Not quite a Grand experience in the Junction

It’s morning in America.

Especially in Denver.

Yesterday it was morning in Grand Junction, which seems forever and a mile ago, back on Interstate 70. Plans turned sideways on ToddKats as we left Green River and were hit with this wild thunderstorm. We’d planned on staying with some good friends of ours – which is to say these were people we had never met – who are the parents of Scott Dickensheets. Didn’t happen. Scott’s folks live 40 minutes on “the other side” of Grand Junction, and it was a deal-breaking 40 minutes. Running late with our lucidity waning (this is the part of the trip when you see the gnomes dancing across the hood of the car), we decided to stay at the DoubleTree in Grand Junction. Hate to be too critical here, but when a hotel offers something “complimentary,” meaning “it is available to all of our guests free of charge,” it should be able to follow through. Be it a bed, indoor plumbing, operable elevators, a little notepad emblazoned with the company logo, whatever. One reason we decided on DoubleTree was “complimentary WiFi service” in each room. Even ours, which had a Jacuzzi tub that went unused and, largely, unnoticed.

Here’s where I state one of my two pet peeves (the other being people who list pet peeves in numerical order): writers who bitch. But this place has either two or one wireless Internet air card(s), and both were “checked out.” They informed me of this after the room was booked, paid for, occupied and after ToddKats had kicked off his shoes. I wound up talking my way into the off-hours business center and working in there until 3 a.m., and I really was in the frame of mind to go ahead and sleep in there until security discovered me at 6 a.m., or whenever security detail reports for duty. I was told in the morning the hotel has just one card, to be shared among guests residing in a couple hundred rooms on eight floors, and that card was stolen. At least I have an alibi. But the work did get done, and we had a pretty nice lookout over the surrounding landscape.

Later in the day, we met one of the people I’d spoken to on the phone in advance of this trip, Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editor Denny Herzog. Denny is a lot like Lou Grant but with hair, and that hair juts out in an unplanned way. He says he has a “face for radio,” and when I told him we were planning this trip through his town en route to Denver, he said, “Oh, you talked your editors into a trip to Denver.” It’s a more realistic option than talking Barack Obama into giving his acceptance speech at my desk, yes.

Denny tells Grand Junction is a conservative town but changing as Colorado welcomes new residents and a more diversified citizenry. The newspaper’s editorial board is made up of four individuals, three of whom are conservative (though Herzog says he’s more moderate-right than the other two members) and one progressive voice. He says that cable news is largely responsible for ignorance among voting-age adults, noting that we have scads of 24-hour news channels that not all news runs 24 hours. He points to John McCain’s housing gaffe as an example. “The guy flubbed it, but it’s not the major issues the cable channels are making it out to be.” He says energy and water are the big issues in his area, and when McCain commented to a local newspaper that the Colorado water compact, the agreement between California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming that dictates guidelines for water usage among those states -- should be re-opened for review, it was huge news to this water-conscious region. The compact was just signed, in December, and McCain was talking as a senator from Arizona, looking after the interests of that state, rather than a presidential candidate. “I mean, does he want to lose Colorado?” Herzog asked. He said the paper hasn’t yet decided whom to endorse, but did endorse George W. Bush twice because, as Herzog said, it is an ardently conservative region. And a bit later we learned from the ladies at the Mesa County Democratic Campaign Headquarters was that the paper would back McCain.

“Our illustrious editor,” said one woman who was tying rubber bands onto campaign flyers. “He’s way conservative. But this area could go for Obama. It’s breaking Democratic.” Then she went back to stacking "Udall for Senate" yard signs.