A Bad Start

So, being utterly disorganized and morally opposed to much planning, I forgot an important part of my first clean-up: a trash bag. I drove out to Holloway Mountain Road, the dirt road that links 105 to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I drive this road a lot, since I hike the Parkway a lot, and last time I was on it I noticed the large number of bottles on the side of the road. I thought it would be a good place to start. Once I parked, I realized my lack of trash bags. Luckily, since I have dogs, I've always got a couple plastic grocery bags lying around the car in case they poop (not in the car - but if I'm walking them and they poop in some public place with short grass). I had three bags and lots of road to cover. I made about a quarter mile before the bags were full.

I found a tail light. I found some unknown part of a Honda - it was a round piece of plastic the size of a small plate. I found a lot of bottles. I managed to spill beer on my one pair of clean jeans. I tried not to think about who had been drinking that beer, or how long it had been fermenting in the sun. There was everything you'd expect: McDonald's bags, chocolate wrappers, styrofoam cups, beer, more beer, Smirnoff Triple Black (which is probably the same as Smirnoff Ice, just with a more macho name), things like that.

Now, I'm all for going out into the woods and drinking beer. I did that in the Garden of the Gods and got kicked out. There's a picture of me driving down the Dalton Highway drinking beer (I do not normally condone drinking and driving. In fact, I despise it. One beer on the Dalton doesn't really count though, and if you've been there, you'll understand why). I've chugged Budwieser while driving (I was passenging) through downtown Fairbanks singing Willie Nelson at the top of my lungs while dressed as a pimp. However, on none of these occasions did I throw a bottle out the window, or just leave it lying in the dirt. It is not difficult to keep cans in the car, and then toss them in a recycling bin. And if you do that, next time you're out drinking beer in the woods, you'll be surrounded by beauty instead of trash.

And maybe I'm stereotyping but I generally think of people who drink organic beer as fairly environmentally conscious, and maybe even as having hippie tendencies. So the bottle of organic Stone Mill beer lying in the ditch was a little surprising.

There's still a lot of trash to pick up on Holloway Mountain, and next time I'll bring the big bags!