East of where the prisoner of war camp was located, just north of Highway 34 on a north facing bluff, was the location of Sharktooth Ski Area. I think I can say with a fair certainty that when it was open it was Colorado's lowest elevation ski area. The story is that a U.N.C. professor got snowed in when he wanted to go skiing so he bought some land and built his own ski area. I have to wonder how many out of state students were enticed to enroll at U.N.C. based on the thought of nearby Colorado skiing. I checked it out once, it had a rope tow. I heard it was good for tubing and I think it had a skating rink. We were going to go one opening day, but I got my car stuck in the snow late the night before and that was the end of that idea. "But, ahh, the champagne powder. And on some days, you could actually see the Rocky Mountains!"

Just a little farther west of the prisoner of war camp, by the old Windsor cutoff, at the end of a spur road, there is an underground Atlas missle silo, long since decommissioned. Weld County archives all of its documents at this site, a vault built to withstand nuclear war. Above ground all you see is a couple of hundred square feet enclosed by chain link fence topped with barbed wire, a concrete pad with ventilation hoods and pipes, and a few antennae. Weld County has added a small park with a few trees and picnic tables and a nice view dropping off toward the west. Throughout the area active and decommissioned missle silos dot the prairie, commanded from Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne. I've heard stories of MPs showing up with weapons drawn against people who stumble on the sites while horseback riding on the open prairie, and over the years there have been many arrests of peace activists at these sites.

Phillip K. Dick, a well-respected science fiction writer, is buried in Fort Morgan, in a grave next to his twin sister who died at 41 days old. Among fans of science fiction, his works command high respect, delving into issues that confront mankind at our deepest levels of concsiousness. His story, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was the basis for the movie "Blade Runner," and his work was also translated to the screen in "Screamers," "Total Recall" and "Minority Report." The only book of his I have read is "The Man in the High Castle," which contemplates North America after a Nazi/Japanese victory in World War II. At least some of the scenes are set in Greeley.

I recently spent an hour searching the cemetery in Fort Morgan for his grave, only to find it right next to the road not twenty yards from where I parked my car. From that place you can have a good view of the mountains, and on several days, when the weather was really clear, I was able to pick out the diamond on Long's Peak from locations near there along the west side of town. It was probably not too long ago this was possible most days of the year.

I once saw Long's Peak, the jewell of the northern Front Range, 145 feet higher than Pike's Peak, from as far out as Merino, a small town west of Sterling on the county road that parallels I-76. Of course, that was from the west side of Merino, but I measured the distance on a map as over 120 miles.

We've peopled these plains, the many of us who have moved in to Colorado, whether snookered by boosters or arriving with our eyes wide open. But the magnitude and scope of this land overwhelms us all.