Going Out FOR Business

We drove to Glenwood Springs the other day to see

"Rise of The Planet of The Apes" because it wasn't showing

at our favorite theatre in Grand Junction. While walking

toward the cinema, I saw this business and their sign. It

bothers me. Why, you ask? Because the human mind

doesn't typically read every word of a sentence. Remember

those studies that list a paragraph of words and every few

words is missing? You can still figure out what the paragraph

is saying anyway. This is kind of like that. I'd bet you a fair

amount of money that most people will not see the "4" on

their sign, go into the store, and think they are getting a

good deal. In reality, the shopper is being tricked into thinking

that the store is going out "of" business. All that is read is

GOING OUT BUSINESS. There was a store in Estes Park

that did the same thing when we lived there. You could stand

outside the store and listen to all the tourists tell each other

that the store was going out "of" business.

Illegal...No. Unethical...Yes!

Dallas

One of the disadvantages to being addicted to shopping at IKEA is that
there aren't a lot of them and if you don't live near one, you have to
drive a bit. We're headed to my sister Nancy's house in Oklahoma,
but we decided to drive a bit out of the way to visit the only IKEA
nearby to get some extra things for our house that we failed to
purchase on our last visit to IKEA in Salt Lake City. This also gave us
the opportunity to visit some areas we hadn't seen before on the way,
including southwest Arkansas and Northeast Texas. We bought our
items at IKEA after having a nice simple dinner of Swedish Meatballs
in their cafeteria. I am amazed at how fast the people in Dallas
drive. I don't consider myself a "hick from the sticks" by any means,
but these folks like to move rather quickly. Amazing, since it's so hot
and humid here. I would think this would make folks move more slowly.


On our way back to our hotel, we stopped at a really nice mall, called
Stonebriar Centre. It's pretty upscale and had about anything one would
need. We didn't do any shopping...just looking, but on our way out, we
watched a local hockey club practicing on the mall's own full-sized
hockey rink. Something we don't see much anymore since our rink in
Grand Junction is in a state of limbo. We had a great day and plan to
visit Dallas again sometime in the future.

Elizabeth Street Mall

In downtown Hobart, there is a really nice pedestrian shopping mall
called Elizabeth Street Mall. It reminds us a lot of the Cashel Street
Mall in Christchurch and has some really neat stores, including an
Australian Geographic Store and even a Target...just like in the States!


I really liked the covering at one end of the mall. It has a cool
look to it, without being oppressive. I'm glad they didn't cover
the whole mall with this though.


My favorite thing is this neat old Kodak sign. Very retro.

Salamanca Market

One of Hobart's biggest attractions is it's Saturday Salamanca Market.
We joined the throngs and although in many ways it seemed similar to
our Farmer's Market in Grand Junction, it was much much larger.


The market started in 1971 with 12 stalls. Now, it has 300 stalls and
attracts 25,000 people every Saturday. When we first arrived it was fairly
quiet, but as the morning went on it became very crowded.


We made a few small purchases, knowing we'd have to carry them all the
way home to the States. Lynn found a essential oil booth and purchase
some local Eucalyptus, Tea Tree and Lavender oils that are native to
Tasmania.


We also purchased some fruit leather. Really tasty!


If we hadn't seen the Tasmanian Devils at Bonorong, this might have been
the closest we'd come to seeing the real thing. I think these probably
aren't as ferocious as they look!

Don't Forget Your Bag

I had to make a return trip to Target this morning. Not because
I like shopping there so much, but because we shopped there
on Monday and forgot a bag containing 1/3 or the items that
we purchased. It was either that, or the cashier that was trying
to count back the change correctly failed to give us all of our
bags in her flustered state.
We could have avoided all of this if we had only taken our own
bags in like we usually do. If we use our own bags, it forces us
to remember to pick them up when we leave. So far, only one
of the places we shop (Vitamin Cottage) doesn't give you the
option of using plastic bags upon check out. You have to either
use cardboard boxes they provide, or bring your own shopping
bag. The act of bringing your own bags is getting more and more
popular. Every time I see countless bags blowing across a highway,
I'm reminded that we're doing the right thing by providing our own.
I still think it's a good idea that stores provide the bags, but over
time, it might become second nature to provide your own. If
that happens, we won't have to go back to the store when we've
forgotten to bring home what we've purchased!

Headed Home

Two days in Vegas is fun, but anything more than that is a
bit much for the senses. Add to the fact that it would get to
be 107 degrees, we were ready to head to the relatively
cooler Grand Junction. Our stay at Excalibur was nice as
we expected but we basically just slept there so we didn't
use much of the facilities.


A place we drove by while we were driving around town was
The Cleveland Clinic's Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. I'm
not sure if I like the architectural style or not, but it's
certainly different.


Before stopping for lunch at In-N-Out Burger (which is basically a
mandatory stop!) we went to a Trader Joe's grocery. We stop at one
any time we're in an area there is one and sadly, this is the closest
(or Albuquerque) one to our house. There aren't any in Colorado and
I've heard that the reason is because Colorado won't serve beer or
wine in groceries on Sundays and besides all of the other groceries,
beer and wine are big sellers at Trader Joe's. However, I was able
to find my favorite New Mexico Pinion Coffee and stocked up on it.
Lynn also bought some yummy hummus.


Just north of Las Vegas, on the way home, we passed through a tiny
part of Arizona. This section is totally cut off from the rest of the state
by the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Interstate 15 cuts
through this section, called the Arizona Strip and also climbs onto
the Colorado Plateau here at the Virgin River Canyon. All very
pretty and interesting to know that the Colorado Plateau stretches
all the way from here to just east of Grand Junction...500 miles
away!

Colorful Las Vegas

Our goal for our visit to Vegas is to see things we haven't seen
before. Last August, we did a good job of seeing the south end
of the Strip (South Las Vegas Blvd.) but didn't really see much on
the central and north ends of the strip. We started out at The
Venetian, where we saw these interesting looking umbrellas
decorating part of their shopping area.


I felt the Gondolas at the Venetian were a bit cheesy, but they seemed
to be popular.


We were really impressed by The Wynn. It's named after Vegas hotel
impresario Steve Wynn, who seems to own half of Vegas.


The Wynn is just impressive on the inside as it is on the outside.
These flowers and trees separated the hotel area from the casino.


All around the hotel lobby were these fantastic tile floors.


They had strange umbrella-type decorations in their bar, similar to
those in the Venetian...but these moved up and down.


Downtown Las Vegas definitely isn't the Strip. Way before the Strip
existed, this WAS Las Vegas. This is where you could get the cheap
buffets, cheap shrimp cocktails and see lots of neon. You can still
see lots of neon here, but they've covered the street with a cool
computer-screen type of display, stretching the entire length of
Fremont Street. While we were there, they played a pretty neat
display/concert-type display from the rock group, Queen.


It seemed that there were a lot more Elvis's around this year as well
as several Michael Jacksons and an Austin Powers.


Lots of neon though.








And what is Las Vegas without showgirls!

Cabela's is Open!

Today was a big deal for shoppers in Grand Junction. Our very
own Cabela's opened. It's the first in the State of Colorado and
the next closest store within 250 miles. For those that have never
been to a Cabela's, it's a retailer of hunting, fishing, camping and
related outdoor recreation merchandise. I've only been to the
store in Sidney, Nebraska. Lynn calls it the "Man Store" and we
went there every time we visited Brown Sheep Wool in the nearby
town of Mitchell. Now we're about 3 miles away from our own
store. We looked at the fishing equipment and we need to buy
some fishing supplies, but decided to wait until next week when
it's sure to be not as crowded.


The store was definitely crowded this evening, as there were all
kinds of folks checking out the new store. It's a prototype of sorts
for Cabela's, as it's the first store that isn't freestanding. Our
store is in the Mesa Mall and is in the location of the old Mervyn's
store. You could hardly tell though as it's been completely
remodeled and looks very different than a department store.
There were lots of contests going on and of course we filled
our names on entries many times. I'm sure that will result in
our name being placed on way too many mailing lists, but it's
worth a shot to try to win a prize.


Of course besides thehuge selection of outdoor goods, every
Cabela's has a large amount of taxidermy. I especially liked this
Bighorn Sheep. I'm looking forward to going back when it's not
so crowded but it's nice to know we have a store this nice only
a few miles away instead of a state away.

A Day of Exploring

Exploring the Great Houses such as Pueblo Bonito and Chetro
Ketl are always interesting and we could take a week exploring
all the different ruins here, but we were most interested in
visiting ruins that we hadn't visited before. This would involve
a bit of hiking, which we definitely up for. The first site we
checked out was Kin Kletso. At one time, it contained about
55 rooms, 4 kivas and 1 tower kiva. It was actually built by
McElmo phase people who came from the north, late in the
period in which Chaco was occupied.


Much like the other sites at Chaco, almost all of the wood had
to be brought in from miles and miles away. Kin Kletso's beams
were no different. Quite a task for a people who didn't know of
the wheel.


I enjoy seeing the different masonry and doorway styles in
each of the pueblos.


Along the trail, there were a number of petroglyphs. Chaco was
also a huge center of astronomy and we found a circular design
that might have been used to measure the seasons. The sun
would shine at different points of the circle on major astronomical
events of the year such as solstices and equinoxes.


Another small site we visited was Casa Chaquita. It's currently
unexcavated and was probably built around 1100. It was also
a good place to stop for lunch!


Because this area is very dry, there isn't a lot of wildlife in the area,
but we did see a fairly large number of lizards.


At the beginning of the day, we had bold ambitions. The boldest of
which was hiking the Pueblo Alto trail. This would mean hiking up
the cliff side (the difficult part) and then hiking across the top of the
cliff side to overlook Pueblo Bonito and visit the Pueblo Alto complex.
Wait...not so fast. When we got there, we looked at the climb...steep,
but not un-doable. It also included a VERY narrow section where one
has to squeeze through between several huge sections of rock.
We started up and found the trail to be very rough. It hardly qualified
as a trail at all. We took a quick vote and decided to save it for a time
in which the trail might be improved. Rest assured Mom...your youngest
child isn't a complete idiot!


As we were headed back to the car, we saw this couple scrambling
up the cliff side and decided we had made the right decision.


With our hiking for the day completed, we had the option of checking
out other pueblos, going back to the campsite to read (me) or knit
(Lynn). Instead, we decided to exit out the south end of the park
toward the Navajo town of Crownpoint. The sign warned that the
road would be rough. Ha! it wasn't lying, As rough as the road is
entering the park from Nageezi in the north, this road was much
more wash-boardy.


However, there were lots of beautiful views available.


I'm pretty sure we were never "quite" on this angle while driving the
road, but it certainly felt like it sometimes.


Along the way, we drove by a Navajo ranch that had a number of
jewelry items for sale "Self Serve". A few little signs near each piece
asked people not to steal them. It's interesting that people would
actually think of doing so.


We came to a sign that left us scratching our heads. Were we headed
to Heaven...or Hell?


I was interested in visiting Crownpoint. For one reason, it is one
of the few areas of the Navajo Nation that we haven't visited and
I also grew up near the town of Crown Point, in Indiana. The town's
name was definitely where the comparison ended however. it's not
a bad little town. Just very remote and much much smaller. We
stopped at Basha's (a southwestern-based grocery chain that has
locations in lots of the larger Navajo Nation towns such as
Kayenta, Ganado, Window Rock, etc.).


The southwest is known for it's dinosaur relics, but we didn't think
we'd see one on this trip! Maybe it's even the remnants of a dragon.
Albeit a happy one!


We did a bit of stargazing before bedtime. One of the reasons we came
during this time period is that we knew there would be a new moon and
this is one of the most remote areas in the Lower 48 to view stars.
There is very little light pollution. Unfortunately, there were also more
clouds that we would have liked and way more wind than we would have
liked. It made for a short sky-watching evening. Fortunately, we had a
nice fire and it made for a cozy evening.

GJ Art & Jazz Festival

The weather was perfect for a late spring evening. We attended
the Downtown Grand Junction Art & Jazz Festival. It was very
similar to the Summer Farmer's Market, that is also held on
Main Street. However, being a art festival, there were a lot of
booths set up for folks showing their works instead of the
typical informational booths. There were a few small jazz bands
playing on the center stage and we ran into our friends, Christine
and Valerie, who were working as volunteers, serving Beer and
Wine. The was even a large number of knitted projects being
displayed on the sculptures throughout the street. Lynn has
photos of the projects on her blog: knitsonice
Overall, it was a fun time and it made me look forward to the
Farmer's Market next month.

Graff Dairy

I was out running errands today and stopped at a pretty
cool local business called Graff Dairy. It's an old-time
dairy located right here in the middle of Grand Junction.
I didn't get their renowned ice cream, but since we're
trying to buy more local products, it was nice to be able
to buy milk there and down the road we'll get some eggs
there too.