The Dolores Chamber and Visitor's Center is now open for our summer hours, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week, and boy are the visitors flocking in! We are also seeing a huge increase, about 300 percent, in brochure requests through Mesa Verde Country.

All indications are that we will have a bang-up summer. (Now if we could just get a little rain.) Please come into the Visitors Center and get a stack of our brand new brochures.

The brochure has a completely new, fresh, exciting look to it as we completely overhauled our logo and put in new pictures.

Please "like" us on Facebook as we frequently post new pictures there from our events.

This week you will see a picture of the governor of Colorado doing the ribbon-cutting recently at Mesa Verde National Park for their new Visitor's Center right there at the entrance on Highway 160. You will also see photos from our recent Business After Hours at the Dolores General Store.

They did a fantastic job of hosting our May event. We want to thank the crew at the Rio Grande Southern for hosting our May membership meeting. The food was delightful, as always. Check out their new outdoor patio in the back as well.

If you want to get to know your fellow Dolores residents, have some great food and refreshments, do some great networking and unwind from a busy day then you definitely want to check out our monthly Business after Hours.

For June, it will be on the 27th at Soft Adventures Rafting from 5 to 7 p.m.

Then on July 25, it will be held at Four Corners Properties, on Aug. 22 at the Rio Grande Southern on its outdoor patio, Sept. 26 at the 2nd Chance Thrift Store.

And for the final one of 2013 we will all converge at the Dolores River RV Park on Oct. 24. The hours are 5 to 7 p.m. for each of these events.

The Naked Moose is once again open for business and they will be hosting our membership meeting on June 26 at noon.

Come listen to Heather Hughes, the new marketing director of Mesa Verde Country, who will share about all of her new, innovative ideas on how to market the area. Then for July 24 our membership meeting will be at the Ponderosa, and Aug. 28 at Karma Coffee.

Here are some other events planned for this summer:

July 6, fireworks & celebration over Groundhog Lake and RV Park.

July 27, chili cookoff, also at Groundhog Lake and RV Park.

Aug. 2-4, the annual dog agility show in Joe Rowell Park.

August 9-10, Escalante Days will once again take place. We are looking at the possibility of a street dance this year, plus there will be the usual parades, booths, the Kiwanis Club Duck Race, The Rotary Club Mountain Bike Race, chain saw and arm-wrestling competitions, live music, food, arts and crafts, kids' competitions, family games,Galloping Goose Days activities, and more.

We have tentatively schedule the Harvest Fest for Sept. 14.

Contact the Chamber for more information about any of these events at 882-4018.