Pritchett, CO

Picture of Pritchett
Just stopped off to mail a few things after escaping Carrizo Canyon - all that flatness and roads without signs can drive you batty while driving in circles. Fell into a 2 hours conversation with a couple of "locals." Mike and Sonny are renovating a set of buildings in this 4 block ghost town. Sonny moved from Florida about a year ago and takes care of bison on some property owned by the land trust. Mike prints T-shirts for a living, but if you listen to him it sounds as if he wants to resurrect the town. I guess Pritchett was once the broomstraw capital of the world. Now its nothing but abandoned buildings, a cafe where the merits of reading are still disputed and Mike's garden of organic veggies and various wildflowers. Vaguely reminiscent of Nick Nolte on a sober day, Mike's a vegetarian out of Boulder who's planning on turning the buildings into an art gallery, an ice cream parlour and a T-shirt shop. He and Sonny recommended visiting Picture canyon, Twin Buttes lake and a cliff jumping spot called the black hole. So if you're heading through this corner of Colorado on SR 160 and want some ice cream and conversation, stop in Pritchett and ask for Mike.

P.S. Still haven't hooked up to the web yet - currently in Ulysses, KS trying to figure out exactly what to do with ourselves...