Places risingsperanza Wants to Go

A cave's rare beauty held a cavernous secret hidden underground.

Twice a year, visitors can tour the desolate site that birthed the Atomic Age.

The old Route 66 town straddling Texas and New Mexico died along with the Main Street of America.

In the remote high desert of New Mexico, a strange array of poles beckon fury from above.

Despite time, colonization, and the brutal New Mexican heat, these Pueblo ruins still stand.

Giant origami sculptures tucked into desert scenery beckon passers-by to explore further.

Legends surround this jagged rock formation in the New Mexico desert.

These Pre-Columbian petroglyphs contain representations of birds, deer, hunters, and even some early Native flute players.

The land is full of geologic eye candy, such as otherworldly spires, mushroom-shaped hoodoos, and prehistoric fossils.

A multi-storied adobe complex has been inhabited for more than a thousand years.

Explore the largest pure gypsum deposit in the world, and go dune sledding while you're at it.

A clear blue swimming hole with hidden caves, still unexplored.

A museum dedicated to the alleged Roswell Incident.

The second-largest cave chamber in the world was discovered in 1898 by a 16-year-old and a friend known as "Pothead."

Seemingly grown on some other world, these New Mexico rock formations look like a disused science fiction set.

One man has carved a number of natural New Mexico caves into psychedelic sandstone temples.

Open since 1938, this diner has kept its fountain, malt machine, and all the gum that greasers left beneath its counter.

Thousands of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats soar around an abandoned storm drain at sunset each summer.

The unusual burial monument of Arizona's first governor.

A museum and tribute to a brave profession.

This striking public art installation is suspended above a public park, designed to gently move in the breeze.

The lost ruins of the forgotten ferry lie hidden beneath the silt.

All of the 20 occupied houses in this mostly abandoned town feature some curious display of junk art.

Every year, festive decorations appear on this juniper tree located in the median strip of a busy highway.