Story first appeared in: Nature calls. But what if there is no answer? Colorado’s public outdoor bathrooms are vanishing. Where once there might have been inviting brick-and-mortar restrooms, the public is often finding padlocked doors or a head-scratching void: “I could have sworn there used to be a bathroom here.” Lavatories are disappearing because bathrooms in parks and downtowns have morphed from a public convenience to a public nuisance. All manner of gross and sometimes dangerous items are being left in restrooms. The structures themselves have become targets for destruction. And wha ..read more

Natasha Fox was 9 years old when she entered the foster care system. She recalls being emotionally, mentally and physically abused by her mother as early as kindergarten. She used to show up at her Michigan elementary school hungry and bruised. Three years later, when her birth father was finally located, he moved her in with his family in Colorado. It was “culture shock,” Fox says. “They didn’t realize how much I’d gone through, and I immediately started acting out.” Six months later, Fox was placed in foster care. She moved between 20 or so different placements — foster homes, residential t ..read more

Sandra Dee Powell is in a wheelchair. She suffers from a blood clotting problem in her legs. Cerebral palsy has twisted her right hand since birth. But the 74-year-old widow and retired day care provider can live alone in her home thanks to a government program that accommodates her needs.  A certified nursing assistant comes to Powell’s home each morning and evening to help her get in and out of bed. An assistant prepares an evening meal for her. A helper comes regularly to clean her home. A van takes her to all medical and dental appointments.   Four days a week, a van brings ..read more

GRAND JUNCTION — The U.S. Postal Service faced a rowdy, critical crowd Thursday in Grand Junction, a city that has yet to suffer the same delivery problems that have bedeviled smaller towns across Colorado. The crowd, packed into a too-small meeting room at Colorado Mesa University, hooted, hollered and guffawed as Postal Service officials laid out a plan to change the Western Slope’s largest city from a regional to a local mail processing center. The crowd whistled and clapped when speaker after speaker took the microphone to criticize the plan. The crowd had made its way to the meeting room ..read more

GRAND JUNCTION — The temperatures had barely climbed into the 20s on a recent morning as a squadron of volunteers, trailing clouds of frosty breath, hustled into a portable pavilion carrying boxes and pushing carts and pallets of donated food. Inside the new 9,500-square-foot glass and canvas building, a few members of the homeless community were already waiting along the sunny south windows as the scent of fresh brewed coffee wafted around them. They came to get warm and to stock up on the donated premade salads, the frosted cupcakes, the cans of vegetables, and the bags of dog food that vol ..read more

GRAND JUNCTION — People who were cleaning out a recently sold home in western Colorado found a human head and hands in a freezer, authorities said. The remains were found in a home in Grand Junction, about 200 miles west of Denver, on Jan. 12, and an autopsy this week confirmed they are human, the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday. Investigators have been in contact with the home’s previous owners, sheriff’s spokesperson Wendy Likes said Friday. “Our hope is to positively identify the victim while remaining respectful of the victim and the victim’s family,” the sheriff’s office said ..read more

Broomfield has joined a swelling wave of Colorado communities sharply limiting thirsty turf grass in new development, with more communities about to follow, while other cities and parks departments are starting to rip out useless grass in medians and rights of way for replacement with water-wise landscapes.  State water officials, meanwhile, have closed out the first year of $1.5 million in local turf removal grants with nearly 40 applications for the money, and water resource experts hope to use the momentum from the anti-turf evolution to create a bigger state-funded buyback next year ..read more

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends three volumes on our great outdoors. Brave the Wild River By Melissa L. Sevigny Morton $30 May 2023 Purchase From the publisher: In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado w ..read more

GRAND JUNCTION — Put your hand right here, says Kok Bou, holding out a 12-inch square of insulated fabric that will soon be part of a Wiggy’s sleeping bag.  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” he asks. This story first appeared in The Outsider, the premium outdoor newsletter by Jason Blevins. In it, he covers the industry from the inside out, plus the fun side of being outdoors in our beautiful state. SUBSCRIBE In 1988, Jerry Wigutow, the founder of Wiggy’s, held out a piece of his Lamilite Climashield continuous filament fiber and asked Bou to put his hand on it. He wanted to hire Bou, who fled h ..read more

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends some age-centered murder mysteries. Killers of a Certain Age By Deanna Raybourne Penguin $17 September 2022 Purchase From the publisher: Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for 40 years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills ..read more