Staying in Raton

The Travel Pages visits Raton, New Mexico, and stays at the vintage cool Raton Pass Motor Inn to spend the night in the Pin-Up room and eat true Mexican food.

The small town of Raton is at the New Mexico end of the Raton Pass, with Trinidad in Colorado on the far northern side. We’d stayed in Trinidad a few times on our road trips, and always liked it (the Super-8 there is excellent value) but never in Raton. Time for a change.

Staying in Raton

When we started looking into staying in Raton, there was only one place we wanted to stay: the Raton Pass Motor Inn. Not only did it look cool and retro, and get great reviews, it was inexpensive too! Take a look at the Raton Pass Motor Inn website and you’ll see how much fun it sounds… and the website doesn’t really do it full justice.

Checking in at reception took time, not because there was a queue but because there’s so much vintage stuff to look at all around you. There were toys, a vintage fridge, typewriters, cameras, a one-armed bandit, an 8-track tape player, books, magazines, a radiogram, vintage kitchen gadgets, and much much more.

The Raton Pass

At its highest point the Raton Pass reaches 7,834 ft (2,388 m). When the sun is shining it’s a lovely drive but can be a little daunting if the weather turns bad. Due to a late start we once had to drive the pass late at night in the dark, with wind and rain bucketing down, and it wasn’t pleasant. We made it to our motel in Trinidad, though.

It shouldn’t be a problem driving it in a big RV, although in some of the steeper places trucks have their own slow lane and aren’t allowed to use the other lanes.

The pass is about 180 miles (290 kms) north-east of Santa Fe along I-25 and should take about 2.5-3 hours, depending on traffic. It’s also about 140 miles (225 kms) south of Colorado Springs on I-25, with a journey time of about 2 hours.

There’s also a railway line goes through the pass, through a tunnel, and it’s on the route of the Southwest Chief, which goes between Chicago and Los Angeles.

The Raton Pass was a key point on the Santa Fe Trail, allowing goods to pass through between Kansas City and Santa Fe, and also between Santa Fe and Denver. It was made a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Our Room at the Raton Pass Motor Inn

We picked up our keys and drove round to our room. All the rooms at the inn are themed, and by chance we were in Room 8, Pin-Up. Other themes include Big Texas, Santa Fe, Butch and Sundance, Just Deserts, Lucky 13, and Classic Movie Cowboy.

We’ll try one of those next time but on this visit we were glad to spend a fun night in the company of Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable. There was even a pin-up on the shower curtain, and instead of the Gideon Bible on the bedside table was a copy of 1000 Pin-Up Girls.

But the room was practical as well as fun. It bugs us when we stay somewhere and if you want to charge your phone you have to crawl around on the floor to find an outlet, and then maybe have to unplug the mini-fridge in order to plug your phone in. Not here, though, where they had an easily-accessible extension plug with two power outlets and three USB ports.

Real Deal Mexican Meal

One feature we also appreciated in our room at the Raton Pass Motor Inn was that the information booklet for the room included eating recommendations. It began with the owners’ own personal favorites, where they themselves eat regularly. We love Mexican and liked the sound of Los Chanquis.

At the desk we asked the owner, Michael, about Los Chanquis. ‘I ate there for lunch today,’ he said. He gave us directions for the 2-minute drive to downtown, and even told us where to park.

Los Chanquis

At first we almost left Los Chanquis as they don’t have a liquor license and after a drive of several hours that day we were dying for a beer. But we stayed and were so glad we did, as it was one of the best Mexican meals we’ve ever had in the USA (and we’ve had a lot!)

Francisco was the guy behind the bar and explained that there was no menu but the dishes were all listed on a whiteboard behind the counter. We noticed there were no prices, though.

‘The prices kept changing too much,’ the friendly Francisco said, ‘and we got tired of rubbing them out and making the changes so we left them off. Most dishes are $10-12 but if you tell me what you’re interested in I’ll check the price for you.’

We settled into a booth and a waitress brought the usual salsa and chips – except they weren’t the usual. The chips were hot and clearly freshly-made, while the red salsa was obviously home-made as it was chunky and had some beans in it.

Francisco had told us to help ourselves to the salsa bar, which had lots of side-dishes on it as well as several salsas (and I thought there was only red or green!) Tastiest of all were slices of red onion marinated in lime, avocado and chilis. They were wonderful, and we kept going back for more! There were also pickled radishes, pickled carrots with herbs, and a few other things. We noticed other customers making regular visits to the salsa bar, and someone from the kitchen making regular checks and top-ups.

It’s family-owned place and had a real Mexican feel to it. Francisco said the building used to be a bank and showed us the huge door to the vault that’s still there.

I had the carne asada plate which came with guacamole, rice, and beans, as did Donna’s chile relleno, both of which were totally delicious, packed with flavors.

There were also some other dishes that you don’t often see on Mexican menus in the USA, such as beef honeycomb tripe and hominy (with sides of onion and cilantro, lime, oregano mixed with red chili powder), or a quesabirria tacos plato (melted mozzarella topped with onion and cilantro and served with the soup side of lime and purple onion mixed with habanero, lime and salt). We’re already thinking of friends who we can plan a road trip back to Raton with.

Breakfast at the Raton Pass Motor Inn

Breakfast is included at the inn and even though we had another long day’s drive ahead of us, we still wanted to linger to enjoy it. It’s a help-yourself buffet with coffee, juice, yoghourts, muffins, eggs, trail bars, cereals. It wasn’t extensive but it was certainly plenty and it all seemed fresh. We later saw on their Facebook page that there are occasional home-made surprises too.

Leaving Raton

It was hard to tear ourselves away, especially as there was so much to photograph, but we left with the best feeling possible – that we wanted to return for a few days and explore the area, and definitely stay at this vintage cool motel. We’ll book well ahead, though, as they’re often sold out, especially at weekends.