On the Turquoise Trail

            There is a beautiful two lane highway that connects Santa Fe to Albuquerque NM. It is known as the Turquoise Trail, or Highway 14.  It passes through several small towns. We camped in Cedar Crest and explored north. In the bump in the road known as Golden exists a beautiful little mission and cemetery.
I first discovered this mission about 30 years ago and it was in sad shape, but made for some wonderful photography!


              

The cemetery is in front of the mission, parishioners must walk through the cemetery to get to church.

Spanish influenced cemeteries are much different than the Anglo cemeteries in  the Eastern USA. 

The mission has a new coat of adobe and paint and looks less abandoned than 30 years ago.

The cemetery still looks much the same.

You can attend Mass the first Sunday of every month.

Madrid

A bit further north you arrive at Madrid. Not pronounced like the Madrid of Spain, but pronounced like MahDrid of NM.  Madrid is a very old coal mining town, once abandoned and very much a ghost town. In the early 1980's, aspiring artists who could not afford to live in the towns of artists Santa Fe and Taos, moved into the abandoned houses of Madrid. One of the shopkeepers told me that back then the houses sold for as little as $3,000. Now they are all spruced up and turned into funky galleries, restaurants and motorcycles everywhere. Why motorcycles?? The movie "Wild Hogs" was filmed here!

A lot of craftsmen & artists must use old railroad cars as studios or storage as we saw several around town.

City Limits

Motorcycles everywhere!

The artwork on this one was unique!

The old hotel all fixed up and renting rooms and serving at the saloon!

Unique street signs!

Madrid has grown a lot in 30 years and creative people have taken a dirty old, abandoned mining town and built a thriving community of artists and musicians.

Hope you enjoyed your visit! We sure did!