Midtown neighborhood is centered along a pedestrian-friendly, mile-long stretch of Sudderth Drive (N.M. 48) from about Country Club Drive to Mechem Drive. You’ll find small shopping plazas, family-style restaurants, quirky galleries, and colorful boutiques selling everything from the usual touristy knickknacks to high-end housewares and gifts. For a toothsome break from window-shopping, pop inside Rosa’s Roasted Corn, a modest A-frame caf. along the main drag that serves Mexican-style roasted corn (available “on the cob” or served in cups), doused liberally with queso fresco, chile powder, and salsa. For a more substantial midday meal, Hall of Flame Burgers serves up hefty bacon-Cheddar patties, avocado-chicken sandwiches, and steak tacos. HORSEPLAY: In the afternoon, drive a few miles east of town to the community of Ruidoso Downs—so named for the acclaimed racetrack that’s thrived here since the 1930s and holds live quarter-horse races from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Here you can also tour the exceptional Hubbard Museum of the American West, a treasure chest of memorabilia related to the Wild West. Highlights include a fine assortment of 19th-century pistols, rifles, and muskets, and the Anne C. Stradling Collection of art and artifacts. The latter features a diverse assortment of pieces, from an early Navajo bow and arrow to Sioux and Cree moccasins from the 1880s. You can also visit a showroom displaying antique surreys, Conestogas, chuck wagons, and other horse-drawn vehicles used during America’s westward expansion. Just outside the museum’s main entrance is a sculpture garden that boasts eight larger-than-life bronze horses created in 1995 by Dave McGary. DINING AROUND: You’ll find some of the best food in the region at Wendell’s, the tony steak-and-seafood restaurant at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, which is nestled in the tranquil, forested Mescalero Apache Reservation just south of Ruidoso. Dinner here will set you back a few shekels, but the service is stellar, and the creative Southwest cuisine consistently exceeds expectations. Try the flashseared local elk tenderloin with a blackberry-cognac reduction and roasted-corn-jalape.o custard, or the pecan-crusted Atlantic salmon poached in white wine, with asparagus and lemon gastrique. Alternatively, much lighter on the budget, if not the waistline, are the green-chile bread sticks, meatball sandwiches, and Mountain High meat-lover pies served at Ruidoso’s Mountain Top Pizza. OVERNIGHT: Home to the region’s swankiest quarters, the airy and sleek Inn of the Mountain Gods casino resort has 273 plush rooms, many of them facing the lake, golf course, and Sierra Blanca Peak in the distance. Shadow Mountain Lodge is a less pricey option situated within walking distance of shopping and dining in Ruidoso’s quiet, treeshaded Upper Canyon district. The lodge’s 19 suites and 4 cabins are designed with romance and relaxation in mind—all have outdoor hot tubs, reclining love seats, woodburning fireplaces, and full kitchenettes. DAY 2: RUIDOSO TO LINCOLN FUEL UP: Start your morning with breakfast at one of Ruidoso’s most beloved gathering spots, the Cornerstone Bakery Café, where you’ll be treated to prodigious helpings of baguette French toast, huevos rancheros, and fluffy biscuits and gravy. Clear a spot on your plate for one of Cornerstone’s legendarily delicious pecan sticky buns. Or try a treat from the bakery case, perhaps a whitechocolate pistachio cookie or a slice of coconut cream pie. GONDOLIERING: As you head north out of Ruidoso, plan a two- to four-hour side trip to southern New Mexico’s premier winter-sports venue, Ski Apache. In the summer, you can ride the gondola to 12,000-foot Sierra Blanca Peak, rent mountain bikes and tackle the new 5.5-mile track, or scamper up the hiking trails on the Crest or Sierra Blanca. (Love to golf? See “Summer Fun at Mountain Resorts,” p. 47.) From the top of the gondola, there’s also an easy 1/2-mile Lookout Trail that affords 360-degree views of the Ruidoso Valley and the Tularosa Basin. A HIGH ROAD TO LINCOLN: Once you’re back in Alto, make the picturesque 25-mile drive to Lincoln. But first, if you’ve worked up an appetite on the mountain, stop by Zocca Coffee & Tea, an inviting caf. with wood-paneled walls and comfy leather chairs. Panini sandwiches, muffins, and bagels are served in addition to well-crafted espresso drinks. As you continue northeast from Alto along N.M. 220, keep an eye out for the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts, a dazzling 514-seat concert hall that hosts a variety of shows in summer. Free tours of this architectural gem, which features several impressive glass-art works by Dale Chihuly, are given on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. About 10 miles farther along N.M. 220, stop to explore the museum at Fort Stanton Historic Site. It will shed light on this 1855 fortification’s role in U.S. military battles with the Mescalero Apache tribe. You’ll also find out about the Confederate Army’s brief seizure of the fort during the first year of the Civil War, and future General John J. Pershing’s two stints there as a junior officer. ON THE LAMB: Dining options are few in historic Lincoln, but on Friday and Saturday evenings, Laughing Sheep—a pastoral working farm just across the R.o Bonito from U.S. 380—serves hearty five-course dinners in a rustic, light-filled space overlooking a small pond. Pumpkin soup with Gruy.re, orange-glazed quail, and tender lamb steaks are among the offerings. OVERNIGHT: Owned at one time by none other than Sheriff Pat Garrett, the rambling, five-room Wortley Hotel makes an atmospheric, affordable overnight base. Rates include full breakfast. DAY 3: LINCOLN TO SAN PATRICIO BILLY THE KID’S LEGACY: Spend the first half of the day strolling around the village of Lincoln. At the Anderson–Freeman Visitors Center, administered by the Lincoln Historic Site, you can watch a short video and examine mementos and exhibits related to the town’s hurly-burly past, including the infamous Wild West battles between Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and the other colorful characters who fought in the Lincoln County Wars of 1878–1881. The violent turf wars escalated to the point that President Rutherford B. Hayes compelled Governor Lew Wallace to intercede. (See “Ben-Hur vs. Billy the Kid,” p. 48.) You can walk among and inside some of the 17 buildings that make up the Lincoln Historic District, including the Lincoln County Courthouse Museum, from which Billy the Kid escaped, gunning down two guards in the process. Be sure to check out the Tunstall Store Museum, a fascinating repository of hardware, lamps, clothing, and other unsold mercantile dating back more than a century. The Old Mission San Juan Bautista, a simple, dignified adobe chapel that dates to 1887, also deserves a visit. BLOOMIN’ BEAUTIFUL: Late spring and early summer are the perfect times to visit Hondo Iris Farm and Gallery. Find acres of glorious gardens blooming not only with countless varieties of aromatic irises, but also peonies, Oriental lilies, and a collection of plants and cacti that thrive in highdesert environments, such as agaves and red-tip yuccas. Watch dozens of tiny hummingbirds flit about the flower beds. Browse the farm’s gallery, where you can shop for local pewter jewelry, as well as textiles and clothing from Africa, the Caribbean, southeastern Asia, eastern Europe, and many other far-flung lands. CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH OR STEAK DINNER: Drive east from Lincoln to a hiccup of a town called Tinnie, which is home to one of the more dramatic buildings in the area, the Tinnie Silver Dollar. This adobe building with bright-red corrugated roofing and a lofty red-and-white tower contains a package store and deli. It also boasts an elegantly furnished steak house and saloon that serves dinner Thursday through Saturday evenings, and a highly popular Sunday Champagne brunch. The eggs Benedict with green-chile hollandaise sauce is a standout; pair it with a mimosa or Bloody Mary. OVERNIGHT: You could spend the night channeling the artistic creativity of the illustrious Hurd and Wyeth families at Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes. The picturesque compound—once the home of celebrated artists Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth Hurd—comprises six different adobe guest buildings, including the original 1930s hacienda-style Wyeth House (sleeps up to six) and the tree-shaded Apple House cottage (sleeps up to four), with a patio and grill overlooking the high-desert foothills. These very private units—furnished individually with family artworks and collectibles—have fully equipped kitchens and would make a nice home base for the entire road trip, as San Patricio is no more than a 45-minute drive from any point on this tour. Alternatively, continue 23 miles back to Ruidoso and spend your final night there. ✜","id":"58b4b2804c2774661570f97f","url":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/road-trip-ruidoso-85907/","commentsUrl":"/nmmagazine/articles/post/road-trip-ruidoso-85907/#comments","absoluteUrl":"https://www.newmexico.org/nmmagazine/articles/post/road-trip-ruidoso-85907/","metaTitle":"Road Trip Ruidoso","metaDescription":"

","cleanDescription":"THE ROUTE This entire loop drive covers a manageable 75 miles, so you could actually spend all three nights in any one community along the way, and explore the different sections of this itinerary on day outings. However, if you don’t want to retrace your steps, and you do want three distinctive overnight experiences, follow this plan: Spend your first day and night in Ruidoso, taking in the town’s key attractions and exploring the retail and dining district along N.M. 48. On day two, drive north 6 miles on N.M. 48 to the village of Alto, making a 25-mile round-trip detour on N.M. 532 to explore Ski Apache’s summertime charms. Continue 25 miles via N.M. 48, N.M. 220, and U.S. 380 to the Wild West town of Lincoln, where you can enjoy dinner and spend your second night. On day three, after checking out Lincoln’s historic sites on foot, drive east 13 miles on U.S. 380 to Hondo. Continue another 2 miles east on U.S. 70 to Tinnie, and then backtrack west on U.S. 70 for 7 miles to San Patricio, where you can spend your final night at the Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes, or continue 23 more miles back to Ruidoso. -- Need To Know RUIDOSO AND ENVIRONS Cornerstone Bakery Café 359 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-1842; cornerstonebakerycafe.com Fort Stanton Historic Site 104 Kit Carson Rd., Fort Stanton; (575) 258-5702; fortstanton.org Hall of Flame Burgers 2500 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-9987; hallofflameburgers.com Hubbard Museum of the American West 26301 U.S. 70, Ruidoso Downs;(575) 378-4142; hubbardmuseum.org Inn of the Mountain Gods and Wendell’s 287 Carrizo Canyon Rd., Mescalero; (800) 545-9011; innofthemountaingods.com Mountain Top Pizza 1501 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-4657; on Facebook Rosa’s Roasted Corn 2415 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-9651; on Facebook Ruidoso Valley Visitor Center 720 Sudderth Dr.; (575) 257-7395; ruidosonow.com Shadow Mountain Lodge 107 Main Rd.; (575) 257-4886; shadowmountainlodge.com Ski Apache 1286 Ski Run Rd., Mescalero (575) 336-4356; skiapache.com Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts N.M. 220, Alto; (575) 336-4800; spencertheater.com Zocca Coffee & Tea 1129 Mechem Dr.; (575) 258-1445; zoccacoffee.com LINCOLN Laughing Sheep 124 Orchard View Ln.; (575) 653-4041; laughingsheepfarm.com Lincoln Historic Site’s Visitor Center U.S. 380; (575) 653-4025; nmmonuments.org/lincoln Wortley Hotel 585 Calle La Placita; (575) 653-4300; wortleyhotel.com HONDO AND SAN PATRICIO Hondo Iris Farm and Gallery U.S. 70, Hondo; (575) 653-4062; hondoirisfarm.com Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes 105 La Rinconada Ln., San Patricio; (800) 658-6912; wyethartists.com Tinnie Silver Dollar 28842 U.S. 70, Tinnie; (575) 653-4425; tinniesilverdollar.com WHY GO NOW Ruidoso and its surrounding string of low-key alpine villages is one of my favorite places to bring friends unfamiliar with the southeastern part of the state, especially during the warmer months of the year. I often segue into this road trip after a visit to White Sands National Monument. As we turn onto U.S. 70 and continue northeast toward Ruidoso, the landscape changes dramatically, from the arid, shrubby look of the desert valley to the verdant conifer groves of Lincoln National Forest. Upon reaching Ruidoso, the nearly 12,000-foot peaks of the White Mountains (aka Sierra Blanca) come into view, and the temperature has typically dropped 10 to 15 degrees since we left Tularosa, just 35 miles away—but 2,500 feet lower in elevation. For decades, the area’s cool mountain air has been a powerful drawing card, and not just for vacationers. The region supports a year-round population of about 21,000, making it one of New Mexico’s fastestgrowing areas. I usually combine my adventures in the White Mountains with a side trip from Ruidoso over to historic Lincoln, infamous as the site of Billy the Kid’s daring and deadly jail break. There’s nothing like a tale of Wild West gunfights to make you appreciate how times have changed in one of New Mexico’s most alluring mountainscapes. DAY 1: RUIDOSO SIDEWALK STROLL: Ruidoso’s inviting Midtown neighborhood is centered along a pedestrian-friendly, mile-long stretch of Sudderth Drive (N.M. 48) from about Country Club Drive to Mechem Drive. You’ll find small shopping plazas, family-style restaurants, quirky galleries, and colorful boutiques selling everything from the usual touristy knickknacks to high-end housewares and gifts. For a toothsome break from window-shopping, pop inside Rosa’s Roasted Corn, a modest A-frame caf. along the main drag that serves Mexican-style roasted corn (available “on the cob” or served in cups), doused liberally with queso fresco, chile powder, and salsa. For a more substantial midday meal, Hall of Flame Burgers serves up hefty bacon-Cheddar patties, avocado-chicken sandwiches, and steak tacos. HORSEPLAY: In the afternoon, drive a few miles east of town to the community of Ruidoso Downs—so named for the acclaimed racetrack that’s thrived here since the 1930s and holds live quarter-horse races from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Here you can also tour the exceptional Hubbard Museum of the American West, a treasure chest of memorabilia related to the Wild West. Highlights include a fine assortment of 19th-century pistols, rifles, and muskets, and the Anne C. Stradling Collection of art and artifacts. The latter features a diverse assortment of pieces, from an early Navajo bow and arrow to Sioux and Cree moccasins from the 1880s. You can also visit a showroom displaying antique surreys, Conestogas, chuck wagons, and other horse-drawn vehicles used during America’s westward expansion. Just outside the museum’s main entrance is a sculpture garden that boasts eight larger-than-life bronze horses created in 1995 by Dave McGary. DINING AROUND: You’ll find some of the best food in the region at Wendell’s, the tony steak-and-seafood restaurant at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, which is nestled in the tranquil, forested Mescalero Apache Reservation just south of Ruidoso. Dinner here will set you back a few shekels, but the service is stellar, and the creative Southwest cuisine consistently exceeds expectations. Try the flashseared local elk tenderloin with a blackberry-cognac reduction and roasted-corn-jalape.o custard, or the pecan-crusted Atlantic salmon poached in white wine, with asparagus and lemon gastrique. Alternatively, much lighter on the budget, if not the waistline, are the green-chile bread sticks, meatball sandwiches, and Mountain High meat-lover pies served at Ruidoso’s Mountain Top Pizza. OVERNIGHT: Home to the region’s swankiest quarters, the airy and sleek Inn of the Mountain Gods casino resort has 273 plush rooms, many of them facing the lake, golf course, and Sierra Blanca Peak in the distance. Shadow Mountain Lodge is a less pricey option situated within walking distance of shopping and dining in Ruidoso’s quiet, treeshaded Upper Canyon district. The lodge’s 19 suites and 4 cabins are designed with romance and relaxation in mind—all have outdoor hot tubs, reclining love seats, woodburning fireplaces, and full kitchenettes. DAY 2: RUIDOSO TO LINCOLN FUEL UP: Start your morning with breakfast at one of Ruidoso’s most beloved gathering spots, the Cornerstone Bakery Café, where you’ll be treated to prodigious helpings of baguette French toast, huevos rancheros, and fluffy biscuits and gravy. Clear a spot on your plate for one of Cornerstone’s legendarily delicious pecan sticky buns. Or try a treat from the bakery case, perhaps a whitechocolate pistachio cookie or a slice of coconut cream pie. GONDOLIERING: As you head north out of Ruidoso, plan a two- to four-hour side trip to southern New Mexico’s premier winter-sports venue, Ski Apache. In the summer, you can ride the gondola to 12,000-foot Sierra Blanca Peak, rent mountain bikes and tackle the new 5.5-mile track, or scamper up the hiking trails on the Crest or Sierra Blanca. (Love to golf? See “Summer Fun at Mountain Resorts,” p. 47.) From the top of the gondola, there’s also an easy 1/2-mile Lookout Trail that affords 360-degree views of the Ruidoso Valley and the Tularosa Basin. A HIGH ROAD TO LINCOLN: Once you’re back in Alto, make the picturesque 25-mile drive to Lincoln. But first, if you’ve worked up an appetite on the mountain, stop by Zocca Coffee & Tea, an inviting caf. with wood-paneled walls and comfy leather chairs. Panini sandwiches, muffins, and bagels are served in addition to well-crafted espresso drinks. As you continue northeast from Alto along N.M. 220, keep an eye out for the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts, a dazzling 514-seat concert hall that hosts a variety of shows in summer. Free tours of this architectural gem, which features several impressive glass-art works by Dale Chihuly, are given on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. About 10 miles farther along N.M. 220, stop to explore the museum at Fort Stanton Historic Site. It will shed light on this 1855 fortification’s role in U.S. military battles with the Mescalero Apache tribe. You’ll also find out about the Confederate Army’s brief seizure of the fort during the first year of the Civil War, and future General John J. Pershing’s two stints there as a junior officer. ON THE LAMB: Dining options are few in historic Lincoln, but on Friday and Saturday evenings, Laughing Sheep—a pastoral working farm just across the R.o Bonito from U.S. 380—serves hearty five-course dinners in a rustic, light-filled space overlooking a small pond. Pumpkin soup with Gruy.re, orange-glazed quail, and tender lamb steaks are among the offerings. OVERNIGHT: Owned at one time by none other than Sheriff Pat Garrett, the rambling, five-room Wortley Hotel makes an atmospheric, affordable overnight base. Rates include full breakfast. DAY 3: LINCOLN TO SAN PATRICIO BILLY THE KID’S LEGACY: Spend the first half of the day strolling around the village of Lincoln. At the Anderson–Freeman Visitors Center, administered by the Lincoln Historic Site, you can watch a short video and examine mementos and exhibits related to the town’s hurly-burly past, including the infamous Wild West battles between Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and the other colorful characters who fought in the Lincoln County Wars of 1878–1881. The violent turf wars escalated to the point that President Rutherford B. Hayes compelled Governor Lew Wallace to intercede. (See “Ben-Hur vs. Billy the Kid,” p. 48.) You can walk among and inside some of the 17 buildings that make up the Lincoln Historic District, including the Lincoln County Courthouse Museum, from which Billy the Kid escaped, gunning down two guards in the process. Be sure to check out the Tunstall Store Museum, a fascinating repository of hardware, lamps, clothing, and other unsold mercantile dating back more than a century. The Old Mission San Juan Bautista, a simple, dignified adobe chapel that dates to 1887, also deserves a visit. BLOOMIN’ BEAUTIFUL: Late spring and early summer are the perfect times to visit Hondo Iris Farm and Gallery. Find acres of glorious gardens blooming not only with countless varieties of aromatic irises, but also peonies, Oriental lilies, and a collection of plants and cacti that thrive in highdesert environments, such as agaves and red-tip yuccas. Watch dozens of tiny hummingbirds flit about the flower beds. Browse the farm’s gallery, where you can shop for local pewter jewelry, as well as textiles and clothing from Africa, the Caribbean, southeastern Asia, eastern Europe, and many other far-flung lands. CHAMPAGNE BRUNCH OR STEAK DINNER: Drive east from Lincoln to a hiccup of a town called Tinnie, which is home to one of the more dramatic buildings in the area, the Tinnie Silver Dollar. This adobe building with bright-red corrugated roofing and a lofty red-and-white tower contains a package store and deli. It also boasts an elegantly furnished steak house and saloon that serves dinner Thursday through Saturday evenings, and a highly popular Sunday Champagne brunch. The eggs Benedict with green-chile hollandaise sauce is a standout; pair it with a mimosa or Bloody Mary. OVERNIGHT: You could spend the night channeling the artistic creativity of the illustrious Hurd and Wyeth families at Hurd–La Rinconada Gallery & Guest Homes. The picturesque compound—once the home of celebrated artists Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth Hurd—comprises six different adobe guest buildings, including the original 1930s hacienda-style Wyeth House (sleeps up to six) and the tree-shaded Apple House cottage (sleeps up to four), with a patio and grill overlooking the high-desert foothills. These very private units—furnished individually with family artworks and collectibles—have fully equipped kitchens and would make a nice home base for the entire road trip, as San Patricio is no more than a 45-minute drive from any point on this tour. Alternatively, continue 23 miles back to Ruidoso and spend your final night there. ✜","publish_start_moment":"2014-05-14T14:00:00.000Z","publish_end_moment":"2019-06-27T09:57:20.581Z"}]});