Oyster Stew Traditional Cache
k0guz: The story is still interesting even if the geocache is gone.
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On the road right of way near a bit of obscure Rifle history.
In the mid 1980's, someone had a great idea. Natural gas was cheap, and the electric utility needed extra power during the peak hours around dinnertime. Put in a cheap natural gas generating plant, and then use the excess heat for something else.
First thing was a multi-acre hydrophonic tomato greenhouse which grew natural, red-ripe tomatoes for the Denver market. The tomatoes were vine-ripened and delicious. The tomatoes that didn't fit into the prescribed supermarket size template were given away to local residents on Tuesday afternoons at the senior center.
Then someone had the bright idea to bring use some of the excess heat from the cogeneration facility to grow oysters. The oysters were brought by truck or airplane from Louisana and then lived happily in salt water tanks until they could be trucked to serve gourmands in Aspen and Vail. It may have been a nutty idea, but the developers persuaded certain unnamed governments to qualify this plan for an economic development grant which built the structure you see before you.
Whether or not it was a reasonable business plan or boondoggle, we'll never know. The oyster farm had only been in business for a few months when a Rifle businessman bought and ate a dozen raw oysters and on August 17, 1988 came down with cholera and nearly died. The appearance of cholera in the Rocky Mountains was so unusual that the Center for Disease Control printed a monograph on the event. Google "oyster rifle" and follow the link to the cdc.gov website to read the gruesome details of what happened to Mr. X. It took him years to recover.
Poof went the oyster farm. After the dead and dying oysters were trucked to the landfill, the building was vacant for a few years, then was used as a warehouse for a local computer entrepreneur; when he left, it was vacant for years. Recently, the property was purchased, painted, and substantially improved (and the parking lot paved!), and now is the office and warehouse for a couple of industrial companies connected with natural gas development.
The tomato plant didn't do well. The original greenhouse tomato factory filed for bankruptcy after other plants on the eastern slope suffered from hail damage (and they had no insurance); it was sold by the bankruptcy court in 2000 to another outfit that closed it down. The greenhouses were torn down and all that remains are part of the concrete foundations, which you can clearly see in the satellite view of the Google Maps south and slightly east of this geocache. Google “Rifle cogeneration tomato” and read the December, 2000 article in the Denver Post about the tomato factory.
So all that's left are the electrical generator, which was sold to the utility; this building; and this geocache. The excess heat from the inefficient gas turbines is now wasted. Too bad.
Oh yes, also holding the bag are the bondholders whose investment financed the whole thing.
This is a micro; byop.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Qba'g snyy va gur perrx.
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