Free Day at The Gardens

For a small city, we are fortunate to have a very nice botanical garden.
The first Sunday of every month is "Free Day" at the Western Colorado
Botanical Gardens and I took advantage of the pleasant sunny morning
to get some last minute vegetation into my five senses before heading
down to the Ice. There, I won't see greenery of any kind, so I figured
I needed to soak in as much as possible. If the WCBG were only a
desert botanical garden, it would be more than worth the visit. My
favorite part of the entire facility is their large cactus garden. The
pathway meanders through some of my favorite plants. This is how
I wished my yard would look! As I said though, the gardens are so
much more. There is a Butterfly House, a rain forest, Japanese and
Grass gardens. Also, a Western Heritage and Children's Garden. All
of this in a cozy, seventy acre spot near the Colorado River. What's
amazing is fifteen years ago, this was all a junk yard. A salvage
yard once covered this entire area, but the land was acquired by the
city in efforts to make the riverfront a more beautiful place. I think
they were successful!

Good Music For A Good Cause

This evening, we attended a benefit concert at the Western Colorado
Botanical Gardens' Elizabeth B. Harris Amphitheatre. The concert was
being held to support the Dream Catcher Therapy Center and End of
the Trail Horse Rescue and Sanctuary.

The mission of Dream Catcher Therapy Center is to foster an environment
to effectively rescue and rehabilitate horses and empower people with
physical and mental health challenges through interaction with horses
in a unique, clinical setting.


Three separate bands played, but I especially enjoyed the Native American
Flute playing between each set.


Lynn donated two knitted caps for the silent auction.


Adjacent to the amphitheatre is the Colorado Riverfront Trail. During a lull
in the music, I took a short walk down the trail to do some exploring. It really
is very pretty and it's the perfect place to take a walk, ride a bike or just watch
the Colorado River flow by.


The Colorado River is still running pretty high. The large amount of snow melt
from the mountains and the recent rainfall we've had have definitely filled its
banks.

We had a fun time at the concert, visiting with friends and enjoying the music...
all for a good cause!

We Have Tasty Water

We are very lucky here in Grand Junction. Not only is our water good
to drink, it is very good to drink. You would think that with the
Colorado and Gunnison Rivers flowing nearby, we would get our
water from there. We do, but those sources are strictly for irrigation.
Our drinking water comes from pristine streams and reservoirs on
Grand Mesa, just east of town. Grand Mesa gets tons of snow during
the winter and much of that trickles down via Kannah Creek and the
Purdy Reservoir flowline, straight to our taps. This summer, there is
still snow up on the Mesa. That means that there will be no shortage
of our favorite tasty beverage this year.

It's Pretty Full

We only live about a mile north of the Colorado River, which is the
seventh longest river in the United States. Usually, even though
it carries quite a bit of water at this point in its route, it's fairly
docile. Not so, these days, as spring runoff from this winter's
record snows in the Rocky Mountains is causing it to fill to its
banks and even sometimes over it. Last week, part of Interstate 70
had to be closed west of Fruita as the river was placing the highway
in danger. We took this photo in Glenwood Canyon on our way to
Denver last week. A few miles earlier, we saw some rafters making
their way down the river in an area that looked much like this.
There's a bicycle/walking path that runs through the canyon.
If you look closely on the left hand side of the photo, you can see
that it is very much under water. Not a good day to be ambling
down the river's edge. Even though we're having all of this water
now, the experts say that it won't have much effect of a nearly
20 year drought the Colorado River Basin is having. And believe
it or not, most of this water won't ever make it to the Pacific
Ocean (Gulf of California) in Mexico. It will go to the thirsty cities
of Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas. It's fun to watch while it
lasts though.

Palisade Peach Festival

Just a few miles east of our house lies the small town of Palisade.
Palisade is home to many orchards and vineyards, but is probably best
known for it's peaches...especially in Colorado. Every August, the town
holds it's Peach Festival and peach lovers flock in from miles around.
The festival is well run, with great transportation to and from outlying
parking lots. Lynn and I parked near the elementary school and then
walked along the Colorado Riverfront Trail until we came to the festival
grounds at Riverbend Park. It was really sunny and hot, making it a bit
uncomfortable but there were a lot of great craft booths and food stands
for everyone to enjoy. It was a good time had by all.

Riverfront Concert Series

We just got back from a fun concert at the James M. Robb Colorado
River State Park in Fruita featuring Carrie Rodriguez, who is a singer
and fiddle player. The Colorado Riverfront Foundation hosts several
of these free concerts each summer. Proceeds from the sale of food
and drinks go to the Riverfront Foundation for building new sections
of the Riverfront Trail. The venue has a great backdrop of the Colorado
National Monument and there aren't any permanent seats so everyone
brings their lawn chairs or blankets. We met up with our friends Jim
and Judey and we enjoyed hanging out.


The skies threatened to open up and rain all over us the entire
time we were there, but it made for some really pretty sunset
clouds. At around 10pm we felt the first drops and that was our
signal to head out. We had fun and will probably go to a few more
of these concerts next summer.

To Moab and Back

Some of our best trips are the ones that we don't start out taking.
We were on our way to a place called "Trail Through Time" to take
a hike when we decided to drive further on down the road to Moab.
Moab Utah is kind of an outdoor enthusiast's mecca, primarily
catering to mountain bikers, hikers and jeep four wheelers. It's also
home to Arches National Park and Canyonlands Natonal Park. We've
been here many times before, but it's always interesting to check
out the scenery. We decided to take a back route and this led through
the small ghost town of Cisco.


At one time, about 400 people lived in Cisco and it was a center
for sheep ranching, the railroad (the Union Pacific still goes through
town) and minerals. Not much is left now besides lots of junk cars
and a few dilapidated buildings.


We turned toward Moab on Utah State Route 128. This is also known
as The Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway. After crossing the Colorado
River at Dewey Bridge, we checked out the first of many BLM
campgrounds we would drive by. We plan to camp at a few of
these later this summer.


There definitely isn't a lot of shade here, but the valley along
the river is really pretty and there are also lots of hiking trails
nearby.


While driving through Castle Valley, there are numerous spots where
the valley opens up, exposing huge red sandstone monoliths.


I'm a big fan of all the different types of sandstone and how it
settled over the eons. This particular sandstone formation was
laid down in lots of layers. All of this was once an immense amount
of sand on the bottom of an ancient sea.


Summer is still a bit away, but the weather was perfect and because
it was a Sunday. lots of rafters were out on the river. This particular
guy reminded us of the Punters on the Avon in New Zealand. I don't
think anyone would confuse these sandstone canyons with Christchurch,
New Zealand however.


When we got to Moab, it was past lunchtime and all of our exploring
made us hungry. I had seen on the internet a small drive in named
Milt's Stop & Eat. It's a tiny little place that's been open since 1954.
It looks like they cater a lot to mountain bikers and jeepers, and they
didn't have any car hops, but they had great hamburgers and it was
delicious enough for us to want to come back some time. On our
way out of town, we picked up some information from the Visitor's
Center for hiking trails and campgrounds for later this summer. We
plan on spending some time in this area this summer taking advantage
of everything this area has to offer.

The Colorado River

Less than 2 miles from our home flows the Colorado River.
The Colorado is the 7th longest river in the nation and one
of the major water providers for most of the southwest.
It begins high in the Rockies and when we lived in Estes
Park, we could step across it when we visited it north of
Grand Lake. Here, you can't step across it by any means
but it sure is impressive to watch it flow by, carrying
millions of gallons of water with it. Much of the west
worries about having enough water, but as long as the
Colorado continues to flow, we should be ok here in Grand
Junction. For years, the riverfront was neglected throughout
the Grand Valley. In the last few decades however, a group
of local conservators and business people have teamed
together to bring nature back to the riverfront. Now there
are miles of trails, parks and recreation facilities. Their
dream is to convert the entire riverfront in Mesa County
to parkland. No small task, but definitely a plan worth
pursuing.