Highway Clean-up...the final

Huge "thank you" to the Women of Minnesota and JT.  We had a beautiful day for the highway clean-up.  Complete opposite of last year at this time when it had snowed! 

It was in the high 60's, though it felt warmer, and gorgeous Fall color.  The group of ladies to the right are the best.  JT had to leave before the picture taking but cannot thank him enough.

The Dairy Queen is are start and finish locale.  It is so nice to have an ice-cream after all the trash pickup.

At the opposite end of our two miles is a gas station and convenience store.  It also has a dinosaur in front but the poor guy has lost his tail this Fall.

From the road it looks like the dinosaur has taken a big dump!

Speaking of dumps... a vote was taken on whether to renew our committment to the Minnesota Department of Transportation Adop-a-Highway program.  The vote did not win (it was actually a tie), therefore, this was our last clean-up of Highway 10 outside of Elk River.

Adopt-a-Highway Fall 2009

A huge THANK YOU to the Adopt-a-Highway Fall 2009 cleanup crew. There were some rather adverse weather conditions...it snowed!

Yes, we had measurable snow Saturday morning and the temps were below freezing but a hardy group of seven (including me) made the trek to Elk River to cleanup "Tall Boy's Fan Club" four miles of highway 10.

At Rachel's suggestion from the Spring 90 degree plus effort, we split into two teams. Three took the northwestern facing route and four on the southeastern direction.

Either there was less trash or the snow was covering it up, but we didn't fill up as many trash bags. The trick was in seeing shapes that didn't fit. A piece of paper makes the snow flatter and too even, a bottle or can usually showed a glint of an edge, and there were still some odd things...a ripped-up rubber inflatable boat, a switch blade and utility knife, still lots of car parts including an entire battery.

The shout out goes to Rose, Bunny, Loretta, Christine, Rachel and JT (who drove all the way to help out even though he had other plans). We were done in record time...less than two hours.