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.

COLORADO RIVER AT NORMAL

Since arriving to Island Acres, we watch as the Colorado river rise, putting everyone on alert to flooding.  They feared that the Day-Use area would be the first to go under and then maybe a couple of our campsites.



Then at one of our sister park, the berm broke away while a park ranger was checking for stability, causing for an emergency shut down to any trails along the river banks.  The park ranger was safe and was able to pull himself back up.

Now that the snow run off has stopped and the rain being sporadic, we finally are seeing the Colorado River for what it is, with a constant motion and ripples.  Rocks and boulders are starting to appear once again.  Rafters are back out having a good time. 

water rushing over the rocks as they show their appearance

Great Blue Heron perched on a rock in the Colorado River

The Island where bears have been known to cross over and come over towards us.

Unfortunately the River still continues to claim a lives.  In one incident a down tree was across a big portion of the river, causing many to divert.  Not knowing if the tree was the actual cause of the drowning or not, authorities decided not to take any more chances.  So calling in the bomb squad, clearing the area, the tree became an instant debris field, which has now been cleaned up.

With the river going back down to normal, we have been told that bears will cross over in a couple of sections, so I wonder if I will finally get to see one?

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.