This is a picture of Mrs. Phred without her Indiana Jones exploration clothes. We were going downtown to re explore Grand Junction.
So here we are again in Grand Junction. Last year it was June 1st, 60 days into the tour and we were headed North to Steamboat Springs, the Badlands, the Great Lakes and New England.
This year we're 72 days into the trip and headed east to Canon City, Colorado for a raft trip. The "n" in Canon has one of those Mexican enchilada thingies over it so it is pronounced "Canyon".
Grand Junction lives and dies on oil and natural gas. It was booming last year. This year, oil is back to $70 a barrel and we see mixed signals. The parking lots at the Cinema 14 and Target are full in the afternoon. On the other hand, downtown has many shuttered stores and closed restaurants. A girl wanders the restaurants that are still open trying to sell flowers. A lonely Punch and Judy diorama performs to nobody on Main Street.
We play tennis both mornings. My best score is 6-3 (I'm the three). I'm really "on" the first two games and win each point of both games with brilliant serves and returns. After a while Mrs. Phred's superb physical condition begins to tell the tale...of the four sets we played, three were 6-love.
It's a neat little town with artsie statues every half block downtown on both sides of the street.
We stayed two nights in Grand Junction and moved on to Montrose, Colorado. We want to see the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Last year, in April, all the overlooks and hiking trails were covered with snow and I was too cheap to spring for snowshoes.
We went to see "Public Enemy" with Johnny Depp and then out to dinner downtown. I thought that the Dillinger character was fairly faithful to Dillinger's history as a depression era folk hero. The bad guys were Baby Face Nelson and J. Edgar Hoover. Dillinger and Melvin Purvis were the good guys in the movie. I may have to write more about both of them.
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