Visiting Grand Junction |
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| Denver is by far Colorado’s largest city making Grand Junction the most significant population center between Denver and the 500 mile stretch to Salt Lake City. Grand Junction itself isn’t really much of a destination but rather more of a base camp for conquering Colorado’s west. The first photo above shows Grand Junction taking from some nearby mountains where it appears as a green oasis in the desert. Grand Junction is known for a few great museums and its artsy downtown. Unfortunately all the museums and a lot of businesses were closed when I visited since it was Sunday. Most restaurants and coffee shops were open. One Coffee shop even had a “happy hour” where all drinks where half priced! The two photos below are of two other shops that were open, on the lower right is inside of a bagel bakery where they had their entire walls covered with local artists paintings and photographs. When I took the photo on the lower left a woman came up to me and asked why in the world would anyone take a picture of a store? |
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| The bagel bakery wasn’t the only place where you can find local art. Just about every shop and even main street itself has lots of local art on display. Walking down main street was like walking through an outdoor art gallery. Sculptures and other creations were bolted down throughout the neighborhood. I’ve heard the art work is also changed out every six months so more than likely the next time I visit all this work will be replaced. In addition to the art there are several water fountains throughout main street. Some of the fountains are even gated and designed for kids to play in, a welcoming idea in the hot desert city! The frog and the buffalo below were two other creations that got my attention. Lastly, the demon like creature was cool enough to be on my website, and was seen within the happy hour coffee shop. |
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| Just west of Grand Junction is Colorado National Monument. I expected to find nothing more than red towering rocks sprouting out of the desert. I was right about the rock towers, but there were also canyons, mountains and roads that pass through tunnels and along dangerous cliffs. Several points give you a birds eye view of the amazing landscape and the surrounding desert in the distance. The two photos above were taken from the higher elevations of Colorado National Monument while below are two photos below from a hike I did at a lower elevation. |
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| Before my trip to the center of America I had put a lot of time and energy trying to find the ‘waves’, a beautiful pattern of colorful lines within one of the deserts out west. I found the real waves to be in southern Utah on the border of Arizona, but there seemed to be a few sites suggesting there was a smaller version here in Colorado National Monument. I asked a park ranger who had no idea what I was talking about. When I brought up an image for him to see on my phone he was calorie impressed but said there was nothing like that in the national monument. The photo on the upper left is nothing like the real waves, but will you can understand the concept of the wind polished rocks leaving behind a band of colors. On the right is a rock I passed while hiking that for some unknown geological reason to me has a single layer of white rock within it. |
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| Another place I hiked in western Colorado was east of Grand Junction called the Little Book Cliffs. There are many places throughout America where horses are allowed to roam free, but this area in Colorado is only one of three places out west where the wild horses are actively protected. I suppose the horses might need it since the welcome sign was shot to pieces with the bullet shells still on the ground. |
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| I knew coming across wild horses here was a long shot. The border for the protected area is made up of steep mountains and canyons which gives the horses lots of places to hide. I bet if I hiked in the morning or evening I might have had better luck of encounters. With the warmer months here at the time of my visit the horses tend to go up to higher elevations where it is cooler. With such a dry desert and hot temperatures it’s hard to imagine that this place could be a suitable environment for horses. The only proof that they were here was the frequent pile of horse droppings I came across. Above is a photo of the desert valley, and on the right a photo of a dried out creek. |
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| If there are a few hundred wild horses here then the ratio of horses to lizards must be one to a million. Every few steps I took sent a lizard scurrying under the brush or a large rock. With so many lizards running about I saw several different species of all sizes and colors. The large lizard one on the right was my favorite because of his beautiful vibrant colors and his willingness to be photographed. |
   These other two lizards were some of the other species I came across with a photo of their prey on the right, a giant dragon fly. At first I had mistaken the dragon fly for a horse fly, which are large disgusting biting flys that have violently attacked me in the past. With Colorado such a dry state there bugs here don’t pose much of an annoyance and you can hike without being bombarded by flys and mosquitos. |
