There’s no place like home! If you can’t tell by going through my website, I’m a huge fan of Montrose, Colorado. It’s my home sweet home. I love being able to drive down main street and friends waving at each other, kids can be seen and heard, and the local shops decorating the sidewalk in front of their shops for the residents. Driving down Townsend and towards Ridgway, you have the breathtaking views of the San Juan Mountains or driving towards Grand Junction, Colorado you have views of the Grand Mesa. The beautiful month of November is such a wonderful time, and is so inspiring to put together a list of things we are thankful for. Trees are almost completely bare, leaves have piled up on the ground beneath them, and people are bundled up in their winter wardrobe… or sometimes shorts by the afternoon. But hey, that’s just what the Mother Nature assigned to Montrose does for you!
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I got to thinking about how I’m thankful for Montrose and everything it has to offer. Then I started to realize nobody would have time for my full list, so narrowed I down to my top 5.
#1 – The People
After some thought, I realized my list was first and foremost about the people who choose to live here and their impact on the community. I’ve been here a long time and I have seen first hand how the people in our community operate, and I am humbled to be in this community. I have some great stories to tell about the people, our Montrose community, and some of its history and you will understand why the people of Montrose, CO is #1 on my thankful list.
#2 – That Small Town Feel
Montrose has that small town feel for which many of us moved here- where the person in line ahead of you at Starbucks or other drive thru’s has paid for your order. We still pull over for funeral processions as a sign of respect, and we go to high school football games on Friday nights.
#3 – Recycling
Montrose is big on recycling- even buildings! The Police Department is the former library. When the library was moving to their “new” building (a former elementary school) a few blocks away, the library borrowed 100 shopping carts from the local grocery stores and put out the call for volunteers. Four hundred people showed up to load shelves of books at the library into the carts, trundled them through the alley and down a couple of blocks to re-shelve them at the new library!
If that wasn’t enough, each spring the City of Montrose sponsors and coordinates a full schedule of Earth Week activities. They put on different themes every year to raise awareness about how each member of our community can help preserve a healthy environment for themselves and for future generations. Our local community group, Montrose Cycles, gave recycle presentations to Montrose County third graders during this Earth Week. As part of the activities, Montrose Recycles distributed collection boxes for old electronic and hand held devices for recycling.
#4 – Education
Montrose values education. Colorado Mesa University has a Montrose campus where college courses are offered in a variety of fields. Additionally, our high school students can take advantage of concurrent enrollment with CMU and graduate from high school with college credits.
#5 – Vision of our citizens
We love our small town feel, but we also have big ideas for our town, so I am grateful for the vision of our citizens. We recently built a water sports park and a state of the art community recreation center. The Colorado Outdoors Project, involving Mayfly Outdoors, just broke ground on a 10-15 year river revamp project.
