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Friday, April 16, 2010

A visit to the rural outskirts

To date, most of my PD work *at post* has been in the more rural communities surrounding Denver.  In fact, my day job usually begins in Kiowa, Colorado -- a lovely town with two car washes, two gas stations, two restaurants, and 500 people.  With some help from the Elbert County Enterprise Authority (the agency I founded), Kiowa has been making great strides in transforming itself from a dying husk of a glorified railroad station to a dying husk of a modern town.  And that's good news for me, because it means that one of these businesses might some day accept credit cards, and I could get a burger once in awhile.

Now, with that established, let me introduce you to the sight I encountered on my way out of town yesterday...


Apparently this trash was not a natural formation, but it may as well have been.  Before I got my vaunted position in economic development, I answered phones for Elbert County planning, where I would routinely inform citizens that it was not OK to bury their cars, there was a limit of 8 dogs per property, and that they did need to ask their neighbors before they opened a rifle range in their back yard.  Pan slightly to the right, then...


Evidently, the town of Kiowa was unwilling to invest in a "Welcome to Kiowa, the Gateway to the Plains" sign at the town entrance.  I suppose this will do just as well.

not to give you all too unfavorable an impression of the place, I will note that there's plenty of awfully nice-looking parts, and plenty of very quality people, but it would never be mistaken for Manhattan, or even Omaha.

Well... maybe Omaha...

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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 16, 2010 at 12:11 PM

    It's Friday, and that means that the Weekly State Department Blog Roundup is up - and you're on it!

    Here is the link:

    http://bit.ly/9eiR0S

    (If I quoted your text or used your photo(s) and you would rather I had not, please let me know. Please also be sure to check the link(s) that I put up to you, in order to verify that they work properly. If you would rather that I had not referenced you, and/or do not want me to reference you in the future, please also contact me.)

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 1, 2010 at 7:03 AM

    Just stopped by to let you know that I mentioned you in a total train wreck of a post of mine this morning:

    http://bit.ly/9bl3O6

    Hope your photography - and your job journey - are going well!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian...May 17, 2010 at 6:08 PM

    Ahhh, Elbert County!

    That car isn't too bad, looks like it has a pair of new tires and is well on it's way to getting repaired.

    ReplyDelete
  4. fsowannabeMay 21, 2010 at 5:49 AM

    So what's been going on? How's the process so far - are you on the register?

    ReplyDelete
  5. ValdyssesMay 27, 2010 at 2:59 PM

    Brian: If that car was still there, I might save it as a tribute to your '97 Geo Prizm. Alas, like most of Elbert County, it has since been swept under some fetid rug somewhere. A shame, really.

    ReplyDelete