Saddles of all kinds and sizes are displayed at the Hubbard, including a Pony Express rig, as are cowboy guns, hats, boots, chaps and spurs. Beautiful native American garments with extraordinary beadwork dominate exhibits of important Indian artifacts.

Horses mattered to frontier families and they still do today in this place. Check out the museum's Race Horse Hall of Fame and then head to the track yourself.

Ruidoso Downs Race Track is home to the world's richest quarter horse race, the $1 million All American Futurity. Look for live racing from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

Standing still horses are special here, too. Absorb the strength of an appaloosa, thoroughbred, paint, quarterhorse, arab, morgan and standardbred when you stand in the midst of "Free Spirits at Noisy Water," seven larger-than-life bronze sculptures on a gentle slope outside the Hubbard Museum.

Elegant is also available in Ruidoso, at the Inn of the Mountain Gods and at the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts.

Both are stunning counterpoints to nearby Lincoln, the town where Billy the Kid earned his gun-slinging reputation in 1878. Thanks to preservation efforts by the Hubbard Museum and the Smithsonian Institution, you can walk the streets of this frontier town (population 40) and wander in the buildings, all very much as they were in the late 1800s.

Ghost town? Not really, more of a whole town museum.

Walking around the Inn of the Mountain Gods is different. This stunning hotel, resort, conference center and gaming space has history too, set in the grounds of the Mescalero Apaches and developed in conjunction with the tribal government and people who live here. While you can't just wander all the grounds because they are private communities, you can steep yourself in Mescalero art and beliefs throughout this brand-new facility, just opened in March of 2005.

Start with the gigantic Crown Dancer Statues in front and take the time to learn their story: they represent four masked dancers and a clown who long ago used song and dance to help two young Apache men -- one blind, one crippled -- to heal and rejoin their people who had fled under attack.

Prints for each of the 273 guest rooms were made from original works by eight Mescalero Apache artists, sculpture, beadwork, jewelry, woodcarving, painting, drawing and leatherwork by native artists are available in the fine art gallery near the casino and exhibits of original art with signage explaining native traditions is found throughout the Inn of the Mountain Gods.

Don't expect the pueblo look dominant in Santa Fe; the heritage of the people for whom this 463,000 acre reservation has always been home is distinctive in entirely different ways -- and that's why it's a good thing to travel around New Mexico.

The second largest ski resort in New Mexico is also located on these grounds: Ski Apache, on Sierra Blanca Mountain, with 55 runs and 11 lifts, and a four-passenger gondola. Big game hunting can be arranged too.

Just as Sierra Blanca's snowy peak dominates the Ruidoso landscape, so the white mica-flecked limestone of the Spencer Theater grabs the sight lines in the mesa for miles and miles.

This $23 million performance center in surprising southern New Mexico opened in 1997, winning national architectural and theater technology awards, presenting world-class shows ever since and gathering an impressive collection of Dale Chihuly glass chandeliers and other sculptures.

You might have seen one of Chihuly's works at the Colquitt County Arts Center in Moultrie, or a massive installation last year in Atlanta at the Botanical Gardens. This collection is worth the trip to New Mexico.