Grand Junction This Week

Thursday, September 3

Market on Main takes over Main Street from 5:30 p.m.

This is the valley's big weekly market, and early September is when it stops being pleasant and starts being genuinely worth rearranging an evening for. Peaches, late tomatoes, chiles, and the last of the summer produce all land at once.

Two practical notes. The posted schedule says 8:30 p.m. while the description says the market runs until dusk, which in early September works out to roughly the same thing.

And the market takes SNAP. The Downtown Tent at 4th and Main, near Rockslide Brewery, issues vouchers and adds up to $20 in Double Up Food Bucks at no cost. That is a real and underused thing, and it is worth saying plainly rather than burying.

Friday, September 4

Friday is the collision.

It is the first Friday of the month, so the First Friday Art Walk runs downtown. Standard hours are 5 to 9 p.m. across galleries, antique shops, coffee shops and wineries, though individual venues set their own and some open earlier or run later.

At the same hour, Grand Valley Food Truck Fridays lands at Las Colonias Park, 1351 Riverfront Drive, from 5 to 8:30 p.m.

These are about ten minutes apart and run on essentially the same clock, so you are choosing between a walkable evening of galleries downtown and a park full of food trucks by the river.

The honest advice is to pick one properly rather than attempt both and enjoy neither. If you have children, Las Colonias is the easier call. If you want to actually look at art rather than move past it, stay downtown.

Worth knowing for anyone in Fruita reading this: this is the Grand Junction stop on a rotating schedule. The trucks were in Fruita on August 21 and they are here now.

Saturday, September 5

The Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra opens its 48th season with the Grieg Piano Concerto at 7:30 p.m.

The programme is Willan, Grieg and Sibelius: Healey Willan's Overture to an Unwritten Comedy to start, the Grieg A minor concerto with soloist Chaeyoung Park, and Sibelius's Second Symphony to close. It runs about two hours.

It is at the Asteria CMU Performing Arts Theatre, 844 Bunting Avenue, not downtown, which catches people out every season.

Tickets run from $5.25 to $99.75, and that bottom number is not a typo. A season-opening orchestral concert for the price of a coffee is the sort of thing a town should be louder about.

ONE WARNING ON TICKETS

The symphony states that its tickets are sold only through its own website or its box office at 412 Main Street, open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, plus at the door from an hour before the performance.

If you find these seats listed anywhere else at a markup, that is a resale site and not the orchestra. Buy direct.

Sunday, September 6

The same concert repeats at 3 p.m.

This is the underrated one. A Sunday matinee means no night driving, no late finish before a holiday Monday, and generally an easier room to get a seat in.

If Saturday evening is spoken for, this is not a consolation prize. It is the same orchestra playing the same programme in better light.

Monday, September 7

Labor Day, and the organised calendar is empty.

The Monument is the obvious move, and the obvious move is correct. Rim Rock Drive on a holiday morning is busier than a weekday and quieter than you would fear, and the light before nine is the best of the day.

Check hours and conditions before you go rather than after you have driven to the entrance.