44One used to house an elderly lady who always had a baked good for Papes when he delivered her mail to the door.

A few of the homes have been renovated in recent years and now are home to young families, a positive sign for the area.

Then, there are the homes north of Quinter that suffered severe tornado damage last spring.

"Most of the time, your vehicle just turns because it knows," Papes said. "There's nothing hard about it -- just the time and the monotony."

Papes has been delivering mail to nearly 80 customers of the Collyer and Quinter post offices for a decade.

The same 130 miles each day can be boring, he admits, but it's a job that has to be done.

He starts his day just after 7 a.m. sorting mail in the back of the Collyer post office with Postmaster Sharon Uhrich.

"We get to talk school and sports most of the time," Papes said. Both have children attending Trego Community High School.

New 911 addresses have made sorting mail a little more challenging. Papes used to know each customer's box number, but a lengthy street address is harder to memorize, especially when the mail is addressed to "Resident" instead of a name.

"Don't get us started on junk mail," Papes said.

The first 50 miles of Papes' route takes him east toward Voda and south toward Castle Rock before heading west to pick up more mail at the Quinter post office.

"I don't know why they gave me Quinter," he said. He delivers mail to 16 customers based out of the Quinter office, but he said the route ties into his Collyer route, so it's not too far out of the way.

The Quinter stop also gives him a way to break up the trip.

"Halfway through I get to fuel up, get out and stretch my legs and drink a cup of coffee at the co-op," Papes said.

The price of fuel has been stressful, especially earlier this year; however, Papes said the postal service adjusts its reimbursement rates every three months. While they might not keep up with the high prices, he said he's probably ahead of the game right now with $1.79 gas at Frontier Ag Inc., in Quinter.

Papes covers the other 80 miles of his route going north into Sheridan and Graham counties and back east and south toward Collyer.

A farmer too, Papes usually is done with his route by 1 p.m., which allows him to take care of his crops.

"In some ways, it's better to get up early and get done," he said. "When it's 20 below and snowing, you don't want to."

The postal service encourages its carriers to turn back to the post office if the weather conditions are too dangerous for them to be on the road. Papes has had to turn back only two or three times in his tenure.

Luckily, Trego County has the best roads in the area, according to Papes, but even the best days can't handle a lot of rain.

"One hundred thirty miles of muddy road gets pretty tiring," Papes said. "It'll add a couple hours to my time."

After just one day of on-the-job training more than 10 years ago, he's learned quickly how to be the most efficient on his route.

It starts with his vehicle.

The manual-window, manual-transmission pickup he had when he first started delivering mail went by the wayside in favor of an automatic.

"You go through a lot of brakes in vehicles," Papes said.

Though many mail carriers will buy older vehicles, Papes said it's more economical for him to buy a fairly new one every four years.

"I farm, so I don't have time to work on a vehicle," he said. "I need something dependable."

He also has to be able to carry large packages -- the most unusual of which has contained chickens.

"They come in crates and they're still clucking," he said. "You can't put them in the trunk. You have to put them in the vehicle and they're clucking until you get to where you need to go."

But when there's no clucking packages, all that can be heard in Papes' regular Ford Ranger or backup Crown Victoria is the sound of country music and loose gravel pinging off the undercarriage.

For as many mailboxes as he fills each day with letters and magazines, he bypasses that many more at vacant farmsteads.

"There's more time between boxes all the time," Papes said. "I don't know at what point the post office does something different."