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My wife and I are spending 10 days in Eastern New Mexico between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. We have done a lot of research on the trip and we are familiar with the larger cities.
One town has popped up on our radar - a town called Pie Town, which was photographed by Russell Lee during the 1940's.
Does anyone have any personal first-hand experience of the town or the area?
We are kind of "off the beaten track" travelers who like to look into local history and the like.
I drove through there about a month ago. I think some of what was photographed back
then may still exist. One rather unique feature is a Well Drilling Museum... about 20 or so
well rigs set up alongside the main highway.
EDIT:....
Just tossed some pics into an online album of Mongollon, Pie Town and Gila.
There isn't much to it. That is to say it is more pie than town. In fact it is more pie than village, hamlet or dorf. But it is surrounded by remote country. I just wouldn't drive clear across the state just to see something you can miss if you look down to change the radio station. That is if you can get radio out there ;-)
As far as the area in general, if you are up for a short day hike, the Malpais are interesting and there is El Morro national monument.
They are neat in that there is a huge thickness of ice that stays there
all-year long year-after-year. It is in a pretty place where huge gaping
holes have opened up into lava tubes. It's interesting, but not spectacular.
There is also an interesting short hike up to Bandelier Crater which once
spewed molten rock in the vicinity. It is closer to spectacular, but still
mostly interesting.
The trip can be continued to El Morro National Monument which is also
very pretty and offers another slightly longer hike to indian ruins and
views of pioneers' marks put in the rock. It is also interesting.
Interesting people will find a day trip visit to these three places to be
a fun and interesting time combined with pretty scenery and a better
appreciation for the geologic and palaeontologic history of New Mexico.
It won't be exciting, but it also won't be crowded.
I'm glad I went and I would go again to take someone who never visited.
My wife and I are spending 10 days in Eastern New Mexico between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. We have done a lot of research on the trip and we are familiar with the larger cities.
One town has popped up on our radar - a town called Pie Town, which was photographed by Russell Lee during the 1940's.
Does anyone have any personal first-hand experience of the town or the area?
We are kind of "off the beaten track" travelers who like to look into local history and the like.
Thanks for your help.
Eastern New Mexico is not between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. Pie Town is in western New Mexico. And places like Mogollon and Gila are in southwestern NM. So I'm confused about where you're really exploring.
We stopped at the Pie-O-Neer once taking one of the local routes from ABQ to Tucson. It is a place to go through, not to, in my opinion. The pie was nothing special, filling from a can. We found a plastic pie knife that said "Pie-O-Neer" on it sticking out of the dirt in the parking lot of the restaurant, took it home and used it for years until it broke. Pie Town is just a tourist trap, and a very remote and unsuccessful one at that, after the interstate took away the traffic decades ago. There are dozens of more worthy destinations in the area. Have you been to Acoma or El Morro yet? El Malpais monument and the Very Large Array are also infinitely more interesting than Pie Town.
And a late afternoon visit to Bosque del Apache in the autumn is a must, to see thousands of migrating birds.
Eastern New Mexico is not between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. Pie Town is in western New Mexico. And places like Mogollon and Gila are in southwestern NM. So I'm confused about where you're really exploring.
My bad. I am looking at the western portion of the state as I have pretty well covered the eastern portion on prior visits.
FWIW, those handful of Pie Town photos I posted reflect almost all civilization for miles
in both directions. I left out the crumbling gas station..
I think some of the old photo locations still exist, but I'm not sure exactly where they are.
It's a nice (flat) country drive so if it's important to you, why not? Especially if you can
tie it in with other relatively nearby destinations. Long way between gas stations, though,
so top off when you have the chance.
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