GRAND JUNCTION, CO

We have now spent well over 4 months here at Grand Junction CO.  What do we think about it?

My personal humble feeling is this:  although we did meet a lot of good folks here in Grand Junction, I do not think it would be a choice of where I would ever really want to settle down. Why?  Again, we have met a lot of nice folks here, but on the other hand we found it to be not the friendliest places either.  Going shopping, if you smile at someone, they look at you as if you have just done something wrong.  While we spent seasonal summers in Mountain Home AR, if you smile at someone, they would smile back at you and even may say “hello”.

We notice that you also have to be a more defensive driver, because you just might get hit or rear-ended.   Since being here, we nearly missed getting reared in by another driver not paying attention, and there fore causing a chain reaction of cars getting hit, with us just barely getting missed by the car behind us.  One minor injury caused in that accident.  We had another incident where I noticed a truck out my rear-view mirror swerving in and out of cars, nearly hitting us.  If I hadn’t taken the shoulder-he would have hit us.  Again on another occasion a vehicle decided to make a right-hand turn from the far left side of the road-way, almost hitting the car next to us and us!

The cashiers at the store makes you feel like you shouldn’t be in their lane checking out and are annoyed that you did check out with them.  There is even one checker at one of the Wal-Mart that will freely give you her opinion; whether you want it or not.  We have learned to avoid checking out with her whenever we see her as a checker.

Now I’m not totally putting down Grand Junction for there are some positive and upbeat to it.  When I needed to get my foot checked, you just don’t call a doctor and get in.  So I ended up going to an Urgent Care Center with Community Hospital.  They treated me well and acted as though I was a human being, not just another sick person or a statistic.  When I was able to get to a foot surgeon, I ended up going to Patterson Ankle & Foot specialist and the Doctor that I had did a wonderful job getting my back on my foot again.  She was awesome and if ever I had to go again-I would go back to her.

We did give Grand Junction a lot of business this summer, with my foot surgery,  to finding a good dentist, going to Midas to fix our A/C and breaks on the car.  Buying a new computer, and  last but not least, buying at the local department stores.

There is also many things to see and do while in or near Grand Junction.  You have the National Monument (which by the way, if you own a dog, they are allowed in the campground, but not on any of the trails) and the Dinosaur Museum is not far from the West entrance.  The Book Cliff mountains and Mount Garfield (which you might find wild horses on the back side) are spectacular to view, the James M. Robb Colorado River State Parks (Island Acres, Connected Lake, Corn Lake & Fruita), Palisade Wineries (That do Peach Festival in August and the Wine Festival in Sept), and don’t forget to take the tour up onto the Grand Mesa where there is over 50 lakes, a visitor center along with resorts, camping and hiking trails.  Also if you plan your trip maybe at the right time, you just might get in on the Country Jam in June or the Rock Jam in Aug that goes on near Grand Junction.

Spring, Summer, Fall, or Winter, it’s a beautiful place to check out and explore and the landscape is amazing.  I wish we would have had more time to do more things, but we didn’t.  So that means sometime down the road, we will need to come back again, but this time to explore more and work less.

CANYON WINDS

Sitting between two canyon walls can create unexpected winds what seems like they come out of nowhere.

In the springtime, the winds would kick up and I could sit up at the office and watch the waves on the small lake.  At first they would be going in one direction and just like drop of a dime-the winds would switch direction.

As we fade in and out of the Monsoon season, once again, the winds are unpredictable.  The last several nights between 6:30 and 7:30 pm out of nowhere the winds would kick up as if a storm was coming in-but we received no rain or storms.

The other night as we were sitting and relaxing the winds again kicked up out of nowhere and rolled through the canyon walls.  As we looked at each other and wonder what the heck-when I looked out and see the diesel pusher’s just across from us, awning taking flying lesson! 
Knowing they were an older couple and they had just got home from the peach fest, I told Brian that they need our help.

As we went over here was two older gentleman and one lady trying to keep the awning from flying over and doing any more damage to the motorhome.  So Brian and came to the rescue to help out.
As we were trying to help and figure out what to do, I notice that his awning over the door was the next thing to take flight, so I suggest that we hold the one down while he puts up the other awning.
We finally manage to get the awning somewhat rolled up and the arms down.  The good news is that the group he was with was having an awning guy come out the next day and he would have that guy look at his to see what he could do until he got back to South Dakota where he was from.

Later on, while outside talking to our park ranger,this gentleman came over to us with a bottle of wine.  He told us that we would not find that wine anywhere around here.  It was called Red Ass Rhubarb Wine. 

The awning guy did come out and got his awning fixed up enough for him to get back to South Dakota where he will probably have to have a new one put one.   So all was not lost to this crazy canyon wind.  The next morning, a camp host brought up a tent that almost landed into one of our fishing lakes.

REFLECTIONS

One of the things that I enjoy doing-besides writing, is taking pictures.  I’m by far no professional, but I on an amateur level, I think I do pretty good.

On calm days overlooking a lake, I love to watch reflections in the water, then I will shoot several pictures of the calm water. 

Here at Island Acres we have two small fishing lakes and on calm days the cliffs will reflect beautifully off the water.  Here are some pictures that I have taken.

A FAMILY SEPERATED

Up early and adam as we started our day on one fine Wednesday Morning.  As we are checking campsites to see who is staying and who is leaving, we started in our B loop; which is the tent area.  One of our tenters comes up to us and said he just seen a cub bear walking on the burm trail.  We asked us to show us where the cub at. 

As I walked up on the burm, sure enough there was a cub walking on the trail as if nothing was amidst.  He did look back once to see if anyone was following me, and then just kept on going.

As volunteer and workers of the state park our first protocol was to get a hold of a park ranger.  Being it was very early in the morning and no park rangers were on as of yet, but maintenance was, we approached the maintenance guy and then he made the necessary phone calls while we went back to track the direction the cub was going.

the cub got chased up a tree at one point by barking dogs, came back down, and once again headed towards our B loop; which was still loaded with a group of overnight campers with lots of young kids.  Not wanting to have the kids chasing the baby, we tried our best to divert the cub away from that area, but he would have no part of it.  He looked at us as if he was in charge, and actually-he was!

 Although the pics are blurred, they are my first pics of  a baby cub!
He’s running away from us and right into the paths of lots of kids!!


We eventually lost track of him in the tall grass brush, so we had no clue as to where he actually was.  Then another one of our campers informed us that there was not just one cub, but two!  They had played hours prior to the chase in front of his camper.

The next question that everyone had…if we have cubs in the park, where is mama?  That kept rangers and us on edge through out the day.  The rangers had to contact the Dept. of Wildlife.  He came out and talked with us about the cub.  At first he thought it was last year born and wasn’t an actual cub-until he looked at my picture that I manage to get.

As the day turned to night, we advised campers that there are bears in the area and to keep their site clean of food.  As we went around later that night checking on the park, and talking with campers, one lady came up and said that there is a bear on the other side of the river pacing back and forth.  We later learned that it was mama to the cubs.  All of tenters were awaken through out the night with mama crying for her babes.
Almost of a week later and other than finding bear scat back near the water treatment area, there has been no more sighting of mama or the cubs.  We hope that somehow they have been re-united and have gone back to their homeland, away from the campground.

So what happen to separate mama from cubs?  We are all thinking that somehow upstream the babes fell into the river, after maybe a bank collapse from the raging rushing water.  They swam went downstream, ending up on the opposite side of the bank and landing near us.  Now if somehow we can get them to continue down river for another 2 miles, then maybe cubs could cross over at the Cameo bridge and get re-united with their mama.  Just so long mama doesn’t cross over to our side in the meantime.

By the looks of the scat, the cubs appear to be eating some vegetation, but they are a little on the skinny side-they need their mama back for proper nutrition.

RAIN vs. WIND

Coming from and spending the majority of our lives in the Midwest area, it  is almost a given that rain is part of a holiday weekend.
As we worked the federal parks, when campers checked in with us, the first thing they would ask is it going to rain?  We would always put a smile on our face as we respond to them with this answer “of course-it’s a holiday weekend!” 
Sure enough sometime during the course of the weekend, a thunderstorm or just rain would pelt them and get everything all wet.  The worse would be on the Monday they would have  to leave and the rain would come-soaking everything as they try to pack up.  To a camper it would be frustrating, but to us gate attendants and cleaners, it would be glorious-for we could get the park back to shape early.
When we worked one of our parks where we had to clean as well as run the booth, we would almost pray for rain on holiday weekends or Sundays.  When rain was a threat on Sundays or holiday weekends, campers would pack up early and head out, instead of hanging out for the rest of the day, playing on the water or doing whatever.
As we are finishing up the first holiday to kick off the summer here in Grand Junction, we did have a slight chance of rain.  But rain wasn’t the thing that had campers scampering in the middle of the night for safety, it was winds.  We had  several campers in tent that ended up either sleeping in their vehicles or finding elsewhere to finish the remaining of the night out on Saturday Night.  Come Sunday morning as we walked around, fighting the high gust of winds, we found several tents completely destroyed.  We even found one tent that appeared to have flying lessons and ended up in the brush near the river.
We had sustain winds between 25 to 30mph with gust exceeding 55+.  Let me tell you, we felt those gust as they literally about blew you off the road!  Island Acres State Park is situated between canyon walls, so it creates more of a wind tunnel.  The winds started to kick up late on Saturday night and got worse throughout the night and all day on Sunday, letting up just a bit through Sunday night into Monday morning.  Yet the winds still can be felt as I’m still typing this.
By Sunday morning, even our own camper was rocking sideways.  As I said earlier, many tenters tents were either flatten or poles had snapped and broke.  As the day went on, the winds seem to get worse and now the pop-up campers were starting to feel the effect of the wind.  One of them received damage and had to move sites for more protection from the high wind gust.
As one of our rangers went out to due park check, she looked over the Colorado River and saw where the wind had created what one would think as a water spout.  She told us about it and she was amazed by it.
As the afternoon went on, we started to get some very frazzle campers coming off the interstate that just couldn’t handle the winds traveling anymore.  I was glad that the State Park here was able to accommodate these folks.  By late afternoon, the sun was under a cloud of dust, and as you look out, all you could really see what a thick cloud-all dust….
So if asking me whether I would prefer rain or wind, I would actually have to say if the winds are like what we saw the last 24+ hours, I will take the rain.

THE FIRST WEEK

The park was getting ready to start off the holiday weekend, and already was short handed at the gate house.  Although I have been hired on as the new Gate Attendant, paper work still has to be done so that I can get paid.  So until it’s all said and done, I’m still considered a volunteer.  The rangers thought it would be a good time to start training me for the position.
So on Friday Brian and I started working the gate house in the evenings.  Our first night was very busy and hectic-being it was the kick-off for the holiday weekend and to the summer.
I was assigned what is called a shift box which has my starting money and all the passes that they sell for the Colorado State Parks.
Talk about being thrown into the mix of it all during one of their most busiest time!  It was just a bit over whelming at first.  They have different passes that they sell that you have to learn what is for what.  You have your regular day-pass, then the Annual Pass, then Colorado residents that are 64 and over have a choice of the Aspen Leaf Pass; which gives them a discount.  And if that’s not enough then have a Lifetime Aspen Leaf Pass that can be purchase.  AND they have different types of Multiple Passes for customers with other vehicles.  If a customer comes in towing a vehicle, they have a pass for that as well.  Wow!  I think there is about 10 or more different passes to learn and not to get them mixed up or confused can be challenging to a newcomer-like me.
Besides all the  types of passes that we sell, we also do fishing and hunting licenses.  We also can register OHV, snowmobiles & boats!  I haven’t had to those yet, but have learned how to do fishing license.  Then there is  firewood to sell-which has to be kept separate from the rest of the money-and that can be a challenge!
We don’t do reservations here at the park, that has to be done either Toll Free or Internet=thank goodness!!
by the end of the night we both were exhausted.  Once we close the window, we still were not done.  Now it’s time to account for all the passes that were sold, fishing license sold, and campsites sold.  All came up as it should-except for some unknown reason I came up with an extra $25.00 ahead.  Not sure what happen.  It’s hard to say when there was several people with their hands in the till.
My second night, was requested by the ranger training me that Brian didn’t come in-she said it was too hard on her to train the both of us and since I’m the one actually going to be hired, it was decided that he should not help out.  We did feel for her, for the both of us bombarded her with lots of questions.  Oh and the ranger that was training me, has been in the maintenance field for 3 years, and this is actually her first year, first month as a ranger.  So we totally understand that she to was overwhelmed.
The second and third night went smoothly with everything check and balancing the way it should at the end of the night.  Brian did work in the office-cleaning on the third night.  I even have learned most of the passes and what they are for.  The downfall is some of the passes will be changing out the 1st of July as prices are being change.
The park rangers have been really great and very helpful.  They are not afraid to chip in when it gets busy.  They are there if there is any kind of problems.  It is mandatory here that whenever there is a Gate Attendant on duty, at least one ranger also has to be present within the park.
With my upcoming foot surgery, they are so willing to work with me so that I do what the doctor orders.  You don’t find that kind of support in any work place.  I think Brian and I are going to enjoy working the summer here at the James M. Robb Colorado River State Park-Island Acres.