One of the common breakfast flights for those of us in the Albuquerque area is to Grants, NM. It sits on I-40 about 70 miles west of Albuquerque. The airport manager there (Les) is a super friendly guy and always has a courtesy car available for us to make a run to the Wow Diner.
Grants is a town of about 10,000 folks that was originally a railroad town (Atlantic and Pacific Railroad). The town grew as a result of railroad logging in the nearby Zuni Mountains, and served as a section point for the Atlantic and Pacific, which became part of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad empire. The Zuni Mountain Railroad short line had a roundhouse in town and housed workers. Timber from the Zuni Mountains was shipped to Albuquerque where a large sawmill converted the timber to wood products that were sold around the west. After the logging declined, Grants gained fame as the “carrot capital” of the United States. Agriculture was aided by the creation of Bluewater Reservoir, and the region’s volcanic soils provided ideal conditions for farming. Grants also benefited from its location on U.S. Route 66. The most recent boom occurred when uranium ore was discovered near Haystack Mesa, sparking a mining boom that lasted until the 1980s.
The area is very beautiful and is on the north end of the large and recent (around 3,000 years ago) lava field known as “El Malpais” (the badlands). To the northeast are the San Mateo Mountains and Mount Taylor (11,301 feet). West of the city is the Continental Divide and the Zuni Mountains. The region is primarily high desert country, dominated by sandstones and lava flows.
Of course, the people at the Wow Diner are wonderful and that certainly helps keep us coming back for more! The following video is some short segments of the trip to/from Grants and some of the awesome terrain that we get to experience on the flight.
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