A special two-part Photo Phriday, since I missed last week. Hot air balloons, taken at the Friends and Lovers Balloon Rally over Valentines Day weekend in 2015.
Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Friday, March 13, 2015
Photo Phriday - 2015 03 13 - Two Photos!
A special two-part Photo Phriday, since I missed last week. Hot air balloons, taken at the Friends and Lovers Balloon Rally over Valentines Day weekend in 2015.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Exploring Rural New Mexico: Raton, Capulin Volcano, Folsom, and Clayton
As some of you may know, I recently bought a new camera (comment below if you want the backstory). What better way to learn and test the new camera than a road trip? The boyfriend has recently been working on a project regarding the Santa Fe Trail, and heard about an extinct volcano in northeastern New Mexico. Let's go!
We left Denver Friday evening, stopped at our favorite Jamaican restaurant in Colorado Springs (Jamaican Flavor, go there!) for dinner, and spent the night in Trinidad, CO. Saturday morning we left Trinidad in search of breakfast in Raton, NM. It appears as though Raton has seen better days. Most restaurants and businesses along the main drag are either out of business, boarded up, or open with very limited hours. Fortunately, there is one place that is definitely open: the Oasis Restaurant. The Yelp reviews may be iffy, but I will tell you that breakfast is delicious! Homefries, egg sandwich, ham, green chile*... all good! The staff is very friendly. Next time I'm in NM I'd like to spend some time in Raton learning about its history.
*Colorado likes to pretend that it knows what's up with green chile, but the truth is that green chile is a New Mexican dish. I'm just going to throw this out there: New Mexico makes better green chile. Now you know. :)
Capulin Volcano National Monument
Full of delicious breakfast we set out towards the Capulin Volcano. A volcano in New Mexico? Yes! It is very well preserved, thanks in part to the plants that now live on the volcano and help prevent erosion. There are trails around the rim of the volcano and down into the vent (remember: extinct volcano). The rim trail provides an excellent view of other volcanoes in the area, as well as nearby towns, roads, and railroads.
If you are at all interested in geology, volcanoes, or historic land forms, check out Capulin!
Folsom, NM
After spending some time at Capulin we decided to drive through Folsom, just to see what was there. We heard it was a ghost town, but there was a lot going on! We stopped at the Folsom Museum to learn about the town's history. For a town that might fit the description "the middle of nowhere", there's actually a lot of history. There was also an arts/crafts sale going on outside of the historic Folsom Hotel, and they were preparing for a concert later in the evening. As with any town of this size (56 people!), the locals quickly noticed that we were outsiders. We talked to a few people, all of whom were very friendly and wanted to share their town's history with us. Several people asked what brought us to town, and we told them that we stopped because we heard about the old historic district and were curious. We were told that one resident volunteered to fix up (paint, rebuilt, clean, etc) the historic district. If you compare my photos to others on flickr, you can see that she has done a great job!
For comparison, here is a photo (by Flickr user CourtHouseLover) of the Folsom business district in 2009:
To read more about Folsom's history, check out this site: Folsom Museum - Folsom Area History and these Wikipedia articles about George McJunkin and Black Jack Ketchum.
Clayton, NM
Our next stop was in Clayton, which is about an hour away from Folsom. With a population of nearly 3000 people, Clayton is much larger than Folsom. We weren't planning to stop, but decided to check it out when we saw the Herzstein Museum in an old church. The museum's curator was very friendly, and told us about some of the exhibits. The museum covers Clayton's shared history with Folsom as well as some things unique to Clayton.
The Rest of the Trip
From Clayton we continued on to Amarillo. We visited Cadillac Ranch, Palo Duro Canyon, and made friends at a restaurant/wine bar called Crush.
On Sunday we headed north, stopped at the TX/OK state line, visited a grocery store in Boise City OK, and continued onward. Of course we had to stop at my favorite restaurant in Lamar (List: Things I Never Thought I'd Say): Thai Spicy Basil.
Overall, a fun weekend of exploring!
Map
Typically I'd embed a map here, but the new Google Maps won't allow me to do so without changing my map to "Public". So instead here is the not-public-but-viewable-by-anyone-with-the-link map. Sorry it isn't embedded; go complain to Google.
We left Denver Friday evening, stopped at our favorite Jamaican restaurant in Colorado Springs (Jamaican Flavor, go there!) for dinner, and spent the night in Trinidad, CO. Saturday morning we left Trinidad in search of breakfast in Raton, NM. It appears as though Raton has seen better days. Most restaurants and businesses along the main drag are either out of business, boarded up, or open with very limited hours. Fortunately, there is one place that is definitely open: the Oasis Restaurant. The Yelp reviews may be iffy, but I will tell you that breakfast is delicious! Homefries, egg sandwich, ham, green chile*... all good! The staff is very friendly. Next time I'm in NM I'd like to spend some time in Raton learning about its history.
*Colorado likes to pretend that it knows what's up with green chile, but the truth is that green chile is a New Mexican dish. I'm just going to throw this out there: New Mexico makes better green chile. Now you know. :)
Capulin Volcano National Monument
Full of delicious breakfast we set out towards the Capulin Volcano. A volcano in New Mexico? Yes! It is very well preserved, thanks in part to the plants that now live on the volcano and help prevent erosion. There are trails around the rim of the volcano and down into the vent (remember: extinct volcano). The rim trail provides an excellent view of other volcanoes in the area, as well as nearby towns, roads, and railroads.
If you are at all interested in geology, volcanoes, or historic land forms, check out Capulin!
Folsom, NM
After spending some time at Capulin we decided to drive through Folsom, just to see what was there. We heard it was a ghost town, but there was a lot going on! We stopped at the Folsom Museum to learn about the town's history. For a town that might fit the description "the middle of nowhere", there's actually a lot of history. There was also an arts/crafts sale going on outside of the historic Folsom Hotel, and they were preparing for a concert later in the evening. As with any town of this size (56 people!), the locals quickly noticed that we were outsiders. We talked to a few people, all of whom were very friendly and wanted to share their town's history with us. Several people asked what brought us to town, and we told them that we stopped because we heard about the old historic district and were curious. We were told that one resident volunteered to fix up (paint, rebuilt, clean, etc) the historic district. If you compare my photos to others on flickr, you can see that she has done a great job!
A train in Folsom | Switchboard used to warn residents of the deadly 1908 flood |
For comparison, here is a photo (by Flickr user CourtHouseLover) of the Folsom business district in 2009:
To read more about Folsom's history, check out this site: Folsom Museum - Folsom Area History and these Wikipedia articles about George McJunkin and Black Jack Ketchum.
Clayton, NM
Our next stop was in Clayton, which is about an hour away from Folsom. With a population of nearly 3000 people, Clayton is much larger than Folsom. We weren't planning to stop, but decided to check it out when we saw the Herzstein Museum in an old church. The museum's curator was very friendly, and told us about some of the exhibits. The museum covers Clayton's shared history with Folsom as well as some things unique to Clayton.
The Rest of the Trip
From Clayton we continued on to Amarillo. We visited Cadillac Ranch, Palo Duro Canyon, and made friends at a restaurant/wine bar called Crush.
On Sunday we headed north, stopped at the TX/OK state line, visited a grocery store in Boise City OK, and continued onward. Of course we had to stop at my favorite restaurant in Lamar (List: Things I Never Thought I'd Say): Thai Spicy Basil.
Overall, a fun weekend of exploring!
Map
Typically I'd embed a map here, but the new Google Maps won't allow me to do so without changing my map to "Public". So instead here is the not-public-but-viewable-by-anyone-with-the-link map. Sorry it isn't embedded; go complain to Google.
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