All kinds of fun on the Western Slope!

Colorado National Monument from downtown Grand Junction

...western slope of the Rocky Mountains, that is. A nice trip to Grand Junction last May—primarily for baseball, as you will see—provided opportunities for great touristy experiences of many varieties.

In addition to the great views (above and below) from an observation tower downtown...

the Book Cliffs and Mt. Garfield

...we took an interesting hike near Fruita (named for the great produce from this area), the Paleo Loop:

It included this picturesque cabin, once actually inhabited until the not-so-distant past:

Fruita's just down the road from Junction, but we also took a longer trip, to Meeker, further north along the Western Slope. A museum there was displaying a very interesting exhibit from the Smithsonian about the influence of native American stories and myths on mainstream culture. The museum itself was full of fascinating objects and would be worth a side trip. This is just one of the items that caught my fancy—an unbelievably ornate fireplace surround:

There was more history on display closer to home. This beautifully maintained torpedo bomber lives at the Grand Junction airport, watched over by the Rocky Mountain Wing of the Commemorative Air Force.

I got a special tour of the plane and the adjacent museum, since one of my hosts is a member of this august organization. Here's another shot of the highly polished engine of this TBM-3 Avenger, a model first used in WWII at the Battle of Midway:

This particular craft wasn't in that battle, but it did fly over the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II!

So many fun activities during this visit, including a very interesting and entertaining talk by David French, the NY Times columnist, sponsored by Restore the Balance, a group working to blunt political extremism in our national discourse. Yes, there are progressives in the intermountain west!

But the main reason for the visit was, of course, baseball. It had been several years since I was last at the Junior College World Series, held every May in Grand Junction. (I blogged about an earlier visit here.) What a wonderful celebration of the game, the earnest young men who play it, and the joys of, if not small-town, then at least small-city, life.

I don't want to wait that long before going to experience it again!

The lovely weather is a big reason they hold the tournament here every year

new pressbox since my last visit; there were new seats, too

fun music between innings, including, of course "YMCA"

A walk in the neighborhood

I know I promised some scenic shots from Mesa and Arches, but since I'm home nursing a traveler's cold, and it's going to take some doing to sift through the pictures I took there, I'm going to cop out a bit and do a short post today on my sister's neighborhood. Which I'd planned to do anyway, before being blown away by Arches scenery on Saturday.

At any rate, to place the neighborhood on a map of the U.S., you have the handy street numbering convention shown on the sign here: 26½ refers to the distance from the Utah border. Those nice, straight, state borders make nomenclature like this easy and descriptive.

What impressed me most about the neighborhood flora, not too surprisingly, was the trees—so many are species rarely seen around here, such as the impressive willow down the street, shown here on the right.

Joan has a lovely trio of aspen trees in her front yard, that I remember as much smaller and thinner once upon a time than they are now, as you can see here with a Texas tourist in the frame for scale.

Flowers are abundant in the area, too, with the cool evenings and plentiful irrigation water. Sensibly, the sprinkler systems here use non-potable water, from the canal that runs from the river through the neighborhood. You can see the canal here, along with a plane landing at the cute Grand Junction airport [I love small airports that are easily reached and easily navigated!]
Here's an example of some good use to which this irrigation has been put—a lovely bed of columbines of more than just the traditional purple and white color combination. How sad that the first few sites to come up on a Google search for Colorado Columbines refer to the 1999 shooting at the school of that name. But the reason the school was given that name was that it's the state flower and it's a beauty—maybe someday pictures of the flowers will come up first in a search again.

... at the old ball game!

The JUCO tournament is coming into the home stretch. Yesterday was our last two-game day, and tonight's game might be the championship game. It's a quirk of the double elimination format that if one of the teams left hasn't lost any games (and that's the case here) you won't know if this is the final game until it's over. Just another cool aspect of this most unpredictable game in the world.

That team that hasn't lost any games—Howard College from Big Spring—is the one we've been sort of rooting against the whole time (because of their favored status—remember, we're underdog fans of the first order). But they looked pretty awesome last night in eliminating our Western Nevada Wildcats. So we might just have to tip our caps to them. We'll see what happens tonight against Santa Fe [oddly enough, not from New Mexico, but from Gainesville, Florida].

Enough with the baseball, though, since I suspect most of my readers aren't as interested in these details. Today I have a collection of photos that I hope hints at the atmosphere off the field at JUCO, what makes it such a big deal around here and such fun to be a part of.

One thing that strikes you right away about the crowds at the games is their age diversity. You'll see old-timers with walkers that, possibly, haven't missed a game since the tournament started being held here in 1959, and don't want to break their "Iron Man" streaks.

Plus you'll see lots and lots of kids, from babes in arms through teeny-boppers, for whom the tournament is the social highlight of the year. Some of them actually watch the games, like the young men in cool shades above on the left, but a large number spend their time under the stands in various giggly mating rituals. An anthropologist studying adolescent behavior would find this an easy gig—just sit at one of the picnic tables with notebook in hand and a dissertation's-worth of data will present itself every night.

There are plenty of younger kids, too, like the cutie above, clapping along with some of the infectious between-innings music, or the young group on the right, enjoying the sunshine and being out of school for the year.

One of the big attractions, especially for young fans (as opposed to kids who just go along with parents and play in the stands) is the accessibility of the players. Autographs of JUCO players are much sought after among the 8-10 set—on programs, balls, bats, and even clothing, as you can see from this young man's shirt, covered with signatures.

It's possible that some of these autographs might actually be worth money someday, since a very large number of JUCO alums have gone on to have major league careers, including such luminaries as Curt Schilling and Kirby Puckett. But the main attraction for the kids here is that big kids, baseball players appearing on the biggest stage this side of Coors Field in Denver, are hanging out in their home town and are imminently approachable.

And sometimes the players pass along more than just signatures. Here is a story about a young man on the team from South Carolina who was born with under-developed fingers on one hand, getting to meet and inspire a boy with a similar disability here. The fact that the ball player was his team's leadoff hitter, hit three home runs in one game (one of which was a grand slam) PLUS is a starting pitcher for them, made his role model status all the more impressive.

Food for the spirit isn't all we get around here, either. There are all kinds of tempting goodies in concession stands at Suplizio Field, from delicious—and actually rather healthy—kettle corn to these ungodly fried concoctions pictured on the left that give me indigestion just looking at them.

The kettle corn lady pictured here is a friend of Joan's. She says they make half of the yearly profit from this business during the week of JUCO, and I believe it. Most of the kids around us in the stands are continually eating something. I myself have had a couple of full meals out here, as the roasted corn is quite good, as are smoothies, dippin-dots and, of course, the kettle corn, which is a very lightly flavored popcorn that's just scrumptious.

Equally scrumptious, I would say, are the views from the stands when you're not even looking at the cute guys playing baseball. Here's what we saw last evening, a thunderhead above the hills south of town. What a show!
We're headed to the Mesa today in advance of the [might be] final game, and plan a trip to Arches National Park tomorrow [game or no]. So there will be more scenic photos coming up in the next few days.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose....

.... and sometimes it rains.* Although usually not so much of the latter here in Grand Junction, right on the edge of the Great American Desert. But believe it or not, the scene below is really about the best it's been, weather-wise—we've had around two inches of rain since the tournament started.

All the games have been played, and we've seen our share, but there have been lengthy rain delays a couple of times and we gave up on the game yesterday afternoon because we were not only wet but cold!

The atmosphere at the games has been great, though, and we've seen some really good baseball. Teams are here from all over the country (although a few regions are no longer represented, since 4 teams have been eliminated already) and the stadium honors their home states by flying all the state flags for the JUCO teams. Here's a shot of part of the stands with a portion of the teams' flags in view (in addition to U.S. and Colorado flags filling out the display):

We've rather adopted the team from Nevada, who lost their first game and are hence having to play elimination games every day (as you can learn from the JUCO website, it's a double-elimination tournament—a format we're really fond of). I'm hoping the rain will stay away this afternoon so I can see them again. Go Wildcats!

How do you pick a team to root for? We have several criteria, including, but not limited to: coolness of uniforms, attractiveness of players, presence of player(s) with our children's birthdays, presence of players from towns we like, sportsmanship exhibited by fans (or lack thereof resulting in a rooting-against decision), defensive/baserunning execution (which we find more impressive than team power), grit and determination (the come-from-behind factor), etc. We'll see how our "scientific" selection process works out over the next few days.

In the meantime, however, in between showers, we're having a terrific time. As is a sizeable fraction of the Grand Valley's population. The fine amenities at Suplizio Field include yummy snacks, well-maintained restrooms, great views, and a terrific selection of between-inning music choices, including cheesy favorites such as "YMCA" (see at right) and the macarena, but also some great oldies.

We did take a baseball break Sunday afternoon for a hike in the Colorado National Monument (seen in the background of the photo at the top of this post) and I'll be broadcasting photos from that excursion in the next few days.

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*For more wonderful Bull Durham baseball quotes, check out the ever-handy Internet Movie Database.

Take us out to the ball game....

.... and to the Mesa, and the Monument, etc. Tomorrow I'm off to visit my little sister in Grand Junction, Colorado, a visit which just happens to coincide with the Junior College Baseball World Series. [known to all aficionados and residents of the area as JUCO] I took it in several years ago (it's always in Grand Junction) and had such a blast I've been wanting to go back ever since. And this time I've even got Sally [my daughter who is sadly also infected with the baseball geek gene] to join me.

The games are lots of fun, although it's really rather difficult adequately to explain what a hoot the whole thing is, especially to non-fans. But there's no trouble appreciating the location. Take a look at the Wikipedia link above for the Mesa and you'll see a panorama of the fabulous scenery surrounding GJ. We definitely plan to work in some hiking and sightseeing around the baseball games. And of course there will be plenty of time for visiting and for sampling some of the area's (admittedly) surprisingly diverse and excellent eateries.

I'll have my camera and plan to do some blog posting from Colorado. Since I'll be there all week [last time I left before the finals of the tournament and have regretted that ever since!] I should have time and there will obviously be lots to write about. So tink! tink!* Play ball!

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*Although the scientist analyzing the sounds of batted balls in this link calls it "ping," we think "tink" is a better onomatopoetic approximation of the sound of ball meeting aluminum bat. Any fans wanting to start a discussion on this topic, or any of the other infinitely interesting things about baseball, please leave a comment!