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...