George Rebane

Grounded in Grants, NM.  Today was supposed to be our excursion to the Ice Caves about 25 miles south of here.   We pulled into the local Great Western motel yesterday afternoon after driving about 250 miles on I-40 from Flagstaff across some of the bleakest country in these United States.  It makes you understand whe the Mexicans didn’t fight harder for it back in the 1840s.  The two major towns that one encounters en route are Holbrook on the Arizona side and Gallup as you first cross into New Mexico.

Russ and Ellen had stop at Holbrook to pay respects to their former residence there when in the Air Force.  Russ also surveyed the local thermometer that has been telemetering its readings to the federal agencies concerned with such things as global warming.  (See his post on NC Media Watch.)

We of the RVless contingent on this RV trip stopped in Gallup because my bride claimed the town was full of fine galleries and she was in need of some retail therapy.  So we pulled over on the main drag in front of a ‘gallery’ that was carefully selected for the parking space in front of it.  The establishment was presentable but totally empty.  Upon our entry its Palestinian owner ‘Mike’ sprang from a back room and smiled his way across the floor to where Jo Ann had already begun casting a critical eye on the merchandise.

For the next half hour Mike was a gusher of information about every Indian artist and artisan of note whose jewelry and artifacts we were admiring.  After totaling up the damages, Mike cut us such a deal that it was almost a pleasure reaching for the MasterCard.  I never have any idea what mumbo-jumbo they do with the calculator while telling you to ignore the price tags – besides my job has always been on the revenues side and not disbursements.  We exited with a bag full of treasures.  Onward!

After lugging our stuff into the motel we went to the nearby Walmart for supper fixin’s since it was our turn to entertain the Steeles.  At this point Jo Ann complained of a dry throat and did her precautionary saltwater gargle.  The Steeles arrived, great wine, great food, we solved another major world problem or two, and parted for the night after planning tomorrow’s assault on the Ice Caves.  But preparing for bed, I heard the saltwater gargle again.  This sounded a bit more serious than an irritated throat from the dry wind that is blowing for the third straight day.

After a restless night, we called Russ and Ellen to beg off the planned excursion.  Jo Ann was going to take a ‘by’.  The Ice Caves would have to wait for another time.  So while Jo Ann was napping I decided to ask ‘Why Grants?’  This turned out to be not an easy question.

Grants gives new meaning to the term ‘modest town’.  Greater Grants is home to about 18,000 souls half of whom were dragged here at gun point since they populate the four prisons in this part of the state.  From the appearance of the place and its inhabitants, the other half look as if they are still trying to find an excuse for being here.  The CofC proudly informs all that a signal benefit of the town is that it’s an hour from Albuquerque.  Asking directions to downtown Grants caused all three desk clerks to look at each other, grin, and deliver a series of one-liners that had “… such as it is.” as their common denominator.

Our drive through the town more than substantiated the enthusiasm for their community shown by the ladies behind the counter.   Half of the businesses along the streets were boarded up or simply abandoned.  The outskirts, where the motels are located along with a couple of service stations and restaurants, reminds me of what California City might have looked like in its heyday – lots of empty land between a building here and there.  Those of you with the adequate number of birthdays will remember that Mojave desert dream of the 1960s when the nation was contemplating building the Supersonic Transport that was supposed land and take off from the new LA International airport “coming soon to Palmdale.” 

The suddenly Congress decided that the Europeans were perfectly capable of losing truckloads of money with their Concorde, and needed no competition from us in that enterprise.  Overnight California City became the municipality with the world’s largest tumbleweed manufactory within its city limits.

Grants started as a railroad camp for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in the 1880s and served as a repository for the timber harvested from the nearby Zuni Mountains and used in building the railroad.  A nearby water reservoir built in 1930s enabled it to proclaim itself as the “carrot capital” of the world.  Then came US66 as America started its long distance auto travel mania.  Some of us remember the motels (called ‘cabins’ in those days) that allowed the thrill seekers from Indiana to sleep in teepee shaped huts with ‘arrows’ the size of telephone poles angling out of the ground in several places.  Grants had its share of these to bed down the road-weary round eyes heading for LA.

The Interstate system, started during the Eisenhower administration in the fifties, was going to fold up a lot of these teepees across the west.  Luckily for Grants, a sharp-eyed and inquisitive Navajo shepherd found a funny looking yellow rock near his place of business one day.  This turned out to be uranium two or three steps removed from becoming a much needed warhead for the Cold War, and the mining boom for Grants was off and running.  Unfortunately, in the eighties the USSR began folding its own tent and the mining companies promptly pulled out.

This left Grants with a little under 10,000 people, not in the justice system, who are now sitting on a 6,000 foot high desert plateau without a railroad, uranium mines, or carrots.  They did get to put up ‘Historic Route 66’ signs along their main drag which at high noon is mostly empty, making this community not a promising expansion site for our Citizens Concerned About Traffic.  Today all the folks hereabouts are rooting for higher oil and gas prices since rumor has it that the uranium miners will come back because some people in Washington are again learning how to spell ‘Nucular Power Plant’.