Top Things to do in Mountainair
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Top 6 Things to do in Mountainair, Mountainair
Discover the best top things to do in Mountainair, United States including Cibola Arts, La Galeria at The Shaffer, Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, Manzano Mountains State Park, The Emporium, Gypsy Raven Studio.
1. Cibola Arts
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 10 reviews
Reviewed By maggiesmadhouse - New Mexico, United States
Talented artists with unique and affordable pieces! Mixture of mediums, something for everyone! Friendly and informative staff! This is a must stop in Mountainair!
2. La Galeria at The Shaffer
Overall Ratings
5.0 based on 10 reviews
Reviewed By Mathartist
La Galeria is a wonderful new addition to the town of Mountainair, and worth a day trip all by itself. The fine art, spanning such genres as sculpture, paintings, prints, ceramics, and woven bowls, is all of exceptional quality and shows off the stunning amount of talent possessed by local artists. The gallery is in an old historic building (known as the Shaffer hotel) recently brought back to life once again, which also houses a new restaurant. There are other places to eat in Mountainair as well, including a long-established and well-loved cafe, another long-established restaurant recently re-opened under new owners, a grocery store with an in-house cafe, and a coffee/snack truck. And if you come for a day or two, don’t miss a visit to one of the Salinas Pueblo Missions! HQ for the three missions is just a block away from La Galeria.
3. Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 185 reviews
Reviewed By OBIDOCRL - Chattanooga, United States
Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument is a NPS site consisting of three different, but related ancient pueblos and old Spanish missions dating back to the early 1600s. The three sections/areas are known as Abo' Ruins, Gran Quivira Ruins and Quarai Ruins. We only had time to visit the Gran Quivira and Abo' Ruins, but each was great and pretty well preserved considering their age. We visited the Gran Quivira Ruins first. This one has a small visitor's center with a small, but nice collection of artifacts that came from that particular site. The ruins themselves are quite large and there is a trail which goes through them. The ruins here consist of both the old Spanish Mission as well as the Indian Pueblo itself. If you are into photography like myself, you will really enjoy walking through the ruins and taking shots of them at various angles, etc. After going through Gran Quivira, we then proceeded to the Abo' Ruins. These ruins are not as vast or spread out as Gran Quivira, but are nonetheless still very spectacular. I thoroughly enjoyed photographing these ruins as well. This site also has a small visitor's center which appeared larger than the one at Gran Quivira, but it was closed by the time we arrived so we could not go through it. Besides the main mission and ruins here at Abo', there are a couple of other smaller sites which have some base ruins of older Indian pueblos dating as far back as the 13th and 14th centuries according to the signs along the trails. If you go into the small town of Mountain Air itself, there is another larger visitor's center that is the main one where you can view a short film on the three sites and see more artifacts from the area. They also have a small bookstore/gift shop with some nice items and books on the sites. The rangers here were especially friendly and helpful. All three sites are located kind of in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, as it is a secluded and sparsely inhabited area of New Mexico which is about an hour's drive southeast of Albuquerque. I highly recommend a visit to Salinas Pueblo Missions NM if you are in the area and are into ancient North American history and/or photography as well.
4. Manzano Mountains State Park
5. The Emporium
Overall Ratings
4.5 based on 4 reviews
