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Published: November 7th 2013
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Albuquerque & Madrid, New Mexico
From Silver City we drove through slowly along the twisting route 152 through the scenic Mimbres Mountains and onto Interstate 25 heading north at Caballo. One of the town we passed by was called Truth or Consequences – what a great name for a town! But the drive though the mountain pass took us much longer than we had planned, sometimes we had to go 10 to 15 miles per hour, so we didn’t stop at Truth or Consequences and pushed northwards instead toward Albuquerque.
We parked Rudy V on Central Avenue (aka Route 66) next to a small park halfway between the downtown and the old town. We walked first toward the downtown and our first stop was a wonderful consignment gallery of over 75 local and area artists called Sumner & Dene and run by one of the artists. His name was Roy and he was a native of Santa Fe. After we told him we were from Ireland and that we were heading toward Santa Fe and then Taos, he retrieved a couple of local art magazines containing maps from behind his counter and advised us on which scenic routes to
take, which were the best viewpoints to stop at and which galleries had the best sculpture gardens for relaxing.
We wandered around the downtown which like many small town American downtowns , had seen better and more profitable times in the past. This part of Route 66 consists mainly of bars for the student population nightlife, a couple of which sported Irish names. There were also a couple of old theatres that advertised heavy metal trash bands. After about a hour we turned back up Route 66 and walked the mile or so to the old town. Enroute we stopped at a very-well stocked used record and bookstore and where we discovered that there were no jazz clubs in Albuquerque although there were a couple of places that occasionally featured jazz musicians. We also stopped at an Aveda clinic to stock up on some nice shampoo and where the staff offered us tea and chocolates leftover from Halloween.
The old town of Albuquerque consists of a tree-filled main plaza, a charming square that is overlooked by the twin-towered adobe church of San Felipe de Neri. There are a number of the original adobe buildings from the 1790s still
standing and with their courtyards filled with shops that offer art and sculpture, gifts and western clothing and boots, and a few are coffee shops or restaurants. This area has been the center of Albuquerque for over 200 years, since the early 1700s when a band of 18 families won formal approval for their town from the Spanish Crown by naming the city after the Spanish Duke of Alburquerque.
The heart of Hispanic culture in the Southwest is found in this part of New Mexico. Here the Hispanic populations that are descended from the original Spanish colonizers of the 1700s outnumber the Anglo-Americans and their influence is present throughout the region in their Catholic religion, language and cooking, festivals and arts. New Mexican residents bear the surnames of their ancestors and speak English with a Spanish accent.
We followed Roy’s instructions and headed toward Santa Fe by the Turquoise Highway, but first we followed Route 66 out of Albuquerque for about 20 miles east and seeing the many original flashing neon signs and 1940s architecture of motels and drive-ins that have become icons. Route 66 barely lasted 20 years before it was superseded by a freeway in 1957,
but its romance lives on in the literature and songs it has inspired.
The Turquoise Highway, named such because of the mining that still takes place along the route is also known as route 14 (for those of you following us on google maps) and is a National Scenic Byway of some 40 miles to just south of Santa Fe and it traverses the Chibola National Forest. Some of the scenery along this drive is breath-taking and again we went so slow that we had to stop as the light faded and dusk slipped quickly into darkness. We don’t want to drive these narrow roads at night. So we pulled Rudy V into a lay-by at the top of a long grade and hunkered down for a cold night’s sleep. The next morning we woke to glorious sunshine and an unparalleled view of the forest. And we were in Madrid within a few minutes. (It is pronounced MAD-rid, not MA-drid.)
The village of Madrid is nestled in a narrow canyon in the Ortiz Mountains. It was once a historic coal mining town and ghost town, and is now a creative community with over 40 shops and galleries, several
restaurants, a spa and museum. Madrid qualifies as the funkiest little artists’ colony town we have visited so far on this journey. Nearly every old mining house along the bed in the road that makes up Madrid has been turned into an art gallery exhibition space of sorts. And most of the art and sculpture produced here is of the recycled variety so the driveways and yards are full of junk, scrap metal, all sorts of rubbish just waiting to be rejuvenated into art. We couldn’t get a seat in Java Junction for all the long-bearded local artists occupying the two tables and 6 chairs while drinking their morning coffee and awaiting inspiration. So we walked up and down the street, took a lot of photos, and then drove on to Santa Fe.
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