Au Naturale....Not.

I've always adored nature, and I've been begging my family to take me to the mountains to have a nice long hike. They finally relented, but decided to choose an extremely short trail. We had no idea that at the end of the trail was this beautiful waterfall, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise. On the way up I had to endure yelling and singing, not to mention my dad tugging on my braids and my sister screaming, "Julie!". The scenery was impressive, and the plant life was pretty diverse for the dry mountains of Utah. Other than my family, the hike was a lot of fun. (OK, maybe they were kind of entertaining as well.)
We went up a sandy trail covered with hoof prints and sneaker dents and came to some short oak trees. As we went on we discovered cacti and sage mixed in with a lot more sand and dirt. We also noticed the impressive view, and I looked up to find a small golden puppy looking down on us from an outcropping of rock. My mom had my camera, or else I would have a picture of the most realistic Simba look-alike I had ever seen. Seconds later I saw a man up there, assuaging my fears of a lost puppy I desperately wanted to rescue. All my maternal instincts weren't assuaged though, because seconds later I came across this bad boy.

Yep. Some idiot decided to litter. Those little voices in my head started screaming. I could imagine the plant next to it a few years form now, crying and begging for someone to please help it. I can also imagine a French guy coming to Utah and going on this trail and seeing this litter and basing his entire opinion of the US on this stupid act of idiocy. And it didn't stop there. There was tons more litter on the trail, including candy (not wrappers, the entire candy), bottles, lids, pieces of metal, pennies, cans, T-shirts and even what looked like two bookcases on their sides. I mean, really? My dad summed it up in a sentence I never would have thought of: "The world is just a human litter box."

This is wrong. I could rant for days on this, but I'll just let a little creative photography tell the story for me. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

* All the garbage I could fit in my pocket from the trail, plus three pennies.