My biggest pet peeve out here!

Nick, the girls, and the HUGE rocks we have to walk on when the dogs need to go out.
If you look close, you can see trash in the rocks, and boxes & such in the background.

Growing up in the 70's, I saw all the ad campaigns against littering: Woodsey the Owl, "Give a hoot, don't polute", the crying native, Iron Eyes Cody. The Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, I was 2 years old, I've heard about it my whole life. So it runs through my bones like marrow, to be appalled by trash on the ground.

We make most of our stops at Love's Truck Stops. Our fleet owners encourage it because Love's gives them the best discount, and we willingly comply, because our company started us off with our Love's cards instantly raised to Platinum Level, which gets us at least 1 free shower per day, per driver. We have gone to some of the other truck stops, because in some areas, there aren't any convenient Love's, or we are stopping later than other trucks, and all the free parking spots are taken. This leaves the truck stops who have reserved parking (about $15 - $25 per night). All of these places have varying degrees of my pet peeve:  GARBAGE ALL OVER THE PLACE!!!

I will say that Love's usually has trashcans all around the truck parking, and most of the Love's where we have stayed at least overnight, they go around and pick up the trash in the cans. The Pilot/Flying J & TA/Petro truck stops tend to have more parking, and they have reserved parking that we can reserve online, but they don't clean up quite as much as Love's. 

The worst truck stop I've seen so far? It's probably a toss-up between a no-name place in LA (just basically run-down, no fence, poor lighting, few facilities for the drivers), and a Stripes truck stop. The Stripes location was truly a surprise to me. The building, fuel lanes & parking areas looked almost brand new! But there was SO MUCH GARBAGE!! 

The worst trash act I've seen was when we stayed the weekend outside St. Louis. A hot-shot truck parked next to us, unloaded a huge pile of junk behind his parking spot, and took off. It was clothes, food, and some kitchen appliances, in a plastic tub and a few trash bags, just dumped on the ground. Disgusting. 

I'd like to say we are a shining example of how to exist out here without leaving any trail of garbage behind us, but I really don't want to lie to you...

We try. We gather our trash and make sure it gets put into a trashcan. We try to clean up after the dogs. We pick up garbage to make it safer for the dogs. But when you drive for 11 hours, it isn't that important to clean up something that isn't your mess. When it is dark, and you can't tell if there is an unwelcome desert resident where you are walking your dog, cleaning up her poop isn't my top priority. So, we do the best we can in the moment, and always try to do better.