Q: Have you gotten to explore New Mexico on your own?

A: Any chance my girlfriend and I get. We went up to Santa Fe, and near there is Taos, a wonderful town, and Madrid, off the Turquoise Trail, a little artists’ community. It has an old coal mining museum that I love.

About 150 miles south of Albuquerque is a town called Truth or Consequences, so renamed from Hot Springs in 1950 after the old quiz show “Truth or Consequences” had a contest to air a program from whatever small town in America that would change its name. It’s a charming little town where you go to take the waters. We spent the weekend at Sierra Grande Lodge and Spa, this very quaint, old-timey spa. You have these individual open-air tubs where you turn on the spigot, and the natural hot springs come bubbling up. I had a cigar and drank a little bourbon while I was in it, which is probably a bad idea all around when you’re in 115-degree water. But outdoors, under the stars, it’s very nice.

Q: And in Albuquerque itself, what’s of interest?

A: I’ll admit that when you enter the city on either Interstate, 40 or 25 — they meet smack in the middle — Albuquerque doesn’t look, shall we say, particularly picturesque. It seems like lots of strip malls and chain restaurants. But it has a stealth charm. Once you get into the neighborhoods, you realize it possesses a great amount of culture and history and natural beauty surrounding it.

Central Avenue is a great drive. A part of Route 66, it’s still dotted with old neon motel signs like that great Ernst Haas photo. There’s a great art gallery called Mariposa Gallery and a restaurant we love called Zinc.

The Sandias, the mountains to the east, are omnipresent. Take the cable car up to a restaurant called High Finance, which is a good place to eat. It’s stark beauty up there; you can see for hundreds of miles.