The Great Colorado Springs Outdoors!
       By: Tony Rose
Posted: 2007-05-20 09:50:02
If you don't already know, I live in Colorado Springs, CO. It's a great place to live. There are great parks, good schools, usually a good climate, although this winter wouldn't have been your best example and lots of opportunities for outdoor recreation. We're a pretty good sized city, but with a fifteen minute drive from just about anywhere in town you can lose yourself in nature. Whether you're going to one of our nationally renown areas like Garden of the Gods, or just a drive into national or state parkland, it doesn't take long to get there.So, this past weekend, with the weather finally reflecting what it normally does, my family; that being myself, my wife, our six year old daughter and my one year old son loaded up our gas guzzling SUV to take a drive and have a picnic on some of this vast public land. This time we decided to go a little further, so it took us considerably longer, about 25 minutes of total drive time before we reached the end of paved roads and our temporary escape from civilization.What a beautiful day. It was clear skies and warm. There's been just enough moisture that the trees were green and the flowers were blooming. The road was just rough enough to flex the suspension on our vehicle and bounce the kids around like a roller coaster. So we drive into the woods for about forty-five minutes until we rarely see anyone aside from the occasional motorcycle and well pull down a side road to what looks like a very nice camp site. This will be a great place to get out, have some lunch and let the kids run around.Within two minutes of unloading everyone and our chairs and cooler I hear something off in the distance. Not distant enough I have to say. It's some yahoos shooting their guns. I do live in Colorado, the wild west you know. So, I'm pretty open to the idea of guns. I even had my own with me. The problem is that I'm sure we were in an area that was clearly not designated for hunting or shooting.So, as I'm trying to shrug off the gunfire, I start to look around the ground. At this point my one year old is off and running. And although he's pretty good, he does face plant quite a bit. Anyhow. There's broken glass all over the ground. Not just one accidental and they missed a few pieces. There's multiple bottles worth. Hoping to find some ground space that's reasonably child friendly I walk over to the other side of the site. There I only find composite roofing shingles. I suppose he can't cut himself on those. I am wondering what they're doing there.All right. I know it's a long story. But, what's my point? Come on. It's not that hard to clean up after yourself. You brought a bottle with you. Bring it back and properly dispose of it. If you pack it in, you pack it out. I understand that we might not always tread as lightly as we could, but you can at least not leave your trash lying around. I wonder if those same jerks who left those broken bottles there ever went back to that spot? Probably not, they might cut themselves on the glass.
Trackback url: https://article.abc-directory.com/article/2387