Madrid, N.M., is a unique destination, to say the least.
The town, originally founded in the 1800s as a coal mining town, is now an artist's haven - a hippie enclave of sorts. And that's an interesting mix.
Rediscovered in the 1960s and '70s, the town provided artists an escape from the "touristy and overpopulated" Santa Fe and Taos, one gallery owner said.
Another said, "We're the San Francisco.... They're too much like Los Angeles."
Home to about 50 galleries and some marvelous artwork as diverse as the people, it was the town's history that struck me as most interesting - and absolutely nothing else.
Like so many other places around New Mexico, the town flourished during the mining heyday. The area was rich in coal and the town was booming with the expansion of the railroad.
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The city even boasted the first illuminated baseball stadium west of the Mississippi, built in 1922. Home to the Madrid Miners, an affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team quickly became known for winning pennants in the competitive Central New Mexico League. The whole town celebrated its famed baseball heroes.
That is, until 1954, when the mines closed and coal production ceased.
For the next 20 years, Madrid was classified as a "ghost town" - abandoned and desolate.
The town was resurrected in the 1970s and slowly but surely was rebuilt and renovated into the art destination it is today.
Main Street now consists of two rows of old, shaky-looking, single-story wooden buildings set along a half-mile on N.M. 14. Giant mounds of mine rubble and tailings are still the largest structures in town.
But amidst the rock and rubble, galleries jump out against the dullness. Colorful signs and street markers dot the rustic landscape. Neon green and sapphires sprinkle the desert views.
It is an unlikely setting for a thriving arts and crafts community, although not perhaps for "Wild Hogs," a Hollywood movie about mid-life crisis and self-discovery, which was filmed there.
And huddled under one roof, locals and tourists, bikers and hippies, desert rats and yuppies all find a home away from home at the Mine Shaft Tavern. Built in 1944, the bar pays homage to its mining past with furniture and pictures from decades past. It is also home to the longest stand-up bar in New Mexico, which is a whopping 40 feet in length.
A local man with a gray beard and heavy sunburn struck up a somewhat slurred conversation with me. He translated the Latin mural on the wall: "It is better to drink than to work."
It is better to drink than to work. It's also better to visit than to live.
Oh yeah, and as the locals reminded me a few hundred times, it's pronounced "Mad-rid," not "Ma-drid."
If you go: Take I-40 east to Exit 175. Continue north on N.M. 14 about 30 miles.
