After a sunset picnic dinner in the state park, we left lovely Newark yesterday evening for West Chester, Pennsylvania. In the last hour of twilight, we were treated to some amazing countryside views, and we happened upon the gorgeous Goodwin Nature Preserve. 

With the waning daylight and this field full of tiny yellow flowers, this place seemed positively magical. 

There are hundreds of what we speculate are young fruit trees growing in the preserve, their young sprouts protected from hungry deer by these coverings. 

As we travel, we've seen some really great parts about America, like Goodwin Nature Preserve, but we've also seen some really dark parts, like abject poverty in Baltimore and copious amounts of litter, trash, and waste. We've enjoyed keeping this blog positive and cheery to provide an oasis from main-stream American news and media, but here, we'd like to share some of our observations. 

Baltimore: The Greatest City in America? 

An overflowing trash can full of recyclables sits next to an empty recycling bin at UNC. 

We have seen an unbelievable amount of trash on our journey. We've picked up litter from the streets of Washington DC, the trails at Chimney Rock, and many places in between. We can't stand to see trash lying around. On top of that is the trash we can't pick up, covering the sides of America's highways and byways. Today, after seeing a group of volunteers picking up litter along the road, we were inspired to see about volunteering to pick up trash ourselves. In Pennsylvania, the way to pick up trash is to have your organization "adopt" a section of highway and clean it four times a year. Obviously that's unfeasible for our schedule, so I continued looking around online, convinced there must be a short-term volunteer way to pick up litter. I came across the Pick up America project, which started much like our realization...a couple of guys were hiking in a National park, and were stunned by the amount of trash. On their hike, they picked up every single piece of trash, and determined to do something more about it. They formed a non-profit and determined to travel all the way across the country, picking up trash and educating the public along the way. They just reached their goal in 2012. How inspiring! I would love for us to be involved in something like this during our journey. It's also great to see excellent recycling programs in cities like Asheville, and we can hope that other cities will soon catch on to make recycling accessible and easy to every person. 

We made it to West Chester last night, another college town. We had breakfast at a delicious diner and chatted with a fun and friendly server (Hi! It was nice to meet you!) this morning, and spent the afternoon exploring the town's main street, which seemed lively on our way in last night, but was mostly closed today, Sunday. 

Some glimpses of downtown West Chester. 

Tomorrow, we'll begin our second work exchange near Allentown, PA. Can't wait!