Welcome to I Love New Mexico with Bunny Terry

Johanna: (00:10)
Hi, mom. How’s it going?

Bunny: (00:12)
It’s good. How are you?

Johanna: (00:14)
Good. Um, so we’re doing something a little bit different today. I mean, I’m sure they’ll see, there’s a new title on this episode and, uh, things are looking a little bit different. Do you wanna explain kind of why we’re shifting at least for, for now into a different type of podcast?

Bunny: (00:36)
Sure. And, and I want people to know that we really enjoyed doing the, the, uh, life saving gratitude podcast. We talked to amazing people. We heard great stories and great tips and, you know, we almost, it seemed like every other podcast, we, you know, it expanded our heart and our mind and you know, we were frequently in tears. What we learned though, is that what, what, at least what I learned is that I wanted to hear more stories and I wanted to really explore what I’m most grateful for, which is the people I love and the places I live, which is New Mexico. And I’ve been writing about New Mexico in the, I love New Mexico blogs since 2000 early, 2009. And this seemed like a really fun segue away from, um, conversations that, that quite frankly were starting to sound, not REIT, but, but very similar.

Bunny: (01:45)
And I thought, you know, let’s do something fun for a while. That’s also helpful to people because if you haven’t discovered New Mexico, there are a million things that are both beautiful and fun and delicious and interesting about my home state, our home state. But the other thing is that if you have, if you are a new Mexican, whether transplanted or a native, you get it, you get how incredible it is to live here and, or to have lived here. I think we’re gonna talk to some people who consider them expats of New Mexico, expats of the land of Enchantment. So, so we’re gonna have some fun and we are going to share some stories that are gonna be unexpected and interesting. And I just love having people share stories.

Johanna: (02:36)
Yeah. And I think, like you said, we love doing, uh, lifesaving gratitude. We’ve been doing it for a little over a year now. And of course I was inspired by your book and gratitude is just your life. Like it’s such a big part of your life. I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything without having gratitude in it. I think a lot of gratitude’s gonna kinda weave its way into this new format as well. And it’s just like, that’s always gonna be a part of it. It was so we met so many wonderful people and I know we talked about how it was kind of like therapy for us every week. It was to learn, you know, we learned from so many different coaches, different types of people, other survivors. So it was really a gift to get to do that.

Johanna: (03:23)
And I’m, I’m happy that, you know, those, those episodes will, you know, live forever. luckily that’s how podcasts work and, you know, we might you know, have similar conversations in the future, but I’m excited just to move on to, I love New Mexico podcast, because like you said, you’ve been, obviously you’re a New Mexican your whole life, but you’ve been writing this blog for so long. It’s been your social media pages are really growing and getting a lot of followers. So you kind of wanted to, um, as you explained it to me, you know, feed that passion a little bit more and grow it in a different way. So why don’t you tell people, like, I guess my question is how, um, what inspired you to start the blog in the first place? Cuz it was back in the day when blogs were kind of a brand new thing and you’re, you’ve still kept it going till now. You’re still writing blogs now. So what inspired that?

Bunny: (04:22)
Well, I had a great friend. Her name was Elaine and Elaine and I were writing partners and she, you know, I was living in Logan, New Mexico, which is my hometown and I was this sort of secret writer. You know, I, I wrote all the time I wrote every day, but I never believed that I was really a writer. You know, that wasn’t a title that I affixed to myself, even though it was the one thing I did with consistency every single day. And Elaine said to me, funny, I’m gonna start a blog because I want my kids to know more about me. It’s a way to, it’s a format where I can write. And I said, what? And the world is a blog. You know, I knew that Gary Vaynerchuk wrote on a regular basis and he did some video. I mean, he was, you know, he was the pioneer that we were all following at the time when we, anybody who was doing any work online.

Bunny: (05:15)
And she said, well, it’s, it is basically a, an online log. You know, it’s a where you, it was back in the days of MySpace when, and, and you know, if, you’re think if you’re, if you’re under 30, you may not know what MySpace was, but yeah, MySpace was pre Facebook when everybody, you know, we’d get online and we, we would hook up with, we would, we would connect with people and we would write small articles or poetry or poet. I don’t even recall that there were many pictures on MySpace, but I was doing a little bit on MySpace and she said, you gotta create a blog. And, and I was studying Gary Vaynerchuk at the time. And he said, if you’re gonna do a blog, you gotta figure out what it is that you love. What do you love more than anything else?

Bunny: (06:04)
And I thought, well, you know, there, I love my kids. I love my family, but there are a lot of people there at that time on the periphery, there were a lot of people who were writing these small, you know, family blogs. I thought I wanna do it on a topic that nobody else is covering, which is, I really love the place. I love New Mexico. And so the moment I made that decision, I remember it was late at night. I, I wrote and I came up and he said his advice was come up with 20 topics that people, you know, would wanna hear about. And I started doing this list and when I was done, the list had like 68 things on it. You know, there was food, there was landscape, there was family stories. There were, and it flowed so easily.

Bunny: (06:55)
And I was so passionate because I had been selling real estate at that time for about six years. And I always found that when I would go out and show property, I ended up sounding like the chamber of commerce. I was always telling these stories about, you know, this Mesa and, you know, the lake and, and where things came from and what our traditions were in New Mexico and what food we like best. And I was sort of this one woman tourism tourism show while I was showing property. And so it just became this natural outpouring of what I already was doing with my life, but I started writing it down. So, you know, the very first blog post I wrote was about the three bears lodge in red river. And we went there to visit, I wrote a blog post about it. They put it on their website, it’s still, it’s still sitting on their website. I’m still friends with those people. We developed this long term relationship just because we had so much fun together, but that’s, that’s where the blog came from. And over the years, you know, our Facebook page, you know, we have, I think all told almost 30,000 followers in different online platforms, you know, on the blog, on the Facebook page now on Instagram. And it’s, it’s a subject that people are fascinated with and that some people don’t understand and that some people are as crazy about or crazier crazier about than you and I. So it’s what we know and love.

Johanna: (08:27)
Yeah. I mean, it’s really, really grown. I think it’s so cool. I mean, I’ve seen you watched you through this progression of writing it and I mean, you’ve always been a writer, but New Mexico really, truly is your biggest passion. And I think it’s so cool. Cuz like you said, the blog is food travel stories like adventures, different experiences. It can, it’s so many things because that’s what New Mexico is and that’s what it has to offer. And a lot of people don’t know that or you know, they barely even know we’re in America, that we’re a state. Right, right. So, it’s really, it’s been a great, I think education for people too and inspiring people to travel more or to see different parts. And our state is so diverse. You know, if you’re in Northern New Mexico, Southern New Mexico, east west, like it’s all, it’s so different. And then the types of people that you meet are so different. So many people move here from other places. I think it’s just like endless amount of, uh, material I guess you could say content. So I think it’s exciting to see how that is gonna translate into a podcast form. How do you see that turning into a podcast and that transition. You know, people, if we had talked about this five years ago, I would’ve said, eh, I don’t know. It seems farfetched, but what I’ve found is that people tend now to have more time to listen rather than to read. And we are giving folks an opportunity to so the way I see it and you had, we developed this list of questions that we’re going to have for our guests, but what my dream is that if you’re coming to New Mexico to visit for the first time, you’ll find this podcast and you’ll, you know, we will be careful to use hashtags and links that, you know, if you’re gonna visit Farmington for the first time, we’re going to have a guest who is, you know, who’s who grew up in Farmington. We’re gonna have somebody who grew up in Raton. We’re going to have, you know, maybe, maybe we’ll end up getting somebody like, you know, the mayor of Gallup or certainly I think we can get the mayor of Logan and Sanho.

Bunny: (10:43)
These , you know, this New Mexico, like you said, it’s such a diverse state. And if you only drive through New Mexico on I 40, I mean, people used to say to me, oh my gosh, it’s not even attractive. I’m like, you were only on I 40, you know, the first time you and I went to call on Congress in Washington, DC. I met some folks from New Jersey and they said, oh my gosh, New Mexico, it’s just a, it’s a desert. You don’t even have mountains there. And so I hope it will be an eye opener for people who are visiting here for the first time or for people who maybe live in Santa Fe, but have never done any day trips to the lower half of the state. New Mexico is the fifth largest state in the nation in terms of land mass. It’s also, uh, in terms of population, I, you know, we are way down the list because we just got over 2 million people in the last decade.

Bunny: (11:39)
So it’s still a very, despite these large population centers of Albuquerque and Los Cruces. And, and when I say that, you know, Las crus has messed less than 300,000 people, but, it’s so it’s really, it’s really not heavily populated, but it’s yeah. You know, there are, there are villages of 300 people and, and all over the state. And those, I wanna talk to those people because for the people who’ve never been here, it’s gonna be an eye opener, but I hope it’s also, it’s a celebration for people who live here now. And it’s also a chance to, you know, I made a list for this interview or, and we may go too long. I mean, we may have to do this in two or three parts, but of places I’ve never been in New Mexico. And I’m thinking I wanna go there, I wanna hear about it. I want somebody else to tell us a story about that. So, so that’s my vision for it. And I just want it to be fun and I want it to be a celebration of this really unique place. That’s unlike any other place in the nation.

Johanna: (12:43)
Mm-hmm I love it. I think it’s so exciting to, to bring that out, like to, to give that to people. And it’s exciting to think you’re gonna get the real, like in depth, the, you know, the locals view and not something you probably see on like a tourism website , you know, just get the real story. So speaking of all the questions you wrote out, let’s, let’s do a trial run, I guess, test them out on you. Right. As our first, I guess you could say your you’re our first guest, as the host, but, so what is your, you kind of talked about it a little bit already, but what, what would you say is your New Mexico story and, and what is it that you love so much about New Mexico? What keeps you coming back? Honestly,

Bunny: (13:28)
really, you know, this, I am a third generation New Mexico. My both my grandparents, both sets of my grandparents came here between 1915 and 1920. My grandpa Terry brought his family here from Oklahoma and they settled in Eastern, New Mexico over between Logan and San home. Not far from the Texas border in a little community called Porter. And he traded two mules and $18 for a, homestead that somebody else had proved up. It was 160 acres. So it was four homestead claims. And, he brought his family at the time. I think there were four kids. They went on to have 10 kids. My grandpa HES and my grandmas brought their that’s. My mom’s family brought their family here from Seymour, Texas, but via California, they had gone to California in 1910. I found them on the census in 1910, living in east LA when it was all orchard and they were fruit pickers out there, as I understand it.

Bunny: (14:34)
And I’m sure some of my cousins would dispute that part of the story, but that’s what I understand. So everybody settled in this small, tiny little community in Northeastern New Mexico. My parents are both the youngest of 10. I have 64 cousins. So I’m from Quay county, which is where Tucumcari and Logan sit Tucumcari is the county seat. And you can’t swing a cat in Quay county without hitting somebody that I’m kin to. So that’s sort of the root story. But then when I left home, I moved all over the state. I went to Las Cruces to New Mexico state, and then I got restless and I moved to Farmington and I lived in the four corners and I had a roommate named Phyllis Begay, who swore She was gonna be the first president, female president of the Navajo nation. She hasn’t done it yet, but Phyllis, if you’re out there, I wanna know how that’s going. I moved from there to Albuquerque. Then I moved to Clovis. Then I moved to Portales. Then I moved back to Las crus and ended up, I had this brief little stint in west Texas, um, lived in two Prairie, ended up eventually 10 years ago in Santa Fe. So I’ve, sort of lived in all these different places in the state and I lived in Albuquerque twice, but then I raised you and your brother in Albuquerque. And so I feel like I’ve had a taste of every, you know, I didn’t live in Hobbs and I didn’t live in silver city. So those are, those are sort of regions of the state that I haven’t lived in. But I have, I used to say that I could go to the, any place in New Mexico.

Bunny: (16:21)
I could be pumping gas anywhere in New Mexico and run into somebody I knew. And that was especially true when the state had just had a million people. And anytime I moved away from here, I always grieved for my home state. You know, I moved to west Texas, I moved to Kansas. I moved to North Carolina, holy mackerel. But, and, and I would always, and I would think about it when I was pumping gas. I would say, I’m never gonna see anybody who, who, who knows who I am, but more importantly, who gets how cool it is to be a native of New Mexico of, of New Mexico. So, you know, I grew up having Sunday dinners at my grandma’s house and spending summers on Ute lake. And I, when I lived in North Carolina and I wrote a blog post about this, we can repost it. My heart ate for this stretch of road, between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa, where you came up, it can make me cry when I talk about it now, because I was so sad. But when you come up over a hill and you can see for about 14 miles, these wide open spaces and, and the, you know, the railroad running through. And I always, when I was in North Carolina in that humidity and in the midst of all those trees, and I couldn’t tell what direction I was facing, I was just like, God, if you’ll just get me back to New Mexico, I’ll never leave again. So, so that’s my, that’s a piece of my new Mexico’s story. I think it’s, you know, I, everybody has their own set of credentials that make them somebody who loves New Mexico. I like to think about one of the things one of the questions and I’m taking this away from you, but one of the questions that I thought was important for our guests to talk about is their sense of place.

Bunny: (18:17)
And to me, my sense of place here comes from first. I was a farmer’s daughter. So, you know, I still like getting my hands in New Mexico dirt and feeling like I’m part of the land. But I also, when I think of a place, I think of white sands, and I think of, you know, where I come from is part of what max Evans call the high, low country, which is up in the Northeastern part of the state, those long stretches of planes, the Janno CCA, which is a part of the country, it’s called the Yao CCA because which means the staked Plains, because when the Cherokees would come across and when cattle drivers would come across those, they had to steak, they had to leave stakes as marks because there were no other landmarks because you’d get lost out there in that vast open space without some kind of a marker. You know, I think of the mountains of Red River and I think of Taos Gorge. I think of Sierra Blanca when I used to go skiing. I have, I have hilarious stories about that. And then I think about the Oregon mountains. So my sense of place is all these beautiful spots in New Mexico that are part of my personal history. So, um, wow. I could obviously I’m passionate about this because I could talk, talk, talk, but that’s my New Mexico history, my story part of it. Anyway,

Johanna: (19:44)
I love it. And I think, like you said, we could do, you know, different episodes of just you talking about your story too, because you have so many. And I mean, I don’t think anyone will get tired of that. And then I guess, you know, you did talk about your place and then of course there’s gonna be more to that. And as you talk to your guests and people that come on, I’m sure you’ll share more of your stories and be able to relate to, to what they share. Is there anything about New Mexico? I’m sure. You know, as you, you’ve grown up here, it’s surprised you, but are there things still to this day, you know, having lived here your whole life, I mean, minus some spurts here and there, are there still things that surprise you about the state that you love so much?

Bunny: (20:34)
You know, when I wrote that, when I wrote that question, I thought, well, what would I say? And I , I think the cool, I think the cool thing about New Mexico and, and it’s not so surprising now, but we sort of circle back on our history. And, and by that, I mean, we, you know, New Mexico. So as an example in New Mexico, there were people creating, we’re sort of in the same region, uh, geographically, we have a similar geography to wineries in spa in Spain. So, so we were creating wine. You can like look on the website and they talk about how our topography and our climate is so similar to European countries that produced a lot of wine. So, so that, so there were people, there were monks, there were, different groups that were, were producing sort of, I can’t say celebrated because we were there. We were so rural at the time, but what I found is that people tend to circle back to that, you know, this whole revival of breweries and wineries that’s happened in the last 20 years. I’m so surprised by all the people who have discovered that these things that we did years and years ago, we can do again and do them really well.

Johanna: (22:08)
Our soil can actually produce things.

Bunny: (22:11)
yes. Yeah. We’re, we’re actually well suited to that. The other things that surprise me are especially here in Santa Fe, I’m really surprised by the innovations of, of every so, so the cool thing about New Mexico to me is that everybody gets to be exactly who they are. I mean, you we’re not a very formal state in terms of manners or dress, or, you know, in fact, when we have an event here in Santa Fe, people will say, well, is it black tie? You know, people who are from elsewhere will say, is it black tie? And I’ll say, no, it’s Santa Fe dressing, which means you can wear Jean boots and jeans and a white shirt. And you’re as dressed up as the guy who decides to come in a tux. But what that, what I see that that means is that you, you get to show up and celebrate who you are. And I would hope, I’m sure there are, some exceptions to this, but I would hope that what you find is a lot of acceptance and celebration. It’s, you know, I have some friends who are producing a new magazines, a Santa Fe magazine, and they are really clear about, they wanna they’re like, I mean, like me, they wanna know stories. They don’t, they wanna, they don’t wanna be a top 10 list. And, we do wanna be sort of a top 10 list. We wanna, we wanna provide folks with top 10 lists from all the places that, that they’re coming from. Mm-hmm , but they really want to celebrate the individual. And I think that’s what we do here. So, it’s not necessarily surprising to me so much as it’s it’s. I think it’s something that we wanna talk about more and more is how the individual is really celebrated here. Mm-hmm I think it’s one of the coolest things about this place, where we live.

Johanna: (24:16)
Yeah. I agree. Definitely. And it’s just, it’s not pretentious, it’s very welcoming. And, uh, yeah, friendly. I think we’ve all had good experiences that we might not have had in other places, so, right. That’s a really good, really good point to bring up. So what is your, you do a lot of cool things. You live in Santa Fe, you, I mean, I know we’re, maybe we’re a little biased cuz we do live in Santa Fe and we do think it’s the best, but since you live here what is your favorite thing to do? Or, you know, like what, what do you recommend to people? Whether it’s, if they just come to like anywhere in New Mexico or Santa Fe specifically, what, what is your, what are your top picks?

Bunny: (25:06)
So I would say if you are coming to New Mexico for the first time, be open-minded it’s gonna be different. The food is going to be different. I would say hit a place where they serve great green chili and try the green and the red. If you’re not from here, you don’t get it, but it is you know, it’s sort of like…

Johanna: (25:32)
It’s a way of life.

Bunny: (25:33)
, it’s a way it is a way of life, but it’s, you know, sort of, if you’re, if you’re going to new, new Orleans, you’re always told to have a beignet and the gumbo and the Shrimp Etouffee, well, if you’re coming to New Mexico, be sure that you go somewhere and if you only try a spoonful, have some green chili and some red chili have a soap you know, try something that you might eat traditionally smothered in green chili, like a chicken fried steak. I created a list specifically for this that, you know, I would, so I, I thought about food. I thought about if you’re, you know, driving through from west Texas, stop at you know, Dell’s into contrarian and have a chicken fried steak smothered in green chili, or go to the annex bar and grill in Logan and have a chicken fried smothered in green chili, but also you know, go to I thought about my first memories about food and, and one of my first memories ever about food, not just, not just the food that my mom made, but ever in the world is there was a little place in Tucumcari across from the courthouse. I believe that. And I think the house is still sitting there and it was called Martinez’s and it was in this woman’s house. And you would go in and sit in the front room around tables and she gave me a bean burrito wrapped in foil. So I would say if you’re coming here, be sure you go somewhere and have a good bean burrito. Have a little green chili on the side or have a put in there, put it in there. But, but my mom says you had to be three years old because they that’s, that’s when we went to Martinez’s be sure you stop at a lot of burger and have a green chili cheeseburger. Won’t be the best one you ever have, but it will be a nice start mm-hmm

Johanna: (27:34)
You could go anywhere and get green chili on your burger. McDonald’s Sonic. I mean, obviously again, not the best, but we do have that ,

Bunny: (27:42)
It’s sort of like when you go, remember when we drove through the south and you, we got like west of tennis, west of Knoxville, uh, yeah. Knoxville and suddenly there was all the tea had sugar in it. Well, here, everything you eat is gonna have a little green chili in it. So, but, but in terms of don’t miss things, it really depends on the regions that you’re gonna travel to. But I would say in Albuquerque ride the tram it’s don’t miss that. If you’re in Taos, go out to the Taos Gorge, if you are in Santa Fe, walk through the capital, we should, I think we should go into a reel there because it’s, it’s free to get into, but it’s one of the best art galleries in the entire state. It’s amazing. If you are in Las Cruces, go to dripping Springs up in the Oregon mountains and go to the farm and ranch museum.

Johanna: (28:43)
I’ve Never been there, so that would be cool.

Bunny: (28:44)
It’s so cool. It’s so cool. And in fact, my grandpa’s brand is on the wall. There. They have a lot of, they had, people all over the, the state come and brand, you know, put their brands in the wall there. But if you haven’t been here before, get off the freeway, you know, take, add, add an hour to your trip and you know, turn off the freeway and drive up to, Delia and or drive get off the freeway if you’re going south and drive over to da and pie town. My best advice is get off the freeway because the most beautiful places in New Mexico are not on I 40 or I 25.

Johanna: (29:35)
Yeah. If you’re going from Albuquerque to Santa Fe drive through Madrid instead, or can you drive through all, all those little towns.

Bunny: (29:42)
Right, right. So that’s that’s and I, and I’d like to be more specific, we’re gonna get more specific with our guests, but you know, it’s like the blog, there are a thousand different topics that we can cover, and that’s why we’re, and we’re inviting, you know, if you have a New Mexico story and you’d like to be on the podcast shoot us a note. We’ll provide a link to our email address here, and we’d like to hear your story, you know, if you’re from Roswell and you wanna tell a story, if you’re from Artesia, if you’re from Questa, we wanna know, we wanna know what the best thing is about where you live. Mm-hmm so let us

Johanna: (30:23)
Know. Yeah. I’d love to get, I’d love to get a guess from like every little town and just, you know, even towns we may maybe never even heard of, so, right. That would be so cool.

Bunny: (30:34)
Yes, absolutely. And I have one, I have one, I have a couple of suggestions. I’m always gonna ask people what their favorite New Mexico book is, because I think it’s and I can’t pick a… well probably Red Sky at Morning, and I searched around like a crazy person this morning. I told Toby I’m having a breakdown. I can’t find my original copy of red sky at morning, which was written in the sixties. And my, my copy is a really beaten up paperback copy. And I’m gonna ask, I’m gonna ask that folks suspend some judgements, things were, that were written in the sixties. Sixties may have phrases or, portrayals of the, and there’s, and they were true at the time. So if there are things that you find offensive at books, just please realize that they were written at the time they were written. But Red Sky at Morning is one of my favorites. And Johanna,

Johanna: (31:34)
Just like, if you’re reading Mark Twain, you gotta

Bunny: (31:36)
Absolutely gotta know

Johanna: (31:38)
Absolutely people still read that. And it’s something.

Bunny: (31:40)
Absolutely. So, um, Richard Bradford wrote, red sky at morning, and it is a great primer for what Santa, what New Mexico was like. Toby says, my husband is a native Santa Fe and he says that it was written about Santa Fe and that there are people in that book that when he was growing up, somebody would say, well, you know, that was so and so in red

Johanna: (32:03)
Sky morning. Oh, that’s so cool.

Bunny: (32:05)
That was canyon road. So you can go back now Johanna and read it again. Knowing that it was written about a real place, another one that I love and that, I don’t think I’ve ever recommended even to you, but it, it is, um, we fed them cactus by FOLA deBaca and she was an extension agent in the Las Vegas area during the depression. And we fed them cactus. The title talks about during the decal, during, um, droughts. The only thing when, when the grass wouldn’t grow you and my, and I know because we did this in our family, too, it’s part of our family history is that you would get cactus and burn the spines off and then feed it to your cattle because it would grow. And it was the one thing that you could feed cactus that also had a high moisture contents, but she’s, she’s written some great stories about what it was like to live in Las Vegas and Trujillo and surrounding areas as a small, as a child in the teens and twenties. So those are my book recommendations today, but as a primer you know, pick up a book on New Mexico, pick up something, you know, read a Tony Hillman’s story. Find some, before you come here to visit, get yourself steeped in the culture just a little bit, so that mm-hmm , you can celebrate it as much as we do how’s that we love New Mexico.

Johanna: (33:38)
I love, I love that. I think we should add that to add a new book to every episode. Maybe we will ask the guests, but then maybe we’ll have one too. I think that’s cool.

Bunny: (33:49)
Yes.

Johanna: (33:49)
Well, this is gonna be really fun. I’m excited that you, wanted to take the sleep and switch things up a little bit. Hopefully people are as excited about it as we are. And thanks for joining us on this, this new journey.

Bunny: (34:05)
You know, I think we’re done. I think that we wanna keep this under, you know, we, we decided that we kind of wanna keep this around. You wanna, we wanna keep this the same length as your commute. So somewhere under 35, 40 minutes. So, send us your New Mexico stories and let us know what you’ve thought about ours. And, as always because we’re new be sure to go in and like review and subscribe to this channel. We’re so excited. You’re here.