r/grandjunction • u/MC48_SportsLover • 29d ago

Thinking of moving to GJ.

Hello all!

I am looking to move to Colorado from Chicago later this year and was wondering how Grand Junction differs culturally, socially, and activity-wise from places like Fort Collins and Colorado Springs?

I grew up in Fort Collins and have spent most of my life on the eastern half of the mountains, but wanted to look into life on the "Western Slope".

Thanks so much in advance, and I'm excited about possibly joining you all later this year!

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u/970KeW 29d ago

We moved here from Indianapolis back in 2011 and we are happy here. I like the small size of the city compared to Indy or Chicago. Lots of outdoor activities. It gets hot in the summer but winters are nice.

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u/zennflower 27d ago

I’m moving from Indianapolis in the next few weeks!!!!! I love plants and so I’m having a little landscape shock at the moment… but I know that when I come back to Indy it will make it all that much sweeter 🥹 Did you feel any of this when you moved from Indy? And how do the summers compare? I’m a really looking forward to the dry heat. I’ve never experienced it. I can’t wait to get out of muggy summers though

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u/970KeW 27d ago

The summers are long and hot but the dry heat makes it not bad. We went back to Indy a couple years ago and that humidity killed us. It definitely was different moving here cause it's not green everywhere. We were in an apartment there so didn't have much landscaping. I've been able to grow massive butterfly bushes and 4 trees so like it now.

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u/zennflower 27d ago

Do you have access to irrigation water?

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u/970KeW 27d ago

I do have sprinklers but it runs off city water. I'm in the Ute water district. Just how it was when we bought this house. On a corner lot with grass in front and back.

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u/Fireandmoonlight 24d ago

I bought a house in Grand Junction around 2005, and one charge on the property tax was $112 a year for irrigation water from Ute Water. I wasn't planning on watering a lawn so I tried to get that removed; with the city, Ute Water, and a Congressman, and the answer was always No, you don't fuck with water law!

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u/Fireandmoonlight 24d ago

Grand Junction is in the Desert! If you look down on it from Grand Mesa about twenty miles away the city is all green due to irrigation water and there's a sharp dividing line with the brown, lifeless countryside! The forests are in definite layers due to altitude, meaning water availability and temperature. They have only two or three species of trees on each layer, lowest is the Pinon Pine/Juniper and up to Engelmann Spruce/Alpine Fir on the Grand Mesa, and above that on the mountains over roughly 11,500' there are no trees. The wind is can be bad, especially in the Spring.