For those travelers touring New Mexico's Turquoise Trail, Madrid will surely be high on the list of "must-see" locations. Even if art galleries and coffee shops aren't your thang, most people like food and the Mine Shaft Tavern has the best burgers around.   
​     Personally, I have no interest in being where the tourists are but there is another secret destination that makes Madrid worthwhile.

     Lemitar, New Mexico is a census designated place in Socorro County. The town lies along NM 408 and is easily seen from I-25. I would always notice it from the car window on the way to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. 

     Like many explorers, I found the Kuhn Hotel by accident. Located in the Historic Railroad District of Belen, New Mexico, the Kuhn Hotel sits hidden away behind the underpass on the secret end of a dead end street.

     New Mexico's capital city, Santa Fe, is world famous for it's rich history, museum quality art, and signature "Santa Fe style". Visitors flock to the City Different to buy legit Native American jewelry, don their best "Southwest" outfit and pursue enlightenment while navigating impossibly narrow roads in the reluctant metropolis that relies on tourism but rejects the concept of city planning.
     Any visitor worth their salt will plan to see the Loretto Chapel, San Miguel Mission, The Palace Of The Governors, La Fonda Hotel, Georgia O'Keefe Museum, and all the art galleries on Canyon Road just to get warmed up.
     As for myself, I like to seek out the places where the tourists are not. Places that don't sell Kokopelli incense burners or Pendleton blankets and where nothing is adorned with a howling coyote. 

     In 1908 three men from Cedarvale, Kansas laid out a small farming community in New Mexico. Seeing no reason to come up with a new name, they stuck with what they knew and called the new settlement Cedarvale.