Yesterday, I coaxed my sister to come with me for a walk.  I told her we would go to McDonald’s on the way, otherwise she would never have come.   I don’t know what it is with people today.  Why doesn’t anybody like walking anymore?  Or being outside?  Maybe it has something to do with overprotective parents never letting their children play outside for fear that they may get kidnapped.  (My parents are of the overprotective variety).

This is really frustrating.  Part of human nature is to be outside, to interact with the natural environment.  Yet everywhere I look around me, forests are being chopped down to make way for new developments – ugly, clustered houses that only lead to more pollution and environmental damage.  I really don’t understand why all this construction is going in my hometown, especially since its a small suburb and it can’t take any more growth.  The major road, Route 1, isn’t big enough to handle all the incoming traffic, especially when the county decided to zone a huge stretch of forest into new housing about 4 years ago, causing such a massive onslaught of traffic that it took 30 minutes to drive down a road that before only took 2.  (This is because our transportation department doesn’t keep up with housing, so the roads weren’t expanded in time to accommodate the population growth).  At the time that community was built, I was angry, not about the potential traffic that it would (and did)  cause, but because the havoc it wreaked on the environment.  Not only was Route 1 stripped of its beauty, but trees serve kinda like water reservoirs.  They hold the moisture in the ground.  On top of that, Route 1 used to be a river, so there are underground water veins all along the road.  So, once the trees were cut down, Route 1 began experiencing major flooding along where the new housing project was being constructed.  This is a sign!  Nature is telling us to stop destroying her! (Sorry, I had to get this out of my system).

Anyways, on the way back home, my sister and I spotted a man-made pond with two bridges in a scenic community called Tackett’s Mill.  Since we rarely, if ever, go on walks, and we’ve hardly been in that community, it was our first time seeing that pond.  It’s amazing what you find down the street if you ever bother to walk down there.  Again, I wish I had a functional camera.  It was really pretty there.  Lots of ducks and geese.  I could only take crappy pictures with my camera phone, and there’s no way for me to upload them onto my comp.  Once I get my hands on a nice digital camera, I’ll upload some pictures.

Another thing I noticed at Tackett’s Mill is how pretty everything looks when there’s no cars.  There’s a section of office buildings and stores that’s designed kind of like a European town with a colonial American look.  No roads or parking lots.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.  Then there’s another section that’s designed just like a regular shopping center, with a large parking lot in the center surrounded by shops, and of course it looks ugly.  If I had studied city planning, I would come up with some sort of plan so that shopping centers and malls aren’t designed with huge, ugly parking lots.  Actually, I think it would be cool if the parking lots were underground, that way above ground there would be more places for people to walk!