Rancho de Las Golondrinas

The “Ranch of the Swallows,” Rancho de Las Golondrinas (334 Los Pinos Rd., 505/471-2261, www.golondrinas.org [1], 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Wed.–Sun. June–Sept., $5), about 15 minutes’ drive southeast of Santa Fe [2], is a 200-acre museum in the form of a restored Spanish colonial paraje, a way station on the Camino Real. Museum staff members in period costumes demonstrate crafts and other aspects of early New Mexican history in the blacksmith shop, the schoolhouse, and the mills.

The ranch hosts big to-dos—a sheep-shearing fair in early June and a frontier-theme horse show in August—and outside the regular season, it opens just for special theme weekends such as a Civil War reenactment in late April and an October harvest festival.