grand junction (Denver, Golden, Dolores: how much, motels, houses)
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I have lived in GJ for 60 years. I would consider myself and expert on this subject. First of all, with all the fires, earthquakes and rapid growth in California, many thousands began moving east. Well, as they scattered along the way, hundreds upon hundreds were tired and financially unable to go much further so they stopped here. I tried to put a CLOSED sign on I-70 entering GJ but it blew down. Anyway, all these people came to the valley and it began to overflow with people. This included them bringing their big city attitudes and big city kids and big city values and morals. Ohh, it was great for the contractors because houses began popping up everywhere. What was once beautiful farm land was now subdivisions. Big box stores began arriving for the kill. WalMarts, Home Depot, Lowes, Office Depot, Circuit City, Starbucks....they all arrived. To accomodate all these people, the movie houses grew bigger, a Mall was built, our highways went from two to four lanes and hospitals began to grow (especially St. Mary's). Now we have more people running around in our back woods and the price for admission has gone up, campgrounds need reservations, streams and river banks a littered with trash and walking trails are now 4WD roads. If this isn't enough, these people tell their friends and neighbors from their old hometowns and here comes the next wave of people. Now we have those seeking million dollar homes right at the base of our beautiful National Monument!! Sacred ground to me. These rich people clog the newly build golf courses. Ohh just a couple of golf courses won't work anymore, gotta have new ones. Well, this is how it is in my once quaint little town. Many deals were settled over a handshake, everyone knew everyone and help was always a few steps away should their be a new baby, a death, an illness. You went into a store and always saw a co-worker, your neighbor down the street, your doctor or your pastor. Then there were the parades on Main Street where everyone was able to line up and see the prosession whereas now, the lines are 8 deep and if you don't get there 3 hours early, you may as well forget it. Parking, was diagonal along Main Street and now, they city had to add parking lots behind the stores on Main Street and a parking garage, too! There is still no parking when there is a parade or farmers market. Everywhere you go there are people. You go fishing, there's tons of people. You go camping or hiking and you run into 60 foot Motorhomes with gas and electric hook up and you look to make sure a 4 wheeler isn't headed your way. Hunting season, it's shoot or get shot. Rotting carcasses of good meat, shot for a trophy rack laying beside the road. Out of state hunters love nothing better than to bring their multi-million dollar camping setup only to leave with trophy rack to show everyone at home. Jobs, is a joke. With the economy, there are few jobs. Most businesses know that jobs are scarce and most are 'at will' jobs so look out. You can be fired just because you had on Old Spice rather than Drakkar. They don't care because for everyone fired, 6 more are at the door with application in hand. It's a dog eat dog world jobwise here. Houses are way high priced. Foreclosures are all over the place. I just recently lost my job and our house will probably go into foreclosure within a few months and we contacted the bank holding our mortgage and they simply say: "Make your payments on time, there's nothing we can do." We had lots of oil rigs and this improved our economy but, along with the roustabouts came increased traffic, increased prices on trucks and larger vehicles and our beautiful land at the base of our beautiful mountains became the site of porta potties, pipe, rigs, noise, roads criss-crossing roads, wild life scared and chased to other areas, barren land and hence came the park-n-rides. If you want to come here, do your homework first. Visit here and look around, drive around and chat with retired business owners. Second, go online and look up everything about GJ. Make sure the websites have been updated to 2009. Third, if you have kids, if you are a senior or if you are handicapped, check out GJ for things that apply to you. Our schools are over crowded, we have beautiful senior centers but there is usually a waiting list because alot of people have retired here. Most places have been made handicap accessable by law. I hope somehow my honesty has helped somebody out there. My little valley has grown but now that the oil rigs are leaving, jobs are scarse, real estate is high, crime is high, maybe my little valley will come back again!
I have lived in GJ for 60 years. I would consider myself and expert on this subject. First of all, with all the fires, earthquakes and rapid growth in California, many thousands began moving east. Well, as they scattered along the way, hundreds upon hundreds were tired and financially unable to go much further so they stopped here. I tried to put a CLOSED sign on I-70 entering GJ but it blew down. Anyway, all these people came to the valley and it began to overflow with people. This included them bringing their big city attitudes and big city kids and big city values and morals. Ohh, it was great for the contractors because houses began popping up everywhere. What was once beautiful farm land was now subdivisions. Big box stores began arriving for the kill. WalMarts, Home Depot, Lowes, Office Depot, Circuit City, Starbucks....they all arrived. To accomodate all these people, the movie houses grew bigger, a Mall was built, our highways went from two to four lanes and hospitals began to grow (especially St. Mary's). Now we have more people running around in our back woods and the price for admission has gone up, campgrounds need reservations, streams and river banks a littered with trash and walking trails are now 4WD roads. If this isn't enough, these people tell their friends and neighbors from their old hometowns and here comes the next wave of people. Now we have those seeking million dollar homes right at the base of our beautiful National Monument!! Sacred ground to me. These rich people clog the newly build golf courses. Ohh just a couple of golf courses won't work anymore, gotta have new ones. Well, this is how it is in my once quaint little town. Many deals were settled over a handshake, everyone knew everyone and help was always a few steps away should their be a new baby, a death, an illness. You went into a store and always saw a co-worker, your neighbor down the street, your doctor or your pastor. Then there were the parades on Main Street where everyone was able to line up and see the prosession whereas now, the lines are 8 deep and if you don't get there 3 hours early, you may as well forget it. Parking, was diagonal along Main Street and now, they city had to add parking lots behind the stores on Main Street and a parking garage, too! There is still no parking when there is a parade or farmers market. Everywhere you go there are people. You go fishing, there's tons of people. You go camping or hiking and you run into 60 foot Motorhomes with gas and electric hook up and you look to make sure a 4 wheeler isn't headed your way. Hunting season, it's shoot or get shot. Rotting carcasses of good meat, shot for a trophy rack laying beside the road. Out of state hunters love nothing better than to bring their multi-million dollar camping setup only to leave with trophy rack to show everyone at home. Jobs, is a joke. With the economy, there are few jobs. Most businesses know that jobs are scarce and most are 'at will' jobs so look out. You can be fired just because you had on Old Spice rather than Drakkar. They don't care because for everyone fired, 6 more are at the door with application in hand. It's a dog eat dog world jobwise here. Houses are way high priced. Foreclosures are all over the place. I just recently lost my job and our house will probably go into foreclosure within a few months and we contacted the bank holding our mortgage and they simply say: "Make your payments on time, there's nothing we can do." We had lots of oil rigs and this improved our economy but, along with the roustabouts came increased traffic, increased prices on trucks and larger vehicles and our beautiful land at the base of our beautiful mountains became the site of porta potties, pipe, rigs, noise, roads criss-crossing roads, wild life scared and chased to other areas, barren land and hence came the park-n-rides. If you want to come here, do your homework first. Visit here and look around, drive around and chat with retired business owners. Second, go online and look up everything about GJ. Make sure the websites have been updated to 2009. Third, if you have kids, if you are a senior or if you are handicapped, check out GJ for things that apply to you. Our schools are over crowded, we have beautiful senior centers but there is usually a waiting list because alot of people have retired here. Most places have been made handicap accessable by law. I hope somehow my honesty has helped somebody out there. My little valley has grown but now that the oil rigs are leaving, jobs are scarse, real estate is high, crime is high, maybe my little valley will come back again!
A great synopsis of paradise lost in western Colorado. The transplants won't want to hear it, though, because it doesn't fit their little dream world of what Colorado should be, and it they don't want to have to think of themselves as the reason the whole place is changing for the worse--much worse. I've lived in rural Colorado through booms and busts--frankly, I've come to like the busts more--even though making a living becomes exceedingly difficult. When the big boxes are shuttered up, the chain restaurants closed, the motels empty--the Colorado spoiled wannabes who can only live someplace that has all of those "amenities" will be packing up and heading elsewhere. Then, the folks like me, who appreciate this place for what it really is--a gorgeous place filled with natural wonders that resorts, trophy houses, four-lane highways and material bull**** can't improve upon--will once again have the place more to ourselves. The sooner that happens, the better.
I've only lived in GJ since 2002 and I like it for what it is. I don't like the explosive growth and I can do without the "amenities" that the spoiled folks demand. I kind of like a "bust" economy here much better. I can get by.
A great synopsis of paradise lost in western Colorado. The transplants won't want to hear it, though, because it doesn't fit their little dream world of what Colorado should be, and it they don't want to have to think of themselves as the reason the whole place is changing for the worse--much worse.
Of course a transplant to Grand Junction or any other place in the USA for that matter is not likely to think of it as paradise lost. The natural tendency will be to compare ones new locale to the previous locale. For better or worse, that's human nature. It's not likely that many people would purposely move to a place they thought of as being worse thant the place they came from. That is just basic common sense in my mind.
Now even though I did happen to visit Grand Junction for the first time almost 40 years ago, the only thing I remember about it is the Colorado National Monument and the Colorado river flowing thru town. I don't remember the town at all. If I did, like you, I'd probably consder that it had gone downhill over the years. Now since I can't recall what it was like back in the early 70s, it seems just fine the way it is. Like you, I wish things today in general were more like they were in the 70s. But that's not how it is. To preserve my peace of mind, I do the best I can to accept things the way they are. What is....is! Calling it better or worse than the way things were yesterday is just a judgement that we assign to it. Better or worse has no basis in reality. It's all made up in our own minds.
The real reason that the whole place is changing for the worse ( in your mind anyway ) is because the politicians you old timers voted for, sold you guys down the drain. Go take your frustration out on them. You can keep blaming the newcomers all you want, but it won't change the fact that you've been betrayed. It cetainly won't alleviate your frustration. In the same way that a newcomer is loathe to admit that we are part of the problem, so too is the oldtimer loathe to admit that you are part of the probelm too.
Last edited by CosmicWizard; 07-12-2009 at 01:04 PM..
Regarding the problem I mentioned in the post above:
The problem as I see it is that the planet is over-populated. In that respect, everyone of us is part of the problem, no matter how long we have lived in a place. Those people having the financial means to do so will gravitate to the more desirable places. For the time being anyway, Colorado is one of the more desirable places to live, at least until all of the dead trees burn down. Grand Junction, not being located in a heavily forested area, is likely to fare better than many other Colorado towns. People might still want to live here after the great Colorado conflagration.
Regarding the problem I mentioned in the post above:
The problem as I see it is that the planet is over-populated. In that respect, everyone of us is part of the problem, no matter how long we have lived in a place. Those people having the financial means to do so will gravitate to the more desirable places. For the time being anyway, Colorado is one of the more desirable places to live, at least until all of the dead trees burn down. Grand Junction, not being located in a heavily forested area, is likely to fare better than many other Colorado towns. People might still want to live here after the great Colorado conflagration.
Overpopulation? I think that is misguided. How about corruption and selfishness? Without those two things, the world would be heavenly.
While I respect ladies comments, don't think for a minute that your opinions are exclusive to GJ or even CO as a whole. You'll find the same comments coming from nearly any small community in this country that folks choose to move too. From Maine to Texas to Colorado. From Arizona (where I currently reside, having grown up in CO) to even (dare I say it?) California.
Everyone seems to want, and want to keep, "their little piece of paradise". For GJ...the Native Indians probably felt the same way 150yrs ago when the white man arrived. Smoke signals were just slower than the internet....
While I respect ladies comments, don't think for a minute that your opinions are exclusive to GJ or even CO as a whole. You'll find the same comments coming from nearly any small community in this country that folks choose to move too. From Maine to Texas to Colorado. From Arizona (where I currently reside, having grown up in CO) to even (dare I say it?) California.
Everyone seems to want, and want to keep, "their little piece of paradise". For GJ...the Native Indians probably felt the same way 150yrs ago when the white man arrived. Smoke signals were just slower than the internet....
Some just call it progress I suppose.
Very true.... And Grand Junctionites should realize that the "explosive" growth they've been experiencing, is absolutely positively MINISCULE compared to other areas of the country, including the one I moved to from GJ. So count your blessings, your town hasn't actually changed all that much compared to many other places I've seen.
By the way, I keep hearing the drilling boom is over up there.... when are home prices gonna come down enough for me to afford moving back?
Jimmy914, homes and rentals are all over the place. Come on back!! If anyone has lived here before, they are always welcome to come back. It's the newbies that can stop at the state line, get a map and drive on thru. Actually, there are some pretty neat places on the other side of GJ!! Just keep on truckin........
Jimmy914, homes and rentals are all over the place. Come on back!! If anyone has lived here before, they are always welcome to come back. It's the newbies that can stop at the state line, get a map and drive on thru. Actually, there are some pretty neat places on the other side of GJ!! Just keep on truckin........
Wow, I sure hope not everyone has this same attitude in GJ...
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