Since this is the fourth of July long weekend, we had booked four days at a nice quiet KOA on the outskirts of Grand Junction, which is a good sized town on the west side of Colorado. We figured there would be enough to do and see there to entertain us for three full days and likely there would be a parade and fireworks for Independence Day. We were not disappointed.
Once our rig was set up we drove a few miles back into town to treat ourselves to lunch at the Olive Garden and then I shopped for an hour at Ross while John checked out an outdoor store next door. In case you have not heard of Ross, it is a chain of stores similar to Winners, where they sell end of line clothes and home décor stuff at good prices. I lucked out and found a classy silver cocktail dress for $4.99. (Coming soon to a Rotary dinner near you!) Unbelievable!
We heard there was a weekly Farmers Market in downtown Grand Junction every Thursday night, so we headed over there for the 5 pm opening and were really impressed. The downtown buildings reminded me a bit of Port Perry in that they are made of brick and have been well preserved (photo below). The flowerbeds were looking good too.
About four blocks of the main drag were closed to traffic for the evening and three or four live music acts were set up every block or so to entertain the visitors. Some of the performers were really talented and we sat on the boulevard planters to listen a while. Here is one of the bands pictured below.
The street is lined with beautiful large shade trees with lots of colourful flowerbeds in brick planters (below). There were about a hundred vendors set up in tents along both sides of the street, selling lots of local produce that included peaches, cherries, vegetables of all kinds, frozen beef and chicken, wine, jams, salsas, BBQ sauce, etc. There were tents offering fresh fast food, handmade jewellery, clothing, handbags, pet products and books as well as information booths for political parties, churches, humane society, etc. We really enjoyed strolling around a few hours and the temperature in the shade was very comfortable.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:38 pm Where’s a picture of you in the new dress?