I rarely get on an environmental soapbox, but....

I just returned from a very short trip down to Lexington, Kentucky. It's been nearly 30 years since I had been to Cumberland Falls, the largest waterfall in the U.S. south of Niagara and east of the Rocky Mountains. The last time I visited, the landscape was nearly pristine.

Now, as you can see in the photo, the base of these beautiful falls is littered with thousands of plastic bottlers and other garbage. State funding cuts have made it impossible to keep the area free of waste, and it feels like a return to the 1970's when we trashed the beautiful places around us.