A visit to El Rancho de Las Golondrinas is the closest we can get to time travel. When the historic buildings are open and costumed interpreters demonstrate long-kept agricultural traditions, the ranch looks, sounds, smells, and feels much like it did 300 or even 500 years ago. For visitors and New Mexicans alike, engaging with a place like Las Golondrinas keeps these traditions alive.

What Does a Visit to El Rancho de las Golondrinas Look Like?

Stewarding the stories of the peoples who lived and worked this land along the illustrious El Camino Real is something the site’s museum director, Daniel Goodman, relishes. As a lifelong history buff and graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in anthropology, heading a living history museum is a perfect fit for Goodman. He worked as the curator of historic sites at the Indiana State Museum before coming to New Mexico to work with the Department of Cultural Affairs. “My great-grandfather was a rancher outside of Tucumcari,” he says. “So,that story about New Mexico was always in the family lore, and in the back of my mind.” In 2011, he made the move to Las Golondrinas and has been museum director for the past decade.

“Spending a summer day at Las Golondrinas is a day of exploration and discovery,” Goodman reflects. “You can take in the property for what it is, which is a really beautiful, special, well-maintained landscape with history around every corner, and echoes of the way that human hands have impacted the property over the years.”

It’s More Than Just History

Goodman recalls a time when he gave a tour to a visiting school group. There was a chaperone who was the grandmother of one of the children, and when Goodman told the kids about the soterano, a cellar that looks like a house buried underground, she asked him to stop and repeat the word. “She said she hadn’t heard that word since she was a little girl searching for a jar of fruit in her grandparents’ soterano,” Goodman says. “It was very powerful for me. The history we are sharing out here is severely underrepresented on a national scale, and language is so important when it comes to history and culture. That’s exactly what we are trying to do here.”

For instance, the Spring Festival (one of six festivals hosted this season) offered visitors the chance to really step into that living history. All of the sites and buildings were open and filled with demonstrations of regional traditional practices, like colcha embroidery, dying wool, and ristra-making. There was a procession for San Ysidro (the patron saint of agriculture), sheep shearing, and activities that engaged visitors to connect with New Mexican history in a tangible way. “There is a disconnect between human beings and their agrarian roots,” Goodman explains,“The Spring Festival is a chance for people to rediscover that.”

Story by Maria Manuela
Photography by Gabriella Marks

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You may have picnicked by the Pecos River, but how about in it? Suzanne and Mark Rasic – founders of Field Trip – took the table to the river and shared a seasonal feast with favorite friends.

Field Trip Takes to the Pecos River for a Picnic

Sometimes, people land exactly where they were meant to be, doing exactly what they were meant to do. That’s the case for Suzanne and Marc Rasic and Field Trip, their outdoor getaway situated on the banks of the Pecos River. It’s a thriving business that caters to people wanting to get away from it all – whether for a family vacation or an intimate wedding. But more than that, it’s a passion project the two conjured up when they were living in San Francisco.

Marc is a classically trained chef who spent years honing his cooking skills in Michelin-starred restaurants, cooking for Luxembourg’s royal family, doing a stint as a chef on the Cunard cruise line, and even setting up restaurants on Google campuses. They met when Suzanne was running her women’s clothing store in Pacific Heights and Marc was at the helm of a restaurant 11 blocks away. They both used the same florist, who providently set them up on a blind date. “We met in April, got engaged in June, and married in August, and that was 23 years ago,” laughs Suzanne.

Building a Dream Come True at Field Trip

They knew they wanted to work together and linked up with Suzanne’s godson, the designer and architect William Fox, to imagine their dream business. “We we were talking about moving back to Santa Fe and Marc said, ‘If you could live anywhere, where would it be?’” Suzanne’s answer? Either Tesuque or Pecos. “And somehow the gods smiled on us and we got Pecos.” While the property needed some tidying up, the two intentionally kept a light touch. “It’s so beautiful that we didn’t want to alter the landscape or try and make it feel more polished,” says Suzanne. “It needed stewardship. It didn’t need change.”

They bought the property in 2021 and opened in October of 2022. Today Field Trip feels even more a part of the landscape, with views of the river and the surrounding mountains. A rare moment off provided the opportunity to bring friends together for a picnic in – not on – the river. Feet bare and pant legs rolled up, they were truly immersed in nature. The menu showcased Marc’s signature cooking style that leans into what’s local and fresh, with minimal intervention. It’s an approach that comes from skill, a deft palate, and confidence. “There’s something magical about taking something as ordinary as a carrot and you grill that carrot and you serve it with mint, and salt, and olive oil – three ingredients – and highlight, truly, what the complexity of a carrot could look like and taste like,” he says.

More Than Just Food

His cooking is informed not only by years spent in professional kitchens but also his own childhood in Luxembourg raised by Croatian parents. Summers were spent focused on food and family. “My summers were mostly in the countryside, eating food and having large meals with all the cousins and family together,” he says. Now traditions from his childhood like peka – a traditional Croatian cooking method where meat, seafood, and vegetables are slow-cooked under a domed lid and covered with hot embers – appear on the menu for large gatherings or casual get-togethers, like the river picnic.

“You can bring different cultures into a place, and different cooking techniques from all over the world to highlight that fire and coal and smoke can be used across a lot of different cuisines,” he says.

Connection is Key

While Suzanne topped up white wine, Marc passed around a platter of raw zucchini dotted with parmesan and thinly shaved porcini mushrooms. Trees provided dappled shade and the cool river waters brought relief from the summer sun.

It was a pinch-me moment. Everything they’d sketched out in pencil and dreamed up in their heads was real. Where many weddings and events can feel transactional, what Marc and Suzanne offer is something much deeper. “It just happened organically. I think we thought we would do some events, but we didn’t understand the need for it, and the desire for this kind of venue,” says Marc. What they’ve created is a place where everything is beautiful but nothing precious. Dogs and kids alike can run with abandon. Wedding guests can gather around the open fire as Marc shares cooking tips. It’s a gift from Marc and Suzanne and one they share in return. As Suzanne says, “It’s just the connection with the people we work with – our clients and their families. I mean, it is medicine, to be honest.

What They Ate

• The Camp Cooler
• Grilled bread with radishes and butter
• Pan con tomate
• Charred padron peppers
• Pan con cevapi with ajvar (a take on pan con chorizo)
• Raw zucchini salad with Parmesan and shaved porcini mushrooms
• Peka
• Argentinian shrimp cooked in a clay pot
• Grilled carrots with burnt mint
• Renate’s rum cake

Who Was There

• Suzanne and Marc Rasic
• Jessie and Rye Baca
• Kimmy Rohr and Peter Valente
• Marijke Uleman
• David Pecorari

Special thanks to Whiskey and Clay for the beautiful tableware and Mini Falls Farm for the flowers and to photographer (and mixologist) Ashley Lynn for creating the Camp Cooler cocktail.

Story by Julia Platt Leonard
Photography by Ashley Perry Lynn
Food by Marc Rasic

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