On The Turquoise Trail To Cerrillos, New Mexico

Possibly the most iconic building in Cerrillos, Mary passed away in 2016 but her bar lives on.

Not Really Here Or There

An easily overlooked stop on the Turquoise Trail road trip, Cerrillos is literally a living ghost town. At least six or seven people still live here and they even put up historical markers providing interesting information on the town's ancient buildings. 

Most tourists will want to visit Madrid, which is just a few miles to the south. Madrid has fun things like restaurants, art galleries, and coffee shops and is welcoming to visitors so long as they spend money don't stray off the main road. Should one decide to venture off the road with pavement, the hills suddenly have eyes and you could easily be cursed by a stray dog, disappearing through a portal to the nether world, never to be seen or heard from again. 

And then there's Cerrillos.

There's nothing for tourists to do here so the whole town has eyes. Everywhere you go, someone is watching, possibly living and possibly not, but they'll let you know if step out of line.

The ghosts of Cerrillos are surely unimpressed by flashy jewelry and pretentious enlightenment so, if that's your bag, just drive on to Santa Fe.

​All images shot with a Motorola MotoX4 and edited with Snapseed.

St. Joseph Catholic Church

Elephant head door knocker on the historic Berardinelli House, built in 1886.

Abandoned house

Interior of abandoned house

Antique glass bottles in the window of the Casa Grande Trading Post.

Antique lamps and a vase in the window of the Casa Grande Trading Post

The Palace Hotel, built in 1888

Abandoned house

Through the window of the super creepy Bill Skrips Gallery

Clear Light Opera House, built in 1881

Abandoned adobe building

The historic marker was on around on the back end of this house but I didn't go back there due to the extremely shady looking fellow who was crawling around on the train tracks. I wanted to know, but I didn't want to know that bad.