Meet The Roamies And The Season

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Hi, I'm Alexa.

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And I'm Rory. And together we are the Roamies. We're a husband-wife duo and longtime travelers who believe travel isn't just about where you go. It's about how it shapes the way you live when you get home.

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On the Romies podcast, we explore where to travel, how to travel, and why to travel through our lens of creativity, wellness, and everyday life.

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We're calling it this season Rome to Hall. As we travel near and far, we're sharing the ways we bring inspiration all.

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It's all about making travel tangible, livable, and meaningful long after the trip ends.

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So whether you're planning your next adventure or reimagining the life you're building at home, you're in the right place.

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And now, let's get into today's episode. Hi everyone. Welcome to

N Is For New Wants

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our latest episode. We are hopping down the alphabet this season, this year, because it's 2026. We have 26 letters in the alphabet, so we're just playing on that. So welcome to N is for New Wants. We spelled Nu Wants N-E-W A-N-C-E because A, we're gonna feature a town in New Mexico, as well as when you are renovating a house and working on a house, you end up having to buy a lot of new things. So we just thought that was a fun tie-in, and that nuance is a great way to describe Silver City, New Mexico. And that's the town we're gonna be sharing with you today. You know, travel often starts with first impressions, and first impressions rarely tell the whole story. So it was really fun that we got to be able to spend a day, dive in, and find all of the little nuance that is so inspiring and fun in this town. Now, Silver City, New Mexico

Where Silver City Fits On The Map

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is kind of in the southwest corner. And it's between Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona. But it's really seated at the base of the Gila National Forest. And just above that, you've got Pie Town, which, hello, Rory and I did not get to Pie Town. How did we not get to Pie Town? We're gonna have to go there next time. But uh kind of northeast to the Gila National Forest, you've got the Sibala National Forest. So you're in a lot of very cool and beautiful, magnificent and mysterious forest and mountain range in this part of New Mexico. It's very fun. And Silver City is a great place to stay, to eat, to shop, to experience as you then go into all of the N is for nature that surrounds it. We started off our visit in the City of Rocks, which is a gorgeous state park right next to Silver City. So when you go to Silver City, you've got City of Rocks near you, you've got the Gila National Forest, which leads into the Apache site, Greaves National Forest. Like it just kind of keeps going. There's just all of these beautiful mountain ranges and scenery to check out as you enjoy from there. Silver City is relatively near to Truth or Consequences, Deming, and Las Cruces. You can also hit White Sands National Park, which we touched on in our Ellis for Lavender episode. And so you can grab all of these beautiful national and state parks and forests, and it is definitely worth experiencing. Because we're next door in Texas, we drove and we drove our Road Surfer RV to get there. But they do have a Grant

Forests Parks And City Of Rocks

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County airport. So we will put a link to that airport in the show notes, and you can fly in to that area and start your adventure that way. Since I grew up in New Mexico, I felt like Silver City was very New Mexico in its like overall vibe, but it was also very much its own thing all at the same time. And you know, Silver City isn't trying to compete with Santa Fe, it's not trying to be Albuquerque, it's just confidently itself, and that was really fun and refreshing to see. And the more that we wander downtown, the more we realize that Silver City's story isn't written necessarily in a specific landmark, but it is written more by the people who make the community what it is. And so if you're gonna spend a day there, we're gonna kind of walk you through part of our day and some things we experienced.

Birdwell’s Coffee And A Small Business Leap

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And I'm gonna kick you off with coffee at Birdwell's Coffee and Boba Tea, where I got to interview the owner and hear a little of their story. I am here with Bryant at Birdwell's Vintage Vibes. Hi, Bryant. Your cafe is and your coffee shop is super, super cute. It was highly recommended to us. So tell us a little bit about your story here.

SPEAKER_07 5:14

Thank you. My name is Bryant, and my wife's name is Kelly, and she started this business in 2020 after uh both of us had taken early retirement from corporate lives, and we didn't really know what we were doing. Uh it's just something we launched into with faith and just one day at a time. And uh, of course, that was during the beginning and the start of COVID. And the fact that we're still here with our doors open means that we're extremely blessed. And uh we just try to keep things simple. We uh we started with Boba T. We added local coffee just to support something local, and that's exploded into a huge part of the business for us. My wife bakes all of our baked goods here fresh, and uh it keeps us very, very busy. So we're we're not sure where we're going. We just try to focus on the best customer service and the best products we can and just keep it simple and love people, you know. And uh that's our secret for success.

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Love it, and you can feel the love here. So thank you for sharing your story, and we hope uh to see more folks head your way.

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All right, thank you. God bless you.

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You too. Birdwells is a really fun place to just slow down. Coffee shops aren't just for caffeine, you know. So they're where communities happen, and this is a great place to come hang and soak in some local connections.

Visitor Center Art And Best Days

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Now, of course, we started out our visit at the visitor center, and their building itself is a beautiful piece of mosaic artwork. It is super, super gorgeous and interesting, and you almost don't want to go in because you just want to spend all the time soaking in the very cool art that is built into their outdoor structure. So very fun. The folks in the visitor center are super nice and like extra, super helpful and really went out of their way to help us. They understand your travelers and are just very accommodating. And we actually found two points of connection for really plugging into the area, the visitor center as well as Silver City Main Street, and you can find them at Silvercity Main Street.com, and we'll put links to all these folks in the show notes so you can connect with them and have them help you plan your visit. But Rory and I were coming through on a Tuesday. Well, this is a town, y'all, that is open Wednesday through Sunday. So I felt like they were really concerned that we're not gonna be able to soak in all of the town because Monday and Tuesdays, a lot of things are closed. So I do want to point out that if you are gonna visit Silver City or when you visit Silver City, plan it for a Wednesday through Sunday because you're gonna just have a lot more opportunities and experiences available to you during those days of the week. And then of course, as you gather towards the weekend, even more will open up. But what's so funny is that we had so much to do in one day on a Tuesday where things were quote unquote not very open. And we still had a great

Bullard Street Wanders And Surprise Finds

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time, had plenty to do and plenty to explore. One thing that I appreciated about the recommendations we received before arriving, that it was almost none of them were like, hey, rush through these five attractions. Instead, they encouraged us to just wander, walk across the bridge from the visitor center into historic downtown, stop by the big ditch. Yes, that's really the park's name. It was once the town's main street, and flooding transformed it into the park visitors now see today. And the Silver City Museum shares the remarkable history through photographs and exhibits. Now we were told to stroll on Bullard Street, and that was the thing to do. It's the place to be. So you can park at the visitor center, walk to Bullard Street, and then it was just recommended hey, pop into whatever catches our eye. So we stopped at Avalon Books and Music, and it had really cool like books, vinyl records, journals, instruments. It even had some art displayed. And something that I found that was really, really fun here because they had used books and music, right? So I found some old piano books by the same makers of the piano books that I took lessons with. I began piano lessons when I was in third grade. Fernando Ortega was my first teacher, and I never practiced, y'all. Like I'm technically proficient in piano. I took piano from third grade all the way through college, but I'm not very good because you actually have to like do this thing called practicing. But anyway, so those books lasted me a long time because I didn't get through them very fast. So they became a little kind of precious to me. And it was really fun to see, wait, that's the same cover as my book. And so it just brought a lot of happy feels to be able to find uh some of their things there. Now, a lot of the galleries were closed on Tuesday, but we did find one that was open, and we're gonna tell you a little bit more about it later, but it's the Grant County Art Guild Gallery, and around 35 local artists display everything from paintings and jewelry to leatherwork, wood, textiles, pottery, photography, and glass. We also found fun shops like the Mealing Nun Mercantile, where Josie still handcrafts soap in the shop, and Zere Yab's Body Brew, where lotions and salves are inspired by natural remedies and traditions from around the world. I actually bought some lotion from there. And because y'all, New Mexico is dry and I need lots of moisturizer and chapstick and all that good stuff. So I got

Lunch Plus A Brilliant Triangle Table

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my hookup there. Now, after you have your coffee and your pastries and stuff from Birdwell's, then it's time for lunch. So Rory and I ended up eating at the Adobe Springs cafe. It was super, super good. Mine, I of course got the vegetarian. I did a veggie sandwich with sweet potato fries. And then Rory got some big, huge, giant like meat concoction with like I think it had like eggs and cheese or something, but it was like a New Mexico inspired big old plate of meat. And so he was very happy there. And y'all, one of the things that inspired, you know, as we think of Rome to home, they had this super, super cool table. And if you think about like a kitchen nook, sometimes people try to like put a table into a kitchen nook. And most of those that I see, like, they don't seem to make sense to me. Like they're just putting it's almost like square peg in a round hole, kind of. And I don't know, they don't seem to look very well planned out or inspired. And this seems so simple, but if they had a corner booth built into the corner of a wall, one side of the wall had a bench and the other connecting wall had a bench. Well, what does that make? It makes a triangle. So instead of putting a square or rectangle table there, they put a triangle table. And I was like, that seems so obvious and simple, but it's so brilliant. And I didn't, I don't think I've actually seen that anywhere else. But a triangle table made so much sense because you're in a corner. And instead of trying to put a square table or a rectangular table in a corner, having a triangle just seemed to make the most sense and save the most space, but give you plenty of room and accommodate the space that it's meeting. So I don't know that Rory and I have any corners that need tables in our house that we're renovating right now, but I definitely love the inspiration and will not forget how cool that table was. And of course, we'll show it to you on socials. But anyway, back to the food, because that's what we're all about, right? So they have American Southwestern cuisine. They did have vegetarian options for people like me, and they had gluten-free options as well. We really enjoyed our meal there. We did not have time to check out these other fun places, but you've got Nancy's Silver Cafe, which is Mexican and American food dishes, the La Cochina restaurant, which has authentic southwestern Mexican food. Then you've got Move and Maxwell's Barbecue, you have Forrest Pizza, and then for late night dining and open on Tuesdays, y'all, was the Little Toad Creek. And that is a brewery and distillery that serves the classic pub foods. Now down the road, this is not on Ballard, but a super fun place with fun eats and live music, which of course we love that, is the Whiskey Creek Zocolo.

Whiskey Creek Zocolo And Live Music Culture

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And I am excited that I am here with Raphael with Whiskey Creek Zocolo. And I would love, before we dive into Whiskey Creek, I was just curious if you know the history behind why was Silver City named Silver City.

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I think it was because they were kind of convincing people that there was silver here in order to get them to come out and work in the mines and kind of start up this little gold rush that happened out here, even though it was generally a copper mine, an open-pit copper mine that ended up being here. Um it was just part of the fever that was created around getting people out to the region to come out and mine this mine. And I think there still was some silver in there, and there's turquoise and other uh things around, but primarily it's a open pit copper mine.

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So what drew you and your family to Silver City?

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They had a good donut shop. Um we've been here since my family's been here for 40 years, and we were traveling around uh the Southwest when I was a child, just kind of looking for a place to grow roots. I was born in Taos, and I think they were offering some kind of work trade here at the Montessori schooling system, and the people were friendly, and you know, as you've you've been here, it kind of pulls you in land of entrapment style. So there is something just kind of magical about this place. If you stop long enough, you might never leave.

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That's fun. I actually went to a Montessori school in Albuquerque, so we have that in common. And uh also we're musicians. I know your parents are musicians. Are you a musician as well?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

I'm a musician as well. Yeah, I was a touring musician for about 20 years, 15 years or so in there, and then I wrote for artists at Capitol Records in Los Angeles for about five years, and then I'm just starting to get back into a new musical project in the last year here, the last few months really.

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That is awesome and exciting. Once it's live, we'll have to add it to the show notes so folks can check it out. So try to remember to send that to me. We'll get it added. I will. But that's awesome.

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Thank you.

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So, who started the Whiskey Creek Zocolo? How did that start? What's the history behind it?

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Um we had purchased this building about 10 years ago. It was pretty dilapidated. There was really no floor, no roof, no walls. It had been kind of a shell. People had kind of just come in and and tried to do all kinds of things to it, but it ended up really kind of destroying it in a lot of ways. And so we got it. And it was the beginning of COVID, and we just were looking for a big project to work on together. So we slowly started fixing it up, and we kind of had this dream, and I thought that it would work, us having the right location to kind of fill this hole in the market where touring acts come through, and knowing a lot of the local musicians and my family having been here for so long. And, you know, one thing turned to the next, and a year, two years into just fixing it up, we started to see real progress. And it took us about three years of just kind of working on it and getting it ready, and now we've been open about the same. So we've been working on it for about six years. We've been three years open. And yeah, we started out with some very legendary shows, and we've kind of just generally progressed in that direction of kind of being a bit of a destination venue mixed with some local music and a lot of like bigger touring acts kind of favorite show to get a little bit of reprieve from the road and kind of have just a really like soft landing where they can just spend the day and be a little bit in nature, and we have really good hospitality, the restaurant's really good, the gardens are really uh rejuvenating. There's a little lodge, kind of speakeasy area, art gallery and plant nursery. So we're kind of a lot of things to a lot of people, but it all once you are here in the space, it kind of all makes sense.

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It's such a great concept, and I'm sure that is super hard to maintain, but it sounds like you guys are doing a great job. And what would you say is your favorite menu item, Raphael?

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I would say make sure you always ask if there's a special, because sometimes we do have a little secret menu going where we put some of our favorite things. But I think I mean just a classic pepperoni green chili is really amazing. The pesto is really good. Um we grow some of the stuff that are here, some of the garlic, and we have a little farm out back, some of the onions and stuff. So anything that has something on it that you know that has its home in the ground outside is really good. We do a breakfast pizza on Sundays with eggs, potato, bacon. We do a ranchero special pizza sometimes, like a huevos ranchero version of a pizza that's really good. So there's there's quite a bit, yeah.

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I love that there is creativity tied into what you offer. So there's art and music, and even the menu is creative. Such an inspiring place. It's really, really cool. Now, I looked at your event calendar, it's quite full. Do you have music every night? Is it just like Thursday through Sunday? What is what is kind of the concert schedule?

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The schedule is it's really very it's really varied. I mean, we have a couple of nights that we try to keep true, a couple of open mics that we offer. But outside of that, uh because we're dealing with artists that are on long tours and we are generally a smaller venue, sometimes we will get a bigger artist on an off day a lot of times. So you might walk in on a sometimes we'll open up on Monday just for a show, but you might walk in on a Wednesday and it's you know a big show that was in LA on that Saturday or something, you know.

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So yeah, yeah. That's so great. You're so smart. Like you being a touring musician, you get it. Like you understand it's so nice to have a place, a more intimate crowd, maybe depending on your usual audience size. But like you mentioned earlier, it's a place of respite and just like enjoy nature and have a day off, but also get to perform. Like you're you're feeding my musician soul just by, you know, kind of how you have it set up and and what you offer. It's really, really cool.

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Yeah.

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Totally.

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And that that there's a lot of people and musicians here, but I didn't feel like there was really a very big original music scene, even though there's quite a few cover bands and stuff. So especially for the younger kids and generation, I feel like we're able to kind of help curate and inspire a music scene here once they see all these great artists that are coming to their hometown. Yeah.

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Yes, that's amazing. Do you have kind of a um a music style that you guys lean into with the artists that you book? Is it pretty eclectic?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, I prefer to keep it all across the map. I really like curating surprises for people. I really love people seeing genres of music that they didn't foresee being into, but the artists are of such quality that they find their kind of thread into that genre. I think there's a lot of people who are really open here. We're very fortunate. I always tell people, you know, if they didn't show up, none of it would work. So people's kind of openness to see things out of their comfort zone, I think, is is pretty amazing around here. And we have a lot of the elders who come out to shows, a lot of the younger kids, a lot of people bring their children. So it's really nice to see like a packed house full of kind of every walk of life. And we kind of do the same when it comes to booking. We also like to have every walk of life on stage.

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So people can come and enjoy the Whiskey Creek Zocolo when they're in Silver City. What's one or two of your favorite things to do or see or experience in Silver City?

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We have really close access to a lot of great hot springs. They're not actually in Silver City, but right outside. We also have some really great antique malls, a couple of really cool galleries, power and light print shops, a really cool printing press that's here with a lot of old printers. We have a great ice cream shop. I mean it's very kind of small town, cutesy, but there's everything I feel like that is here is kind of of quality in those departments. A lot of great trails. The Buckhorn Saloon is a really beautiful old saloon and opera house from the late 1800s that's really fun. So there's there's a lot.

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That's so fun. Rory and I were there on a Tuesday, and we were told, you know, a lot of things are closed on Tuesday. Can you, you know, can y'all come Wednesday? You'll see more. But even on a Tuesday, our our plate was full. We had so much to see. And now you've mentioned a lot of things that we didn't even know were there. So it I just love that you could spend some time here and find a lot of cool things, settle in and hop over to like City of Rocks or the Gila National Forest, grab some nature, grab some hikes, grab hot springs. What a neat destination. A any last thoughts that you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Just come see us. We're here and you know, even if we're closed, you can always knock on the door and try. Sometimes we'll serve you a beer. But we have a lot of great stuff coming, so just I just suggest people check out the calendar and the website and uh plan a weekend around it. Don't just don't just show up for a few hours. There's there's kind of too much and it's kind of a spread out place. So come with a little time on your hands and hang out. It's the best way to see it.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Great advice, and I really appreciate your time, Raphael. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

I appreciate you too.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Thank you. So find an upcoming concert that you want to enjoy and plan your visit around that. Now, after we had lunch, of course, we needed, you know, another dessert and pick me up as we're walking around the town. And

June Junes Ice Cream Made From Scratch

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June Junes was highly recommended to us. They recently moved into a larger location and they are flourishing. They've got homemade ice cream, vegan popsicles, coffee, tea. And we got to hear a little bit of their story and what they have to offer. We got the story while we were being served by owner Laura Aubrey.

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We make everything from scratch here, which means that we make our base from scratch too. So we're the only folks in town that do that. And in these days, in general, it's kind of rare. So we make our base from scratch, and it's only five ingredients, and that's how we start all our flavors. And then depending on what the flavor is, like for example, our darf cherry chocolate, we make the cherry comfort and swirl that in there. What's what else is fun? Oh, really popular and unique is our wild rose. So we use rose water for that, and then we don't use dye. So you'll notice like our mint chip isn't green, it's just white. Um, the rose, we use dried beetroot powder and we add that in to make it pink. And you can't taste it, but it's just a fun way. And then for people that can't have dairy that or are vegan or just want something else, we have popsicles that we make. So several of these, four of these are made with coconut cream, so it's almost like an ice cream bar. And then the other ones are fruity. And same thing, like um matcha, strawberry matcha. We use our matcha powder that we use to make our drinks here, and then we make a strawberry compo, and it's all marbled throughout the popsicle. So that's fun. And then we have, yeah, a full espresso bar, we make baked goods. We're running low on those right now because those have been quite popular. And we started. Well, do you want to know a little bit about the business?

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Okay, yes, and and your teas. Oh, yes, our tea flavors sounding.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yeah, yeah. So most of our teas are from a woman named Nikki Tenznow, and she owns a company called Source Abundance Botanicals, and she harvests and grows a lot of the ingredients. So we have Gila mint is from the Gila that she harvests. We have like a healing hibiscus, a lemon ginger, and then from Rishi Tea Company, we have a lavender mint and a Roy Rose Roybus. Um, and then actually what's fun is that Nikki and my daughter Juniper, who the shop's named after, came up with a custom blend called June Jim's, and it's an iced tea that has mint and rose in it and lemon balm. And we're gonna start doing that in big batches. So that'll be kind of our house special for the summer. Yes. And then um, but the business backstory is that we started as an ice cream truck in Anchorage, Alaska, and I'm originally from Alaska, and that's where my daughter was born. So I was a single mom and she was a baby, and I kind of had this idea so that she could be with me and I could um have like kind of a creative outlet and a stream of revenue. So we started as a truck, and then I ended up here in Silver City because we would just do it seasonally and put the truck in storage. And then I ended up here in Silver City, and at the time there was no ice cream downtown, and so my friends here were like, You have an ice cream truck, you gotta bring this stuff. So Juniper and I drove it down. And then the time we were called the mint chip. So there's our old sign actually. And then we parked it downtown and did events, and then in 2020, we started renting a spot by where the pizza shop and bakery is. We rented that for five years, and then last year we bought this building, and then we rebranded as June Junes because now we have a toy shop, we have the coffee bar, and we actually surprised my daughter, and she'll be 12 this year. So she knew we'd be renaming it, but she didn't know what. And so our friend who does like hand-painted signs, he painted on the side of the building. And what's neat about that is actually my other friend Natalie, it's her penmanship. So we took her penmanship and then our friend painted it on there, uh, scratch paper signs. He's a local company here, and then he texts me and said, Okay, one side's ready. And we walked Juniper down, and her dad had her eyes covered, and we were across the street, and then turned around and surprised her. Yeah, oh yeah. She was actually, we're all like tearing up. It was pretty emotional. It was sweet. And then um, yeah, my partner Charlie, who I met here, and we also have a three-year-old now. Um, he and Juniper built the fence outside, and they've worked on a lot of fun projects outside, too. So that's the spiel. Super fun. Love it, love it. You're telling us about the Vietnamese coffee. Yes, so we work with a micro roaster called Weeby. He's out of Cave Creek, Arizona, and we use his coffee to make our espresso, but we also use his dark roast to make our coffee ice cream. So we grind it and then cold steep it in the milk for two days, and then we strain it out, and that's how we get the coffee flavor. And then there's also cinnamon and cardamom in there.

SPEAKER_05 29:08

Okay. Did you try that? Yeah. Holy cow. That's the closest thing to uh what's her names in LA? McConnell's. Yeah, McConnell's. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

You know, we left June Junes very inspired by the creativity and the craftsmanship that they put into their ice cream and their teas and coffees and all of

Bringing Silver City Flavors Home

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that. And one of the ways that I brought June Junes home is, and you'll see this on our socials, is I tried to replicate the tea that is the June Junes tea that the daughter and Nikki Tenzo of Source Abundant Botanicals created. And in our interview, she mentioned the ingredients were rose and lemon balm and mint. And our neighbor just dropped off some fresh mint for us. And I'm like, I have those ingredients. I have a tea coming. I have those ingredients at my house. So I put them together today, and love the this tea is so super good. Hear it? Yeah, it's good. So that was a good flavor combo. Love it. Other things that you can visit in Silver City, they have the Silco Theater, and then also WNMU is there, and so that that's a really nice campus. You can just walk around that, you can enjoy the sunset from there. They also have a museum with pottery. All right, so now it's time to work off that ice cream.

Hikes Hot Springs And Cliff Dwellings

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So you want to go on some cool nature experiences. As I mentioned, Silver City is at the base of so many cool nature things. And as for nature, there's Boston Hill. There's the city of rocks. And Rory and I experienced that. It was really cool. It's a state park, rocky terrain and rocky formations. And we had our cats with us, so we got to take them on a hike with us, and they love just climbing through the little rocks and exploring. Well, not the little rocks, climbing between the big rocks and just checking it all out. So it was a really fun experience and really unique. If you live in a very kind of green area, this is a really fun place to experience something completely different. And, you know, it is close to Arizona. So it's got some of those Arizona and Colorado vibes where you're just kind of got all those cool rock formations. There's also the catwalk that was suggested to us. And we thought it would be so apropos to go to catwalk and walk our cats, but we did not have time. And when we left Silver City, we got to drive right through the Gila Wilderness, which I had heard a lot about as a kid because my dad and my uncle would always go hiking there. But I'm not sure that I ever made it as a kid to the Gila Wilderness. And so it was really cool. There's also the Gila Cliff Dwellings, and those cliff dwellings were such an unexpected surprise. They are a national monument, and you can take a tour and see the cliff dwellings in these very cool rocky cliffs. And they were a monument created to protect the Mogulon cliff dwellings in the Gila wilderness. And these are at the headwaters of the Gila River in southwest New Mexico. Theod Roosevelt, which we talked about in our episodes with Colorado, so episodes C, D, and E, we've got some uh Theodore Roosevelt stories there too. So check those out. Uh, but he is the one who established this cliff dwelling national monument. If you want to actually go inside of the dwellings, you do have to take their tour, which was reasonably priced, and they drive you up to the top of the mountain, and then you kind of like hike down and hike into the caves from there. So super cool experience. If you're not familiar with the area or have not heard of the Gila National Forest or the Gila Cliff Dwellings, it's actually spelled G-I-L-A. So it's pronounced Gila. And with any of these outdoor experiences that you have, of course, we just want to remind you to stay hydrated, wear your sunscreen because you are out in the hot sun. So you want to make sure that you are ready to experience them to the fullest.

Murals Gear Shops And Ditch Park

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Another way to experience the outdoors inside and outside of Silver City, you can walk around and look at all the murals because this is such an artistic town. And there are murals all throughout the city. So that's fun. And then you can also take e-bikes. So the Gila hiking bike has bike sales and service, and they do have rentals. So they have a lot of outdoor equipment. And then Morning Star is another outfitter that can help with original Silver City apparel, outdoor gear and clothing, with uh some name brands like Patagonia, Meryl, Burkenstock, brands like that. So if you didn't come prepared, or if you want to just up-level your outdoor gear so that you are ready to have outdoor adventures, those are great places to check out when you're in the area. And then as you're walking downtown, there is a little pocket park, maybe where a store might fit and you can enjoy that little pocket park. But it is not far from Ditch Park. And Ditch Park was such a beautiful outdoor space. It sort of winds you down a hill and you just kind of meander back. And that's how we got back to where we had parked at the visitor center, and it was just a very beautiful, peaceful park with places to stop and enjoy and sit and chill, but also just kind of walk and journey and explore. So that was a unique park that was really fun to experience. It's not huge, but it's just kind of cozy and tucked in. So we really enjoyed that as an outdoor space within the downtown area of Silver City itself. I mentioned those murals, y'all, and that this is an artistic town. And

Inside The Grant County Art Guild

SPEAKER_02 35:33

because it was Tuesday, a lot of the galleries were closed, but Grant County Art Guild was open, and I was able to hop in there and grab an interview with some of the artists that feature their work there. Here's what they had to say. Okay, so we were told that we can avoid coming on a Tuesday, that that would be smarter because all of the galleries and most of the town is open from Wednesday through the weekend. But we have this very cool place that we got to find on a Tuesday. So where are we?

SPEAKER_04 36:07

We're in Silver City, New Mexico in the Grant County Art Guild Gallery, which is open every day of the year except for two holidays.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Okay, wow. And what's your name?

SPEAKER_04 36:20

I'm Kelly Hart.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Okay, and I'm Donna Foley. All right, great. Well, tell us a little bit about like this is very cool because I see lots of different styles. So I can tell you have lots of different artists that are featured here. So how how do artists connect with you and what's what's the interview?

SPEAKER_03 36:37

We are just one of the artists in here. We're uh Gill, so there's always artists working. There's 35 local artists here. Okay. And yes, like I said, there's always Kelly, does the marketry using local woods. Local woods, mostly. Okay, great. And I'm a weaver, so I have my tapestries here. But we're here just for this afternoon. We signed up for this shift. Tomorrow there'll be two other artists in the morning and two different ones. So you might get the potter, the painter, the glass people, the bookfinder. You never know who you're gonna get. Right. It's just whoever signs up for the shift.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Yeah, it's a cooperative gallery.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

I love it. And so that's why each each artist has their own little booth section in here. And it's the flow is very nice. It feels really nice in here. And so um, do you have to rent your space or do you kind of like you working your shift is letting you it covers your we rent the space as well as the shift.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

That's part of the architect. That's part of the arrangement price. Right. Well, we all chip in for the rent, yeah. Okay. Um and then we work for shifts.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

Um, but there's no commission on on the sales.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Okay. Okay. So you get the full price of what you of your thing, right?

SPEAKER_04 37:56

If it sold, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

Right, right. But like you don't get a commission if you sold a piece of his. Right. Right. That's what you mean. Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

Other galleries, of course, have to charge a commission you sell a piece. Yeah, most galleries. It's 50%, is what they'll usually take. Wow. So by having we're not for profit, um, and it just allows us to support, you know. The Grand County Art Guild supports us as artists and helps us make a living at this when right.

SPEAKER_04 38:27

So it's a pretty good arrangement for artists and for the public.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

Yeah. Um, our board has been really good about when a space opens up. I'm not, it's not first come, first serve. They take a look to see that we have a lot of people who'd like to be showing their work here, but they want to find who what what style, what media isn't being represented yet. So that's why we have a lot of different mediums here. And um, yeah, and it makes it really interesting. Most of the people who come in to shop here are pretty, they stay a while. There's a lot to see.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

There is a lot to see. It's very fun and it's very inspiring. Good.

SPEAKER_03 39:07

We like to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

Um, yeah, because many, uh, because we all are taking turns, it can stay open seven days a week. This is a little town. Many of the other galleries here are just a single person or you know, maybe a family, and they need their time off. They need to shut down on Monday and Tuesdays is right what winds up happening. Yes. Um, but because we can all take turns where one of the places open seven days a week.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

I love it. Well, thank you so much for telling me about it and being available and inspiring us. Thank you.

Home Design Nuance That Feels Lived In

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You know, in restoring our own 1916 home, we really have quite a bit of craftsmanship. Every old window, trim board, the trimmings around our gazebo, those details remind us that someone created these things by hand. And when you walk through Silver City, you can feel that same appreciation, whether it's a mural or a handcrafted bar of soap or locally made lotion, pottery, jewelry, paintings, artwork, or even homemade ice cream. There's this beautiful thread running through the town, people making beautiful things with their own hands and bringing their artistic nuance into the things they're creating. So that really is how we are bringing all of this home. As I mentioned, I physically brought home lotion. We brought home some decorating ideas and inspiration for our fixer upper. I had fun utilizing mint, rose, and lemon balm that's in the June Junes custom tea that Nixy Tenzo from Source Abundant Botanicals and Juniper crafted for them. And if I ever do create a tea with my tea line, Vegabon Teas, and I have a tea called Silver City, I think you can guess where the inspiration will come from and who will credit for that one. I think a mindset that we brought home is just to remember to stay curious, explore whether you're traveling or in your daily life, explore, talk to people, walk around, slow down. Those are ways to take in the nuance of an area. And that's probably why we enjoyed it so much. We met artists, we were able to taste crafted ice cream, we wandered into bookstores, chatted with coffee shop owners, really taking in all of the nuance of this town. And the difference between a house that's decorated and a home that has soul is often found in that nuance. And nuance isn't about spending more money, it's about making small decisions that quietly work together. And just like we work on adding nuance to the songs we write and things like that, nuance is what makes a room feel layered instead of flat or collected instead of purchased or welcoming instead of staged. And so if you're working on your home or need some inspiration for your home, we want to talk about what nuance actually looks like at home. Sometimes nuance is in what you don't do. Make sure to leave breathing room, don't fill every shelf and resist buying into that matching furniture set. Let one beautiful piece shine. Don't aim for perfection. Character in a home comes from imperfect pieces. And remember that sometimes the most important decorating decisions are deciding on what to leave out. And so if you need to think about what to leave out, refer to our previous episode, M is for minimalism. Let that inspire you to keep things simple. Nuance is also found in repetition. So you can repeat things, but without being matchy matchy. So instead of buying like an entire matching furniture collection, for example, repeat a color or a shape or a material. So you can repeat colors without like matching them, or repeat materials across different types of furniture or decorative pieces, or repeat shapes and let your eye discover patterns naturally. Our brains love patterns even when we don't consciously notice them. And then nuance is in contrast. So mixing the old and new, our house, our 1916 house, has the bones and the basic structure of its 1916 build. Then we have a renovation that took place in the 1960s. And so it took the arts and crafts style and then blended in all these fancy Victorian things. And then now in the 2020s, when we are renovating it, We will be adding more modern stuff. So our house, especially as we finish, will be a really strong contrast of the old and the new. And even in the in-between, while Rory and I are waiting to renovate our home, we love the contrast that is already here between the 1916 build and the 65 renovation. That contrast has so much nuance. And, you know, when Rory and I leave town, we find like, wow, we really miss our house. Like, even though it's not fixed up, there's still so much character and nuance. And so mixing old and new in a room or in your home can be a great way to build nuance into your home. Other things that you can mix: rough with smooth, soft versus hard, light and dark, handmade and imperfect with polished. So you can mix textures more than colors. And then another way to kind of mix is with heights. A lot of homes accidentally create one flat horizontal line. So instead, you could do like a tall lamp, medium artwork, a low basket, and a hanging plant. And that way you're varying heights within a room. So that's another way to kind of like mix and bring in some nuance into your home. And it gives that room personality. And nuance allows for some imperfection, but it doesn't necessarily mean messy. That's a note to myself. So hide your modern clutter, hide the chargers and the routers and the paper towels and the dog leashes, you know, with the fewer visual interruptions the comma room fills. And again, heading to that M is for minimalism episode and getting some more inspiration can help with those things. Other ways to bring nuance in your home, nuance is in telling your story. So having travel souvenirs that actually are substantial and mean something, or your grandma's chair or books you've read, or your own handmade pottery, family photos that you generally love. You don't want your home to necessarily look like someone else's Pinterest board. It should look like your life and tell stories from your life. And then we can also bring in nuance through the senses. So it's not just in the visuals that you create, but it's like, what do you hear? Is there echo? Is there music? Is there quiet? Bringing smells into the home. Maybe you're brewing some awesome tea or bread baking or having fresh flowers. And then the textures, the touch, like linen versus wool versus soft blankets. So a memorable, nuanced home isn't just beautiful, but it's experiential. And it brings all of those senses into play, creating a feeling people remember after they leave. We talked about this in a previous episode as well to use fewer, larger accessories. So like three substantial pieces can feel a lot more luxurious than 12 little ones. So constantly be editing. And we can create moments in our spaces. So instead of decorating a room, we can create little destinations. And that's one of the things we want to do in our garden: have little destinations where people can stop and enjoy different kinds of stations around our property and in our yard and little sections of story. Maybe in your home, you might have a coffee station or a puzzle corner or a reading chair with a lamp and a little table. And this kind of helps you, your family, and your guests know how to enjoy the room. And then bringing in nature always helps with nuance. So bringing in wood and stone, plants, branches, cottons, linens, natural materials rarely go out of style. So it's worth investing in those types of decor or feature walls, for example. And then another fun way to bring in nuance is to let one thing surprise you. Maybe it's like an unexpected wallpaper inside of a pantry. In our home, we have that unexpected wallpaper that just comes out of nowhere in our upstairs bath. We talked about it in our Bee is for Bath episode. And uh, so if you haven't seen that, you can scroll down, hit our socials on Instagram, and scroll down to the footage from our B episode, and you'll see what interesting, very cool French wallpaper we have in the bathroom. And it's just kind of like this unexpected surprise. And something like that can be really fun and a great way to bring nuance to your home or a space. You could have a colorful ceiling or a vintage door, like we talked about in our D is for Doors episode. You could use an unusual cabinet color. So one surprise is memorable, 10 surprises becomes chaos. So keep that in mind that you're wanting to kind of keep things simple to have more impact. And one way to do that too is to edit one thing every month. So like instead of buying something new, which you can do, especially if you're renovating your home, you have to buy something new for nuance. But maybe instead of buying something, you can reuse something you already have in a new way or remove something. And negative space is a really good design choice. And, you know, this is kind of a thing that we apply to songwriting too. Sometimes that less is more when we are working on maybe a verse or a chorus. We find sometimes when we cut out more words, our chorus or our verse isn't now, the lyric is now stronger because we took words out. So it's kind of that same thing in a in a design space. It's creating that space and that breathing room. And that is a great way to create nuance. Nuance isn't always the thing that you notice right off bat. It's kind of what makes the whole experience feel complete. The idea of nuance is especially interesting because it's less about what you buy and more about how you compose a room. Memorable homes rarely have the most expensive furniture, yet they have thoughtful repetition or restraint or texture or that different mixing of elements we talked about. Light and little moments of surprise that make a space feel unmistakably like the people who live there. Just like Silver City is the people who live there that we met, they contribute to the story of the town.

Plan The Trip And Final Takeaways

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And we hope that you are able to make the time reach out to our tourism partners. Again, we will put their information in the show notes so you can reach out to them and have them help you plan your visit there. And when you go, you might bring home new stuff, right? Because Silver City, New Mexico is a great place to buy new things, to bring new wants to your home, right? So you might bring home physical souvenirs. You will definitely bring home ideas and inspiration. And Silver City is such a great place to slow down enough to notice details, meet new to you people that are very fun and interesting and engaging, ask questions, wander instead of rushing. And when we do that, the places become new, the people become new, and even our own homes can become new. Not because we remodeled another room, but because we create nuance with fresh eyes. We hope you discover new things and nuance in Silver City, New Mexico, and allow their nuance to inspire you to try something new, to visit New Mexico, and to infuse your spaces with new Thanks so much for joining us. Stay curious and keep traveling, and we will see you on the next one. We hope we've inspired you this episode. So join us next time. Please subscribe to, rate, and share our podcast with your friends.

SPEAKER_06 52:10

Or, you know, whomever.

SPEAKER_02 52:11

And please like and follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

SPEAKER_06 52:14

We are also on X and on all social platforms. We are at The Romies. That's T-H-E. R-O-A-M I E S. And our main hub is our website.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

At www.theromies.com.

SPEAKER_06 52:28

That's right, that's T H E.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

R O A M. We'll be there until next time.

SPEAKER_06 52:35

Yeah, thanks for listening. Bye.