When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to the airport to watch the planes land and take off. We’d drive out to the old Albuquerque airport and park somewhere along the access road near the end of the runway, and we’d sit on the hood of our green station wagon and watch for the liveries of airliners and military planes. There was nothing out there but us, the car, some tumbleweeds, the smell of aviation fuel mixed with the scent of sagebrush, and of course the planes.
These days this might seem creepy; then it was innocent, and offered a glimpse of the glamourous life of travelers and the space-age wonder of aviation. One day we saw a delta-wing aircraft, which Pop thought was really exciting and a technical wonder, but it gave me nightmares later about little aliens in triangular spaceships. This was about the era of the “my blannie, my blannie!” photo at the upper right of this page. That’s our old backyard in ABQ, by the way.
And now I’m a travel agent, and stumble across sites like this one. And I still get to watch the planes, and it’s still pretty fun (and also it’s handy if we’re at work and and United goes low and slow overhead – we can see where it’s going now).
There’s more airports linked off of this page.
