explore40's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Santa Fe, New Mexico

Ethyl the Whale

Life-sized sculpture of a blue whale made of hand-recycled plastic trash.
Santa Fe, New Mexico

House of Eternal Return

An immersive environment that is part haunted house, part choose-your-own-adventure, and part jungle gym.
Farmington, New Mexico

Bisti Badlands

Seemingly grown on some other world, these New Mexico rock formations look like a disused science fiction set.
Silverton, Colorado

Christ of the Mines Shrine

This alpine statue of Jesus in Silverton is said to protect both miners and local economies.
Roswell, New Mexico

Bottomless Lakes State Park

Hidden in the New Mexico desert southeast of Roswell, nine small deep lakes formed inside sinkholes.
Silver City, New Mexico

Gila Cliff Dwellings

These ruins of a pre-Columbian cliff village are among the most beautiful and well preserved in New Mexico.
Socorro, New Mexico

Socorro Isopod

A warm desert spring holds one of the rarest species on earth.
Three Rivers, New Mexico

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

More than 21,000 images fill this overlooked gem of a prehistoric site.
Puerto Palomas, Mexico

The Pink Store

A mecca of Mexican art and cuisine just over the border.
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

Truth or Consequences

This quirky hot springs town known to locals as "T or C" was named after a radio show.
Alamogordo, New Mexico

White Sands National Park

Explore the largest pure gypsum deposit in the world, and go dune sledding while you're at it.
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Prehistoric Trackways National Monument

Wee (and not so wee) footprints that insects and reptiles of the Paleozoic Era left behind.
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Recycled Roadrunner Statue

The state bird of New Mexico, constructed entirely out of garbage.
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Chile Pepper Institute

At this research institute, the chile is king.
Moab, Utah

Landscape Arch

The fifth-longest natural arch in the world, and the longest outside China.
Page, Arizona

Antelope Canyon

Most-visited and most-photographed slot canyon in the American Southwest.
Moab, Utah

Gemini Bridges

It's safe—and permitted—to walk across these twin natural sandstone arches.
Moab, Utah

Potash Evaporation Ponds

Few things look more out of place than the electric blue ponds in the reddish-brown desert of Utah.
Monticello, Utah

Hole N" the Rock

A house carved into a rock in the 1940s.
Ouray, Colorado

Box Canyon Falls

A glimpse of a waterfall is reached by a steel catwalk along a slot canyon located in an Ouray city park.
Second Mesa, Arizona

Awat'ovi Ruins

More than 300 years ago, a revolt at this Hopi pueblo shaped the future of the American Southwest.
Tonalea, Arizona

Cow Springs Trading Post

The graffiti-covered ruins of an abandoned trading post in the middle of the Navajo Nation.
Chimney Rock, Colorado

Chimney Rock

Two tall rocks sit at the center of this site, once the home of a large Ancestral Puebloan community.
Monticello, Utah

Church Rock

Oddly shaped rock formation, misassociated with a nearby utopian community.