Man Vs. Nature

On my mind

You know, there is a beautiful offramp in Illinois driving south on the I-55. I think it's somewhere close after the ridiculous monstrosity of the intersection with I-355: that sad excuse for an express tollway.
As a quick side note, I have to say: for something designed to speed up commuting north and south in Chicago's western suburbs, everytime I've gotten on it, it has just been completely stopped. The times I've taken parallel highways instead it either takes the same or less amount of time. And you pay upwards of a dollar to take the tollroad these days. Stupid.
Sometime after that, if you pay attention to it, you will notice at one of the bridges crossing the freeway an offramp that instead of leading cars off the road, has completely fallen into disregard. There is no longer pavement. The surface where it was is choking with wild flowers, grasses, and other weeds. Nature overgrown prettily.
As it should be. But, of course, the supreme beauty of it is from the blatant appearance that it was once an offramp. The curve and flatness of the once-road is still so shockingly obvious. It reminds me of those apocalyptic views of our dazzling modern metropolises, hundreds of years from now when "the ravages of time(!)" have taken their toll.
Maybe you will think I'm nuts, but they always look more beautiful that way. A sort of perfect blending between our creative construction and nature's resourcefulness.
The offramp got me thinking of that and later had me noticing more of the same kind of thing. I wish I could take beautiful and emotive pictures to get the idea across. Something to show that clash between buildings and plants or, widening the context a little, trash in very unnasuming spots or so.
Of course, that last bit is the kind of picture to get you in trouble. It would be difficult to do without eliciting feelings of spite or bitterness or activism or something. Not to say that I don't hate the idea of littering, but the pictures would be to try and show the relationship between people and the land they live in, not to preach something (I would do that another way).
Another really obvious example would be when Rali and I were last in Hawai'i. We were walking up this really pretty mountain and came across a sign that said something to the effect of, "Restoration area, please respect the wildlife," and there underneath, perfectly framed for a photo, was a Burger King cup of "Joe"
Like I said, that one's obvious, but I'd like to explore the idea in less obvious ways. There's something about trees in those little sidewalk boxes that intrigue me. I once saw a wild flower bursting out of the curb of a street, alone with a huge and beautiful bloom (it was gone the next day). If you happen to see anything like that, I would be really pleased to see pictures of your own.
And maybe I can actually take a few myself sometime.