2944 Quail Pointe Drive NW

Ask ten people where the Westside begins and you'll get the same answer: the far bank of the Rio Grande. From there it runs west, up the sand hills and over the black volcanic escarpment, north to the Rio Rancho line and south to Central. That is a big piece of Albuquerque. It's also why Westside homes for sale can mean a 1950s block house on a quarter acre off Coors or a two-year-old build on the mesa top with the Sandias filling the back windows.Three ZIPs do most of the work. 87114 covers the north end around Paradise Hills and Seven Bar. 87120 takes in Taylor Ranch and the volcano country. 87121 is the southwest mesa. An older strip out along West Central falls in 87105.Volcanoes, petroglyphs and the bosqueThe escarpment is the defining thing here, and it's protected. Petroglyph National Monument runs roughly seventeen miles along that basalt edge, with five dormant cones standing behind it. One of them, JA, got its initials from John Adams Middle School students. The Volcanoes Day...