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A Life Less Ordinary

Day Trips around Santa Fe, NM – The Turquoise Trail

Some readers might remember that when Mark and I did a one-month house sit in Santa Fe last summer, every Saturday morning, we would jump in Zesty for a weekend away. We visited a national park or interesting attraction in the area. It was our first prolonged time in New Mexico, and the state has a lot to offer. Due to the windy weather, among other things, we haven’t been able to go on weekend trips this time around. Luckily, we are here for two months, so stay tuned!

A few days ago, we went for a Sunday drive, to follow the Turquoise Trail, a scenic byway between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The route is named after the turquoise gemstones that used to be mined in this area, and is 54 miles long. While we’ve seen more impressive landscapes on road trips, the stops along the trail were worthwhile.

Cerillos

Madrid

Sandia Crest

Last summer, Mark and I took the tramway up Sandia Mountain, and hiked back down for ten miles. You can read about that tricky adventure here. This time, we drove the car up the winding, climbing road.

Tinkertown

Frugal tips

The best place for lunch and a drink is the artist town Madrid. We brought our own food and ate at the top of Sandia Peak. Parking there costs $3 per vehicle, but if you have a National Park pass, the fee is waved. This excursion cost us about $12 in gasoline.

This is a post for (Almost) Wordless Wednesday, or as Suzanne likes to say “Worth a Word Wednesday”.

51 Comments

  1. Sounds like you’re making the most of your stay. The winds have played havoc with our outings as well. Fortunately, the town of Page has a great library for the extreme weather days and when the weather is agreeable, we take full advantage.

    • I love comfy, wind-free libraries! 🙂 Sorry to hear bout the winds in Arizona and Utah as well. We are only now realizing that spring in the Southwest is not ideal. When we have a less windy day, we try to take advantage of it as well, going for a walk or a bike ride. But, that hasn’t happened often. Good thing is that I have plenty of projects to keep me busy inside. And, the end of spring is my personal deadline!

  2. I remember flying into Albuquerque and driving to Santa Fe from there, but I didn’t take the Turquoise Trail. I so wish now that I had. I love any place with artist studios and these look like such interesting ones. There’s nothing to be done about it – New Mexico is just going to have to go back on my bucket list.

    • We are realizing (from experience and from talking to other travelers) that taking the back roads reveals much more of a country than buzzing by on highways. In the past, we always needed to get somewhere “fast” to start a house sit, but we hope to take it slower in the future. I think picking a route is always a toss-up, even when you have time. You’ll always miss something.

      You would really like this old mining and ghost town of Madrid, Karen. Yes, put New Mexico back on the list! 🙂

  3. Looks like interesting towns to stop and browse. I like your collage of photos. Thanks for sharing, Liesbet.

    • I think there are many of these old mining and ghost towns in the Southwest of the US, Natalie. These ones were interesting, as well as the ones on the route we did in Northern California last year.

  4. This area looks so beautiful and inviting Liesbet and it is lovely you now have more time here ☺? xxx

    • Yep! We are enjoying our extra time here, Xenia. Especially as I want to make decent progress on my writing project, before the summer starts. So, while I don’t really mind being stuck inside, Mark is the bigger complainer this time. 🙂

  5. Thanks for the mention Liesbet 🙂 Great photos, and about time you wrote a post, I was missing them in my wordpress feed 🙂 Mining towns seem to attract the more eccentric darlings of the world! Love all the creativity and colour!

    • You are full of good ideas, Suz! It’s quite special how some of these abandoned towns have been turned into artistic havens. Talking to an art dealer, who lives off the grid and drives 30 minutes twice a day to cover 4 miles each way, did not sound too attractive, though.

  6. “Worth a Word Wednesday” – I like that 🙂 That’s an interesting sign thanking the residents of Cerillos.

    • The sign made me want to watch Young Guns (again). The name of the movie sounds familiar, but I actually don’t remember ever watching it. I confuse it with Top Gun, which was filmed in the area where we house sat in San Diego this winter. 🙂

  7. That is a funky museum, Liesbet! Were you able to go inside? Thanks for sharing your trip with us…it loos like a fun place to visit. Bringing your own food is always a good idea. 🙂

    • We actually didn’t go inside, Jill. While entrance was only around $3.75 a person, we were too frugal to spend the money and only peeked in. We rarely go out to lunch as well (or dinner). These days, we are spending heaps on our camper. And… not going out often makes it more special when it does happen! 🙂

  8. Glad you got to Madrid. We had a fun afternoon there a few years ago. Looks like you took a photo of the same house as I did. Here is a link to my post about our visit to the area: https://travelswithharvy.com/2014/04/22/abq-mountainaire-and-madrid/

    • Great post, Leslie. Yep, the same abandoned, picturesque house! You guys found more treasures than we did, though. 🙂

  9. Victoria Marie Lees

    April 19, 2018 at 07:29

    I love all your photos, Liesbet. We took the 5 kids in the tramway to the top of Sandia Peak, too. You can see forever up there. And it was much colder at the top. We went in the summer and wore only shorts. I just looked at our photo. We’re all huddled together with sweatshirts on to keep warm. The kids never would have allowed us to hike down. Bravo to you and Mark for doing it. I’ll have to check out that post when I get a minute.
    We didn’t see the artist town. The bottle home is truly unique. Thanks so much for sharing this adventure with your followers. All best to you!

    • That hike down was one of the toughest hikes I’d done in a long while. I was wearing the wrong shoes (hiking sandals instead of shoes) for the rocky terrain, we ran out of water because we offered a liter to an old guy huffing it uphill, and the sun was seriously beating down on us. My head was killing me. It must have been quite the adventure with five kids on the tramway! Like every camping trip you guys did must have been the adventure. 🙂

  10. Retirement Reflections

    April 19, 2018 at 09:05

    What wonderful photos and descriptions, Liesbet. So many trails, so little time! How will I ever get to all the ones that I want to visit?
    On a very different note, what WP Plug-In do you use for your photos?

    • Thanks, Donna. Yep, there is way too much to see and do on this planet!

      I’m not using any WP plug-in for my photos as far as I’m aware of. With my Hemingway theme, I add photos via “add media” on the post and then, I have the option to create a gallery (left column). After I selected the photos for my gallery, and click “create gallery” I can pick which of 4 sizes and 6 types to make it appear in. I remember looking at your blog when we were in Palm Springs and you didn’t seem to have all these options to create a gallery. Another way to create collages is by using the Fotor program. It’s free to download and I use it to watermark and resize my photos before uploading them to WordPress. Hope this helps.

  11. Last year we got a National Park Pass but used it only once: to take our family to Cumberland Island, Ga via ferry trip. The kids loved it!

    This weekend’s getaway is to Brunswick, Georgia and hope to get into Hofwyl Plantation, which I think was a 19th century cotton plantation. The walking trails will appeal to me most of all. I know they’ll make my Fitbit happy. Maybe they’ll take our passes too! 🙂

    • Cumberland Island is such a wonderful place to visit… the beaches, the wild horses. We have fond memories exploring there with our dogs in 2007. Enjoy your excursion to Brunswick! If the plantation is a NP, NHS or NM your pass should work. That being said, I was surprised ours worked for the parking on top of Sandia. You never now, I guess.

  12. Just love this part of the US. I have taken through this area and also stopped of areas near Albuquerque on a cross – country road trip. Would love to have one month or two (or in your case three combined) in the area. The incomparable blue skies, the art, the old mining towns, the landscapes. What is not to love. The views from Sandia Crest particularly stand out and that picture of the lone porta-potty is a work of art.

    • The only thing not to love in New Mexico right now is the nasty wind, Lisa. It keeps us inside. But, there is plenty to do indoors as well. And, thanks to our extended period here, we can hopefully combine work and “pleasure” in the near future. I loved that toilet in the middle of the high desert!

  13. I think you’re right – the photos of those long secluded highways says volumes, as well as the fabulous shots of the small towns. For many of us who live near big cities, having a chance to see the ‘real’ America – the small towns and long highways – opens our eyes. I visited Albuquerque once on a business trip and was amazed at how different it was from the east and west coasts. I’m anxious to visit Sante Fe soon.

    • Do you have plans to visit Santa Fe soon, Pam? While it is more touristy and “upscale” than Albuquerque, I prefer the atmosphere of this town better. There is a lot of wonderful architecture and art spread throughout Santa Fe, and concerts in the summer, and it’s quite walkable. The parking lot near the Visitor Center offers free parking certain times of the day and week. Enjoy New Mexico, whenever you make it out here.

  14. Hi Liesbet, Wow – I loved all the photographs of your trips! I have only just read the very kind remarks you made when Sally Cronin interviewed me a while ago..(The computer had gremlins the day I tried to thank everyone and a few were lost!!). My husband and I have had to curtail our travellng a tad now that he’s nearly 90…and I’m only four years behind him.(altho’ we’re still 45 mentally…) Where do you call home? We lived in Canada for a short time and have travelled a fair bit, but were born in the UK, now retired in Spain. Do you write much ? You certainly sound like a fun woman with plenty of up and go!
    Here’s wishing you many more great adventures in the future. Best wishes. Joy x

    • Wow, you guys are young at heart! I’m sure you’ve had a full and exciting life, by the sounds of it. And not going to stop any time soon. This is so awesome! Good question about home. We don’t really have a place to call home – our camper is our newest home, I guess. I still have an address in Belgium, but my parents are moving this year, so that will go. And, we both have our US address in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where my husband’s parents live. We call that our home base, because I visit once a year and he flies back twice a year.

      How lovely to be retired in Spain, Joy. Quite a change from Canada, I’m sure. And, it’s good you got settled there, with all the changes coming up in the UK. I write all the time. Articles, blogs, translations, diaries, emails, blog comments, and my first memoir. 🙂 Not much time to travel these days…

  15. Liesbet–have been away for 4 months but see that you’re still in NM–one of my favorite spots. I’ll have to go back over to read your blogs (I didn’t have wifi where I was–not a bad thing though). Enjoy the Southwest–it’s a treasure.

    • Hi Teresita! Where have you been? Will you blog about it? It must have been nice to live internet-free for a little while. 🙂

      Mark and I were in Santa Fe last summer, then house sat a month in Colorado, followed by a 12-day RV trip through Utah and a 3.5-month house and dog sit in San Diego. We never planned to return to California (too crowded and expensive), but couldn’t pass up part of winter in San Diego. 🙂 After that, mid-February, we returned to New Mexico with a six-week sit in Albuquerque and now a two-month return sit to Santa Fe without pets. The goal is to focus 100% on work for a little while.

  16. This looks so fascinating Liesbet. I was struck by the artwork in progress and zooming in to the 51,000 pieces of recycled items! Now that is a clever way to keep things out of the landfill. Wishing you many happy explorations. Do you find it easier to house sit in an area you have been to previously?

    • While it is less adventurous than arriving at a new house sit, returning to a familiar one is a bit like coming home. I really enjoyed this feeling, twice, here in Santa Fe a few weeks ago, and when we returned to Sebastopol with Lola last summer. We know what to expect and settling in is quick. We know where to shop and where to visit. So, yes, it is much easier. But in general, I prefer new places and homes, because that’s just more exciting and feels a little bit like “vacation”. One of the reasons we returned to Santa Fe is that there are many parks and sites around that we didn’t visit last time. Hopefully, the weather and other circumstances will allow us to explore more soon.

  17. Hi Liesbet
    This is wonderful. I love the photos (my favorite is the wall in Tinkertown) and would really enjoy visiting these little towns along the Turquoise Trail. Enjoy your stay in Santa Fe. I’m looking forward to seeing more.
    Safe travels
    Laura

    • Posting this blog and reading the comments, I wished we would have spent more time in these towns, and that we actually visited the funky museum. The bottled walls were amazing! I’m hoping to deliver another New Mexico destination blog in a couple of weeks, Laura. If our planned weekend works out… The wind has been insane around here, and work issues as well. Have a wonderful weekend!!

  18. Looking down from the heights of Sandia looks wonderful, Liesbet. 🙂 🙂 Hope you get to have some fun this trip.

  19. The photos and trip are definitely worth those words, Liesbet! What are you going to do with yourselves until your next sit?

    • Thanks for the visit and the comment, Terri!
      1) We are extremely busy right now, with little time for excursions or fun (writing my memoir, translations, camper van prep, the business), so plenty to do with ourselves until this sit ends on May 26th.
      2) There is no next sit. 🙂

  20. Stunning photos. Santa Fe is definitely on my bucket list! Thanks for the great tour shares. 🙂

    • Santa Fe is such a wonderful city, Debby – the sites, the arts, the atmosphere, the scenery. I love it much more than Albuquerque. When you win the lottery and get that ranch, you might consider buying it in New Mexico in or around Santa Fe, instead of Arizona. 🙂

      • You’re so funny. But yes, I’ve been feeling a pull to get there for years now. Just as I did with Arizona. I will get there eventually – even if I don’t win the lottery, lol 🙂

        • We have a spare bedroom for another four weeks. 🙂

          • Wow, what a generous offer! Thank you so much. There was a time in my life when I was a spontaneous acting person, I would have jumped on it. Times are a little different now with my aging husband. I’m not yet ready to leave him for a jaunt. 🙂 xx

  21. Okay, now I’m curious. What next big adventure is going to follow upon your last housesit?

    Jude

    • Well… Let’s say it has to do with Zesty, and then Amtrak, then a plane across the Atlantic, and then Zesty again, mid-summer. 🙂 I’ll send you an email with our plans shortly.

  22. Wow, what gorgeous scenery. Thanks for sharing your images and adventures with us, Liesbet. xo

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