Our annual Memorial Day Weekend Canoe Trip was another great one. It was Red Creek again, this time from Ramsey Springs to Highway 57. This trip was two nights camping on the sand bars and some great water for a leisurely float. The only thing that kept this trip from being one of the best ever was the Saturday afternoon encounter with dozens of ATVs. I consider ATVs, more commonly called 4-Wheelers, a scourge and a nuisance. Fun to ride, I'm sure, but the noise and damage they cause in the wild, peaceful outdoors is enough to make you wish they were never invented. They are an obnoxious vehicle whose primary purpose was to make the mighty deer hunter less inconvenienced by having to walk in and out of the woods with his equipment and kill. So what do you do with this expensive toy when deer season ends? Ride it for fun wherever you're allowed, and unfortunately for Red Creek canoeists, it is at an off-road park adjacent to one of the nicest scenic waterways in the South.
The ATV has two cousins, the Jet Ski and the Snowmobile. Both are very popular recreational vehicles and both bring the same obnoxious noise and disturbance wherever they are ridden. I believe there's a common thread connecting folks who love this kind of entertainment - ATVs, Jet Skis, Snowmobiles, loud exhaust pipes on pickup trucks, guns, killing animals for pleasure - all involve noise and mechanical devices anyone can purchase. No special skill or intelligence required. Dedication, discipline, hard work, study, practice, and talent bring rewards of personal achievement, as does a respect for nature and the knowledge gained by enjoying it as unobtrusively as possible. Not so a machine that abuses the environment and disturbs everyone but the operator.
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