13 things that only exist in the Southwest

Chiles are a staple in Southwest cuisine, and Hatch Valley chiles are among the most popular. They come from the Hatch Valley in New Mexico, and people turn them into green sauce. The sauce is popular in both New Mexico and Arizona.

There's also red chile sauce, and when ordering New Mexican food, you'll be asked if you want green chile, red chile, or Christmas, which is both green and red.

To make fries from cactus, or nopales, you first have to cut off the thorns, slice the plant into strips, and dip them in breadcrumbs. Cactus fries taste like sour string beans, according to She Knows.

Southwestern cuisine draws from Native American culture, and frybread is one of the most notable foods. It's a simple, circular piece of dough that is fried in oil. Frybread can be used as a side or as an entree when topped with meats. It can also be turned into a dessert, known as sopaipillas, when it's topped with a jam or sugar.

BoSa is known for its doughnuts, but the regional chain also serves sandwiches, breakfast foods, and other baked goods. It has 20 locations across Arizona.

Eegee's is known for its frozen drinks, which come in a variety of flavors. The fast-food chain — which has locations in Tucson, Phoenix, and Casa Grande — also serves sandwiches, salads, and fries.

The architecture of a lot of homes in the Southwest is known as Pueblo Revival because the structures resemble the homes Pueblo natives built before European settlers came to the region.

They are usually made of sun-dried mud and have thick walls, rounded exteriors, square windows, and heavy wood accents. These houses are built to keep temperatures low inside and to blend in with the landscape.

Lake Havasu City is a community in Arizona with 50,000 residents. Each summer the temperatures in the area regularly reach well above 100 degrees, and it was the location of the highest temperature ever officially recorded in Arizona: 128 degrees in June 1994.

But Southwesterners stay in Lake Havasu City for the lakefront and hiking trails.

It gets so hot in the Southwest that doing everyday tasks can become extremely difficult, like driving. Amid a triple-digit heatwave in 2017, drivers were reportedly seen wearing oven mitts to avoid burning their hands on their steering wheels.

Drivers in the state also swear by tinted windshields.

Many people in the Southwest refer to the Grand Canyon as the Big Ditch.

Traditionally, a haboob is a dust storm in the deserts of Sudan, but American scientists decided to call the dust storms they witnessed in Arizona a haboob back in 1971. The name stuck, and people in the Southwest continue to use the term today.

In Tucson, there are 40 stravenues, which is the combination of the words "street" and "avenue." The city decided to give this name to any street that runs diagonally between two east to west streets and two north to south avenues.

Meow Wolf is located in Santa Fe, Las Vegas, and Denver, and is a popular destination for locals and tourists. The exhibit uses augmented reality, music, and videos so guests can interact and immerse themselves in the art.

Every Labor Day Weekend, the city of Santa Fe builds a 50-foot figure known as Zozobra out of cloth, wire, and wood. Zozobra dates back to the 1920s when an artist built the monster in his backyard. Today, people still flock to Fort Marcy Park to stuff the massive Zozobra with printed letters with their worries and fears written on them.

The figure is then burned and people get to watch their suffering burn up as well.