I was lucky enough to spend a few days driving through New Mexico recently, on my way back from Colorado. Big skies, small poor towns, georgeously understated mountain ranges, touristy traps, gentle grasses, curious pronghorn, and lots and lots of brush. It has this calming quality that makes you feel like everything is fine, and slow, and wonderful just as it is. It’s just breezes and farmland, and passing weather, and space. Driving through that state is hypnotic. Just about the only thing that can awake you from the dream is a good jolt of spicy Mexican food, which I ate as much of as possible, and as often as possible, because it was finally possible to find.