My #strange home town - Grand Junction, Colorado

Jan 14

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @JenSquard

I live in a town called Grand Junction, in Western Colorado. I always hear people say things like “only in LA” or “that is so New York” or whatevs. But we totally say things like that around here.

Here are a few things that are notoriously Colorado: the weather is wildly unpredictable. It changes dramatically from moment to moment. We get less snow than the rest of the country assumes, and Western Colorado is mainly desert, so it gets hot as frick here in the summer. Also, we are a healthy bunch. We have the lowest percentage of obese people in the United States, and the most active. Likely because our backyard is literally a playground. Within a 20 minute drive I can be in a National Park with hundreds of trails and nationally acclaimed sights, or a huge amount of BLM and Forest Service land that is perfect for hiking, camping, fishing, exploring, four wheeling, skiing, snowboarding....mostly whatever you want.

So on to my quaint little town. Actually it’s a pretty big town. It is a mashup of a few towns, so in totally I think our valley has about 100,000 peeps. We are incredibly close to the gas field, so we have tons of riggers, rough necks, and tough guys. Gas money is major money, so our economy is pretty unstable, because in down economies the field comes to a halt. Housing isn’t outrageous compared to some places, but it is pretty stinkin high for cities that are comparable to our size.

Our economy tends to breed meth addicts. We have a pretty major problem, although I am happy to report it seems to be on the downslide. Our homeless population is also pretty high. We have a state college that is on it’s way to becoming a university, and has an amazing nursing program.

Grand Junction has an incredibly small town mentality. The crime rate is higher than anyone is willing to acknowledge, the news is often filled with mundane stories, and in general people are nice, but our murders often make national news (ie Paige Birgfeld or Alan Helmick, both personal acquaintances of mine). It is a very conservative Republican town. You can see an anti-Obama sticker on nearly every car, and you will be very hardpressed to find friends that aren’t super religious, at least on Sundays. We are only a few miles from Utah, so we also have a high Mormon population. There is literally a church on nearly every corner, and the other corners house liquor stores.

We even have our own curse. It is well known that if you live here and move away, which everyone wants to do, you will move back if you don’t take a jar of dirt from the desert. And guess what? Even if you do take dirt, you will move back. Grand Junction is often named one of the top relocation spots in the country.

It is strange, beautiful, small and large, and comfortable. We have everything you could want, people party, people pray, and often within the same 24 hours. As many people are on social media as are not. There are still people that don’t text, and lots of people that don’t support gay rights, but there are plenty of people that smoke, and everyone hunts. EVERYONE, I’m not even joking.

Oh yeah, and we grow peaches. Huge, amazing, nationally-shipped peaches. Palisade peaches - google them. And about an hour away is Olathe, and they grow nationally-shipped sweet corn. Another pretty big deal. A large amount of farming also means a large amount of Mexican immigrants. They keep our town running doing the jobs we are unwilling to do, like the super sucky job of picking peaches....but the locals here hate Mexicans, and love Mexican food. Meh, what can you do, huh?

So that’s our town. It’s amazing and redonkulous all at the same time. If you meet someone from here, they will tell you how much they hate it while being fiercely protective at the same time. But if you ever have the chance to come through, do. It really is gorgeous. Don’t believe me? These are the mountains that make up our valley.