2 Best Sights in Northeastern New Mexico, New Mexico

In the middle of nowhere (about 35 mi northeast of Springer) stands this curious 36-room log-and-masonry castle built in 1880 by Stephen Dorsey, a U.S. senator from Arkansas. It was once a social gathering place for the rich and powerful. The career of the ambitious senator, who owned the mansion for 15 years, dissolved in a mail-fraud scandal. It's not open to the public, but history buffs may want to drive by.

The largest scouting venue in the world, 137,000-acre Philmont Scout Ranch has hosted nearly 1 million Boy Scouts throughout its history—about 21,000 currently visit every summer, and on any given day about 3,000 of them are out plying the property's miles of rugged trails. Phillips Petroleum magnate and Boy Scouts of American benefactor Waite Phillips established the mountainous ranch. The museums of the Philmont Scout Ranch include Villa Philmonte, the restored 1927 Spanish-Mediterranean summer home of Waite Phillips, furnished with European and Southwestern antiques and Native American and Southwestern art. Tours of the mansion are conducted in July and August. Scouting cofounder Ernest Thompson Seton donated most of the holdings of the Philmont Museum & Seton Memorial Library, among them New Mexican art and artifacts, Native American rugs and pottery, and books on natural history and the history of the Southwest.