Only slight breezes today, and a very hot sun, though it is comfortable in the shade. The mostly flat roads ran through fields of corn, potatoes and some soybean so there was no shade there. The farm buildings were well away from the road, so if not much interest. Occasionally there would be a sign for a town, but some of them would only consist of of one business or a business and one short street. Here is the town of Lawndale.

When the greater landscape is uninspiring, I tend to shift focus down to the details. For instance, the flowers often can be inspiring.

However, today my thoughts drifted to the problem of roadside garbage. Beverage containers are everywhere. Based on frequency of the various brands on the shoulders of the roads here, I think the people of Minnesota prefer Coors and Bud Light for beer and Sprite for soda. Once I thought about this, I figured I needed a picture for my blog. I really couldn’t find a Bud or Coors can in good condition as the mowers rip the cans to shreds. I ended up with this, instead.

Over the years, I’ve thought long and hard about this problem. I believe that a container tax will not work, because they can not be made high enough to make a difference. Fines for littering never seem to be enforced, so they have little effect.

What I think might work is to hit the producers with clean up taxes based on amount their product is contributing to the problem. Each state could do clean up of an “average” highway and figure distribution of taxes based on frequency of each vendors product in the haul. If the tax hit was high enough, it would motivate manufacturers to move away from inexpensive single use throw-away packaging which is really the root of the problem. Cigarette, fast food and junk food vendors would also be taxed.

I wonder if the are better alternatives to solving this issue. I don’t have enough faith in the “goodness” of people to believe that education would work by itself.

Tonight I am camping at the city of Ferguson Falls Delagoon Park.

59 more miles today. Total is 1820.