Downtown Sterling wakes early — lights come on along First Avenue while the sky is still the color of the pavement. Professional Lot Maintenance clears the ground those mornings depend on: parking lots plowed, entries and sidewalks opened, ice control down before the first customer swings a door. A storefront gets judged at the curb, and in February the curb is where winter puts up its best fight. Storms out here arrive off open country with a great deal of wind behind them, so the same lot often gets worked more than once. By opening time it should look as though nothing happened at all.