If a hearty breakfast is the best way to start the day, then the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum’s 10th annual Cowboy Days festival should get off to a good start. Held in Las Cruces, New Mexico at one of the West’s premier museums celebrating farming and ranching, Cowboy Days is set for March 14-15.

For many, however, the fun begins at 8 A.M. each day with the cowboy breakfast. A chuck wagon cook will create an authentic cowboy breakfast featuring Dutch oven favorites such as biscuits and gravy, and eggs and bacon (tickets $9 in advance, $10 on the day). Cowboy Days admission is included in the price of the breakfast tickets.

The festival includes live western music, living history fun, and arts and crafts show and a Charreada (Mexican style rodeo), horsemanship demonstrations, rides, and more.Cowboy Days also marks the opening of an extensive new exhibit at the museum. “A Most Terrible Wonder: Firearms from 1600 to 1900” features dozens of guns from the museum’s collections.

For more information, please call 575/ 522-4100 or click here.

And why not visit a New Mexico ranch while you’re there? The Geronimo Trails Guest Ranch , open year-round, offers a real Old West adventure set in southwest New Mexico’s Gila National Forest. Or check out The Lodge at Chama. It’s a world-class outdoor sporting destination and outstanding corporate retreat on 36,000 acres with supurb lake trophy trout fishing and one of the worlds largest private elk herds.