Last year during our trip to New Mexico, we were told by a local in Santa Fe that if we weren't in any hurry to get down to Albuquerque that we should skip going back on Interstate 25, but head down to Albuquerque on New Mexico State Highway 14 - the Turquoise Trail Scenic Byway. We were told there were lots of little towns along the way, a very good brewpub and a lot of great views. After checking out of our hotel in Santa Fe, we found that the road running past our hotel eventually turned into State Highway 14 just outside of Santa Fe.
The Turquoise Trail is about a 60 mile long road that goes between Santa Fe and Tijeras, NM just east of Albuquerque. It runs through small towns and villages such as Los Cerillos, Madrid, San Pedro and Sandia Park, many of which are artist communities.
But what you don't necessarily see is the history behind the Turquoise Trail - the mines and now-ghost towns that were in place in the 18th and 19th centuries. The ghost town of Golden, just north of San Pedro along State Highway 14, was the site of the first gold rush west of the Mississippi in the mid-1820's. Up the road in Los Cerillos, gold was discovered in the 1870's and the area boomed with prospectors and commerce.
But turquoise is the main precious mineral that has been mined in the region for hundreds of years. Native Pueblo Indians mined turquoise stones in the Cerillos Hills and Spanish conquistadors sent turquoise back to Spain for crown jewels. Archeologists discovered over 50,000 pieces of turquoise that had been buried in a canyon north and west of Albuquerque. Mayan ruins in far away Honduras have been found to contain turquoise stones that were mined in the Cerillos Hills just north of present day Madrid, NM. (Madrid is pronounced the same way as the town in Iowa - MAD-rid.) In addition to gold and turquoise, mines in the area produced zinc, lead, silver and copper.
Heading south and east out of Santa Fe, there is a brew pub - Beer Creek Brewing Company - that we were told by a local in Santa Fe to stop at. (See map) Actually, we drove past it, realized that we passed it, then turned around down the road and went back. Established in 2018 by friends who had a mutual interest in home brewing, Beer Creek Brewing Company got its name from the small creek that benefitted from the run-off of beer during the brewing process near the home of one of the founders. Housed in a rustic stone building that has been used in film and television productions over the years, Beer Creek (known as BCBC or BC-squared by locals) offers a number of beers brewed on premises and also offers pizzas, sandwiches, pasta dishes and appetizers.
Walking inside Beer Creek Brewing is like walking back into the old west. The main bar area is on the left as you walk in. The L-shaped bar was situated in a corner and had a wooden facade and metal stools. Exposed wooden beams with faux candle lamps on a circular wagon wheel hung from the ceiling. The dark wood walls definitely gave it a western feel.
The rooms off the bar area were small. The centerpiece of the room next to the bar area was an old stone fireplace with a number of tables nearby. About the only thing that sort of looked out of place in the bar and the fireplace room were the flat screen televisions that hung on the walls.
The rooms were cozy, but brightened by LED lights. A couple of the rooms looked like they had recently been renovated with newer wood floors and support beams. Pictures of the building from years ago hung on the wall of one of the small rooms.
The inside bar was actually closed, but the outside bar was open. The bar was part of a large outdoor patio that was situated under a number of trees that canopied the patio. Once again, it was a hot day in New Mexico, but the air was dry and it was pleasant to sit outside. The adobe-walled patio featured a large outdoor fireplace, but it certainly wasn't need that day.
My wife and I ordered up a couple beers - I got the IP-AYY India Pale Ale and my wife got the Tres Amigo pale ale. The beers at Beer Creek Brewing all feature locally grown hops and grains. The IP-AYY was a bit more strong and hoppy than the Tres Amigo. And sitting out on the patio having beers in the mid-day dry heat was a great experience.
The area around Beer Creek Brewing Company features a handful of studio sites where movies and television shows were shot. We were told during our visit that the three largest employers in the Santa Fe area are the state of New Mexico, the hospitality industry (hotels, restaurants, tourism), and the film and television industry. A couple guys seated at the table next to us were talking about the work they were doing at one of the studios nearby. My wife bought me a book while we were in Albuquerque - "A Guide to New Mexico Film Locations" by Jason Strykowski - that goes into details of where some famous movies and television programs were filmed across the state. Films such as Easy Rider, Crazy Heart, Hang 'Em High, and 3:10 to Yuma were filmed at various sites around the state, and the hit television programs - Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul - were filmed in and around Albuquerque.
After finishing up at Beer Creek Brewing, we made our way down the road to the small village of Los Cerillos, just off Highway 14. The town was once considered as the site for the state capitol building in New Mexico as it was the epicenter of turquoise, gold and lead deposits. Dozens of mines were in the area for years making Los Cerillos a boom town in the mid-to-late 1800's. Today, it's a sleepy tourist town where a number of television programs and movies have been shot over the years including Young Guns, We're the Millers, and Roswell - The Final Verdict.
While we were driving around the small town, we ended up going down a side road and running into the Casa Grande Trading Post which also had a petting zoo and a turquoise mining museum. My wife wanted to go in and take a look at what it was all about.
The place was a combination rock shop/gift shop/antique store/tourist trap. I remarked that it was sort of like a place the Griswold family would stop at on their way to Wally World in the "Vacation" movie. Todd Brown and his wife Patricia run the establishment and feature different types of mineral rocks that are mined in the Cerillos Mining District located just north of the town. Actually, my wife was sort of enamored with the different turquoise stones they had there. While she looked at the turquoise, I poked my head back into the mining museum they had in the back of the place. I'm not that big into geology to want to see the tools and contraptions they used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to extract the minerals out of the mines in the area. My wife ended up buying a couple pieces of turquoise and she also bought me a colorful New Mexico "Chile Capital of the World" license plate.
Just down the road from Los Cerillos was the small town of Madrid, NM. Art galleries, boutiques, small restaurants and other touristy businesses lined Highway 14 as we drove slowly through the town. "Do you wanna stop," I asked as we slowed down for a turning car.
"No," my wife immediately said. "Let's get going down the road."
And that was fine with me as I found the best part of the drive on the Turquoise Trail to be the scenery. The rolling hills and high plains dotted with sage bushes, the purple mountains off in the distance, and the brilliant blue sky allowed for many vistas along the road. There were a handful of turnout areas that allowed us to stop and take in the views. To me, that was the best part of traveling the Turquoise Trail.
We took many scenic roads while we were in New Mexico, but the Turquoise Trail almost seemed geared for the tourists. While there were some places to stop along the way - the Beer Creek Brewing Company being one - the attraction of the route was the beautiful scenery that stretched from Santa Fe all the way down to just east of Albuquerque. If you're traveling between the two cities and have some time to kill, the Turquoise Trail is a nice little diversion.
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