876. Meeker, Rio Blanco County (CO60)

Future Arborists of America, attend!  This is another perfect example of the front of a courthouse being ruined by ill-placed trees!  Getting a closer look at the entranceway, I feel the shot could have been far more picturesque if not for the thrice-hated foliage.  All that said, one thing Meeker has that a lot of places on this trip haven’t had (or a lot of places in Colorado, really) is monuments.  They’re not the most impressive, but they do exist.  One of them felt a little strange to me, though.  It was a memorial to soldiers who had come from the area, but the soldier statue was in modern battle dress.  For all the war memorials I’ve seen, I’m so much more used to seeing them in older uniform styles, whether it’s World War 1, World War 2, Viet Nam, even the early War of Terror.  Maybe I was unsettled because it brought it closer to modern day?  Then again, how much closer did it need to be?  And why was I even bothered by it in the first place? 

The cache promised to be at a tranquil copse so I decided to go get it.  Being regular sized, I began looking in the trees behind a church for an ammo can or large jar of some kind.  Not finding one, I turned around to think about it for a moment and immediately saw it, a pill bottle obscured by rocks next to a different statue, one of St. Francis of Assisi.  Not the regular that was promised, but it was quick and I took it.  Meeker was an unwanted detour; I wished I’d gone there when I drove from Denver to Salt Lake last year, but it needed to be done.  And with its completion, I was on to…