The Big Ride – Culture and the Arts! (New Mexico)

Two of the States that I have always wanted to visit were Texas and New Mexico, so having the opportunity to visit them back to back was incredibly amazing.  As you know from my last post, Texas surpassed my expectations.  Well, that was also the case with New Mexico!

I was able to spend time in Las Vegas, New Mexico – a small historical town , along with a couple days in Santa Fe.  What a wonderful experience it’s been visiting New Mexico.

My first stop was in Las Vegas, NM, which was established in 1835.  The little town was built around a central plaza in a traditional Spanish style with a plaza surrounded by buildings that would have been used to fortify the city in the event of an attack. With the arrival of the railway in 1880, the town became notorious for it’s reputation of murderers, robbers, thieves, gamblers and  gunmen, including Doc Holliday and his girlfriend Big Nose Kate…I wonder how she got her name…Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp. What’s interesting is that some parts of the town appear to still have a similar “flavour” 🙂

Here’s a few of my favorite photos from Las Vegas, NM.

 

   

From Las Vegas, I headed towards Santa Fe, NM.  The scenery was exceptional!  Here are a few photos from along the way.

My travels included a stop at the historic Nambe Trading Post off Route 503.  It’s one of the last authentic trading posts in the area.  There I met Jennifer Jesse Smith, one of the owners of the shop and a local artist. What a wonderful experience that turned out to be.  Jennifer took the time to show me around the trading post and provided a commentary about the wonderful collection she has at the Trading Post, including numerous authentic native artifacts and an array of fabulous pieces of local art, such as handcrafted jewelry, locally woven native blankets, pottery, paintings and more.  Included in the collection were a number of native costumes made by her mother, Cathy A. Smith, the Emmy award winning designer, made for the movie Dances with Wolves which starred Kevin Costner.  If you are in New Mexico, stopping in at the Nambe Trading Post is a must!  Here are a few photos of what you might find there.

Here are a few other photos that I found interesting.

My time spent touring around Santa Fe is worthy of its own post…stay tuned for Part 2 of “Culture and the Arts!”