Name: New Mexico Motorcycle Road Trip | Santa Fe to Taos Pueblo
Uploaded: 2025-07-18T19:07:51.000Z
Duration: 23 min 22 s
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What's up, everybody? You're watching Vagabrothers, and this is the best of the Southwest on two wheels, brought to you by Super 8 Hotels.

In episode two, we're traveling through Santa Fe,

New Mexico, to Taos, along the high road, exploring cuisine, culture, and everything in between.

Good morning. Welcome back to Vagabrothers, and welcome back to part two of our Southwest road trip adventure with Super 8 by Wyndham Hotels.

We just woke up after a great night's rest in the redesigned guest rooms of Super 8, and from here, we're driving up to Santa Fe and on to Taos.

If you're just tuning in, make sure you go check out episode one, where we travel down the Route 66 in Arizona.

But to be honest, I am most stoked for the adventure that happens today.

Our first stop in New Mexico is Santa Fe, the highest and oldest capital in the United States.

And even though we've just arrived, you can already feel how different this place is than the rest of the country.

Santa Fe was built by the Spanish before the British settled Jamestown and the French founded Quebec, making this building, the Palace of the Governors, the oldest public building in the country.

We are at the New Mexico History Museum and Palace of the Governors.

I'm curator of Spanish colonial, Mexican, and Chicano and Chicana history.

This building was built in 1609 as the northernmost seat of the Spanish colonial government.

When Mexico went to war against Spain, that victory was achieved in 1821.

And so for the next roughly 20 years, this existed as part of the Mexican nation.

And as soon as the Americans started seeing what opportunities lay this way, they engaged in a war with Mexico formally, right?

So they marched in here in 1846 and raised the American flag.

Stephen Watts Kearney was the one to do that.

And from then on, we remained as a territory of the United States from 1848 till we achieved statehood in 1912.

Of all the former Mexican territory, we were one of the last to achieve statehood.

A lot of that is pride in our own history.

I think for many of us that have had the opportunity to stay here and make our communities here, raise our families here, it's knowing what connects us to our past.

So many of us can trace our ancestry to the founding families of Santa Fe and further back for those of us that have Native American roots.

The thing that grounds us here is, of course, our food and our history, pride in knowing who we are and where we came from.

What I would want people to know when they come to Santa Fe and to New Mexico more generally is that although we're rooted in history and we're very much proud of our past, that we're a forward-thinking people and that we have our future generations at the forefront of our minds, and anything that we do is for our community's survival, as it always has been in the past.

Well, I'm super excited to be here in Santa Fe.

This is a place that both of us have wanted to come to for a very long time.

I think we're both fascinated by the history, by the blend of cultures, by the visual aesthetic, and to start things off in a building like this with so much heritage, coming here on motorcycles, you know?

Totally, like modern-day caballeros rolling into town on our trusty steeds, but I think that both you and I have a strong connection to the Spanish presence in the Americas.

We grew up in San Diego right next to the mission, but coming here, coming to Santa Fe, and experiencing a whole different side to that coin is just very, it's very grounding, but I don't think that we should solely focus on the past because, like Alicia said so well, they're grounded in the past, but they're looking towards the future.

Yeah, Santa Fe is a place that's got tons of art and culture and crafts, but I think it's time for us to explore less of a traditional side of the city and something a lot more avant-garde.

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Hi, Laura Hudman here with Meow Wolf here at House of Eternal Return.

Well, Meow Wolf is an art collective that started in 2008.

The group of founders who had this incredible idea to come together and create art as really no one in Santa Fe had ever seen before, perhaps no one in the multiverse had ever seen before.

So when you first enter, what you find is just a simple, traditional home somewhere in Northern California, and if you're wise enough, you'll start by checking the mailbox, and you'll get a message there, so make sure you don't miss that.

Then you'll enter into the home, the home of the Selig family.

You just almost immediately get the sense that something strange has occurred in this home to this family, and so there's a whole narrative side versus the visual aspects of the Meow Wolf experience at the House of Eternal Return.

This place is amazing, and one of the most multi-dimensional experiences that I've had in a very, very long time.

I think on this show, we're all about breaking preconceptions, and I think a lot of people have a vision of the Southwest as creative, but within the confines of traditional arts and crafts, and this really just breaks the mold, and I think that it's psychedelic.

It's crazy, and if you come to Santa Fe, you don't have to stick to the gallery scene.

An inspiring place to take a stroll, and if you visit Santa Fe, we highly, highly recommend that you come check out Meow Wolf.

Food is central to the identity of New Mexico, and as we've discovered today,

Santa Fe is a city that honors its traditions while looking forward in new directions.

That's why we're having dinner at Radish and Rye, a farm-to-table restaurant that based on the Amish tradition while helping redefine Southwestern cuisine.

We're starting things off with some pickled radish and rye whiskey before moving on to the main event.

According to tradition, after the corn chowder and marrow, you're supposed to take a shot of

Like a meat-eater's version of an ice luge.

It's a beautiful day. We've left Santa Fe, and we're currently riding up the High Road to Taos, a 90-mile-long stretch of scenic highway with tons of super interesting little stops like this place.

Our first stop is Chimayo, a village famous for the Sanctuario de Chimayo, a Catholic pilgrimage site, its artists and crafts, and more recently, low-rider culture.

I am Ray Ortiz, Chimayo, New Mexico, and this is Ortiz Gallery.

Rugs is a source of income, and the incredible talent has developed throughout the years of some of the most beautiful rugs that money can buy.

When they came, within the years, they spread out and ended up in this village and still living here.

This is a storyteller that's pottered by my wife and my son.

The symbol of a storyteller is there's no Indian language written. Everything is carried verbal, tradition, culture, etc.

We carry fine jewelry and, of course, very nice rugs.

That is a Zuni calabaza sterling silver ring, and the symbol of that is the water serpent. The water serpent represents life.

I think this would make a perfect souvenir.

You'll enjoy it for the rest of your life, man.

I'm just going to have to do a little bit of window shopping today.

This has been a really unique experience.

Chamayo is really just this small village on the side of the road, but there is so much tradition and history here, and having

Ray just walk us through all those different layers, show us all these incredible indigenous crafts, and then obviously show off the beautiful cars outside. It's just a fun combination. It's great to see how the care for what they do, the pride in the work, the pride in the sense of place and the identity that's wrapped up in it.

You can see it translate instantly, whether it be from weaving or silver work or storytellers to the cars themselves.

The whole community came out today with all their rides. Everyone's out front.

It's just a beautiful thing to witness, especially as a traveler.

It's time for us to go, so back on the bikes, and we may have a little bit of company.

I teach down the road at the University of New Mexico, Taos Branch.

I was born in Taos, New Mexico a long, long time ago. There was a

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New Mexico Motorcycle Road Trip | Santa Fe to Taos Pueblo

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