The first thing you learn in New Mexico is the question. It’s not “what would you like?” — it’s “red or green?” And the correct answer, until you know your tolerance, is “Christmas” (both).

We drove from Albuquerque to Santa Fe to Taos over five days. Every meal involved green chile. Green chile on eggs. Green chile on burgers. Green chile in stew. Green chile stuffed into sopapillas. It’s not a condiment here — it’s a food group.

The Hatch Valley in southern New Mexico is where most of it grows. In September, the whole state smells like roasting chiles. Grocery store parking lots set up industrial roasters — big propane-fired drums that tumble the chiles until the skin blisters. You buy them by the bushel.

Santa Fe surprised me. I expected turquoise jewelry and Georgia O’Keeffe prints, and there’s plenty of that, but the food scene is genuinely excellent. We ate at a place on Cerrillos Road — no sign, just a screen door and a woman who’d been making tamales since before I was born. Best meal of the trip.

Taos Pueblo is worth the drive. It’s been continuously inhabited for over a thousand years. The multi-story adobe buildings look like they grew out of the earth. No electricity, no running water — by choice. The residents are preserving something that most of the world has already lost.

The drive back through the Rio Grande Gorge at sunset was the kind of moment that makes you pull over and just sit there. The canyon drops 800 feet straight down, and the light turns everything pink and gold. No photo does it justice.