Rattlesnake Sculptures, Albuquerque
En route to the Albuquerque International Sunport, you may do a double take at the 200-foot-long rattlesnake winding along the University Boulevard median. Crafted with cobblestones, the rattler and its partner (near Rio Bravo Boulevard) decorate the desert without using precious water for plantscapes while echoing the blue ripples and sunny designs of the nearby bridges of Mesa del Sol. “The snake, as a family of creatures, is so embedded into our culture,” says George Radnovich, the founding principal and lead landscape architect of Sites Southwest. “They represent resilience and, if anything, New Mexico is a resilient place.”
Big Chile Inn & Suites, Las Cruces
Chiles have always been big in New Mexico. But since 2011, the 47-foot-long, 5,000-pound red chile outside Las Cruces’s Big Chile Inn & Suites has demonstrated just how massive the crop really is here. “Chile is the backbone of the economy in the Mesilla Valley,” says Donna Blake Birchell, a Carlsbad-based author of 17 books on New Mexico history and roadside attractions.
In 2003, New York–based Cabinet Magazine considered the absurdity of land as a commodity by purchasing a half-acre plot of scrubland outside Deming for $325, as well as a $35 plot on the planet Mars. Their slice of enchantment became known as Cabinetlandia, which today features a standard three-drawer filing cabinet that is cemented into an adobe wall in the middle of the desert. It is filled with books, notes, and foodstuffs from travelers who have passed through. If you’re lucky, there may even be a pair of shoes to protect against rattlesnakes.