Posted
on January 6, 2016
New
Mexico adopted as its official nickname “Land of Enchantment.”
How
true!
New
Mexico is a land of mountains and deserts, of fine artists and
artisans in all the traditional handicrafts, of Hispanic and Native
American people and cultures and influences.
It
has the highest percentage of Hispanic people in its population, and
it has the second highest percentage of Native Americans (after
Alaska). 
Interestingly enough, New Mexico did not get its name from Mexico. Instead, both of these places got their names independently from the Aztec – or Mexica – Empire.
New
Mexico originally got its name from Spanish explorers who, in the
second half of the sixteenth century, named the region Nuevo Mexico
because they thought that the Indians living there were as wealthy as
the Mexica Indians.
 |
| The state flag is red and gold, the colors of Spain's flag, but it has an ancient sun symbol from the Pueblo tribe known as Zia. |
However, New Mexico, like Mexico, was
ruled by Spain; later, the state became a part of the republic of
Mexico. Of course, for centuries Navajo, Pueblo, Apache, and other groups of
Native Americans lived there.
On
this date in 1912, New Mexico became the 47th U.S. state.
Here are my personal “bests” of New Mexico:
Best
art community in NM:
Santa
Fe has more than 200 world-class art galleries in just two square
miles – with three arts districts vying for shoppers' eyes and
dollars. When my husband and I tried to check out every one of the
galleries in just one of the districts, we kept thinking, “Well,
now I've seen it all – the next gallery will just seem like
repetition, right?” And then we would go in and be totally blown
away with a totally new never-before-seen sort of sculpture, or a
unique painting style, or an especially exquisite sort of handicraft.
We got tremendously footsore but never jaded!
Quirkiest
Museum in NM:
Roswell
boasts an interesting and self-important International UFO Museum &
Research Center.
Best
cave in NM:
Carlsbad
Caverns boasts one of the largest cave chambers in North
America, and there are at least 23 named rooms in the cave! Another extra attraction is watching bats fly out of the cave every sunset!
Best
sand in NM:
Walking
around White Sands National Monument is beautiful and weird. The sand
is so, so white because it is made of gypsum crystals. This is the
largest gypsum dune field in the world!
I
loved seeing the white-white lizards and the white-white spiders that
had evolved to blend into the gypsum sand. I loved seeing the black
tread on our whitened tires. I felt like I was hiking through an
immense pile of plaster of paris! (Which, of course, I was!)
Best
Native American ruins in NM:
I
really enjoyed Bandelier National Monument, hiking to and climbing up
to the pueblo structures made by the Ancestral Puebloans!
Best
science museum in NM:
Los
Alamos is famous for being the site of the super-secret Manhattan
Project during World War II. Scientists developed the first
devastating nuclear weapons there.
Nowadays, the Bradbury Science
Museum sheds light on this interesting and sobering chapter of
history.
I
also love Taos and Albuquerque and other ruins and museums and and
and! New Mexico is truly wonderful!
Here
are some things I'd like to see...but that I haven't seen yet:
Fridgehenge:
Also
known as Stonefridge.
It's
an homage to England's Stonehenge, done with refrigerators!
Ghost
Ranch:
This
beautiful place was home to artist Georgia O'Keefe!
Tent
Rocks:
I
love rock formations. These look amazing!
Blue
Hole:
Found
in Santa Rosa, this bell-shaped pool is 80 feet deep and extremely
clear!
Also
on this date:
Plan ahead:
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out my Pinterest pages on:
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here are my Pinterest boards for:
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