When i moved to Whitewater, i thought it looked dead. The land is covered with salt that creates a greyish color and doesn’t allow much to grow (it seemed to me). Years ago this was ranch country, but now it’s just empty. And then i moved away to the east where everything is close, covered with trees, and humid. i missed the wide open spaces of desert, blue skies, and emptiness. Funny enough, it was Seabiscuit that really got me, when Chris Cooper is riding across the beautiful but disappearing expanse on horseback. Now that i have moved back i see the beauty here, living in the shadow of the Grand Mesa, the empty is not an enemy. There is beauty here, such as driving home at night and seeing the moonlight glinting off the salt in the ground as if it were snow, or coming over a horizon and seeing the glint of the Gunnison River, or just listening to the wind blow (and it blows a lot!). This place has little to do with whitewater rafting even if there is a canoe/kayak takeout here. We are more than a little town. We are an expanse of people who have chosen to forsake the city in order to live closer to nature. We have animals, junk in the yard, and just aren’t what most people consider normal. This tiny town is spread out across miles of Colorado high desert, and we like it that way. The emptiness does not consume us, it enriches us. i like Whitewater loads more than i like Grand Junction and Clifton (where crazy drivers abound, even if we are hours away from the insanity of Denver and Las Vegas traffic). And no one tells us to put our dog on a leash or get the junk off our land or to get the weeds removed or the City will do it for you. i’m glad we don’t have to worry about any of the b.s. Here, at least for a little while longer, America is still about freedom.
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