In the Crosshairs in the Crosswalk

August 13th, 2018 – Safeway Route.

This was a light-trash day for a Monday.  We waved at Salinas Construction and found nothing to fling.  We did find two separate pennies and,

George!

We found an unopened Vitamin Water bottle of fruit punch,

and a rare Gatorade bottle with no cigarette butts.

Janet rescued two balls.

She needed to trim away several berry vines and came out with a few scratches.  The balls were returned to the yard from whence they came.  Sadly, two more balls were too deep in the bushes to be rescued.

We did find two other balls that were added to our ball collection.

A package of cigarette butts.

That’s the American spirit!

We found a $30 unbreakable dope pipe.

Wonder why they threw it away?  Didn’t like the taste of burning rubber?

Somebody made a statement.

Something’s afoot with the LimeBike.

It looks like the 8-week standoff may be coming to a head.

There was another Rave in the Seattle Times.

We’re not sure if this is about us, but we felt good about it anyway.  The other Rave is here.

 

August 14th, 2018 – Park and Ride Route.

We waved to Mr. Handyman and got another honk and other random waves.  We also got a “thank you” from a lady at the bus stop.  It is very smoky here from the fires in B.C.

We found two hats today.

A Samuel Adams beer hat in the street and a Functional 45 Training hat hanging on a fence.  F45 calls themselves a Functional Training Network.  This is a good thing.  Too many people belong to Dysfunctional Training Networks.  Both hats are destined for Goodwill.

We found a small hubcap.

Found a bottle with cigarette butts and trash.

Not Gatorade, though.  We found a ball.

But it was punctured and got recycled.

Other things we came across:

Another dime bag, a set of keys on a weird keychain, dog poop and batteries for some device that had been run over.  The batteries tested good and will get reused.

Eating breakfast in the bus queue?  Uh oh, drop everything, the bus is here.

Not sure what’s up with the LimeBike.

The cones are now lined up at the end of the Tolt Pipeline trail.

 

August 15th, 2018 – Safeway Route.

We got several waves today but didn’t see any of our regulars.  Trash was fairly light.  We interrupted two different crows’ breakfast by flinging a rabbit and a squirrel.  The smoke today seemed even worse than yesterday.

We found another dime bag, but no rubber gloves.

We found a full can of wall texture.

But we didn’t come across any orange-peel walls to repair.

We found Batman’s belt.

I hope he had his braces on when he jumped out of the Batmobile.

We came across this scene:

Clearly a case of a car-jacking gone wrong.  Get it?

When Janet finds beer cans, she gives them to me to crush so they don’t take too much space in our bags.  If she is ahead, she will leave it on my side of the road.  This morning, she tossed a can across the road and it rolled to me.

The video of her technique can be seen here.

Someone threw the LimeBike cones down the west side of the Tolt Pipeline Trail.

We also found a beer bottle and a marijuana tube there.  We gathered them up and placed them with the others that appeared a few weeks ago.

We will notify Bothell City to pick them up.

We got a nice “Thank-You” from a person on the hill.

He thanked me, gave me a thumbs up then drove down to Janet and thanked her.  Nice.

 

August 16th, 2018 – Park and Ride Route.

Today was overcast with the smoke, it made for a dark walk.  We found two bristles, a dime and three pennies.  Janet flung a small frog.

We also had a heart-thumping moment.  A young girl evidently didn’t see us in a crosswalk.

We waited for the Walk signal.  A lady was making a right turn behind us but stopped.  I waved to her and we started walking.  The girl was making a left turn and started accelerating, heading directly for us.  I started waving to attract her attention and we started running.  At the last second she swerved slightly but continued accelerating.  As we reached the other side of the street a lady who was behind the girl asked if we were OK.  The video of it is here. 

At the bus stop, there was a guy looking at his phone and smoking.

I was thinking that we would be picking up his cigarette butt on our next circuit.  However, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw him put it into the trashcan next to the bus stop.

We found a small ceramic turtle by the bus stop.

We’re not sure what the purpose of it is.  The hole in the top is about the size of a dime, so not a candleholder.

We picked up a napkin

with twelve cents stuck to it.  Cool.

Another Gatorade-butt bottle not in the gully.  The Gatorade Guy’s getting sloppy.

I entered a request to the City of Bothell to remove yesterday’s construction cones and today they were gone.

Bothell is very responsive to my requests.  I probably have a reputation.

However, someone molested the LimeBike.  I set her up by the fence again and she didn’t threaten me like one LimeBike did.

 

August 17th, 2018 – Safeway Route.

This was another cool morning and with less smoke.  We found neither money nor anything to fling.  We did get honks from Mr. Handyman and the tan SUV.

One of our many pet peeves is signs that are set up and not maintained or removed.  Especially around election time, some signs are tossed into the bushes.  Last election season, one candidate’s signs were methodically knocked down or thrown into the bushes.  One even ended up floating in a water retention pond and stayed until it was cleaned up a few months ago.

For the past several weeks, there has been a sign in a thicket of blackberry bushes at the end of Juanita Woodinville Way.  Each time we passed, we would pause to look at it but it was out of our reach and the bank dropped off rapidly into the thicket.

Today, Janet suggested using a stick.  There happened to be a limb about five-feet long nearby and I spent about five minutes trimming some vines and coaxing the sign out.  I got a few thorn pokes and my gloves lost two fingers.

This success encouraged Janet to take another run at the two balls from earlier this week.

It took a lot more trimming and the berry bushes drew blood, but she came out victorious with the spoils of war.

We found a pair of socks headed for Goodwill and a run-over key.

Then there was this,

Is this guy saying watching grass grow will be more exciting than the Seahawks this season?

Nine weeks and counting.

 

August 18th, 2018 – Riverside Drive.

We got off to a slow start this morning with some equipment problems but soon hit our stride.  There was a lot of trash down the hill and on Riverside Drive.  We collected 46 cans, which is far below our record of 69 cans for a single walk.  We flung a bat, a rabbit and a snake.  We came across another rabbit but it was too flat to fling.  The bat was technically not roadkill.  When I started to pick it up, it moved.  I nudged it to the side of the road and it gave me a fierce-looking bat face with fangs.  We left it alone.  On the way back when the light was better, we couldn’t find it.  Either something else got it or it was just stunned and took off.

We found four pennies, all in one spot.

We found evidence of the McLitterers on the way down the hill.

These McDonald’s bags always have the same trash inside.  Refer to earlier posts.

We found a condom box with one left.

Must have run out of steam.  We found a work glove and three rubber gloves.

No, they were not near the condom.

We found another dime bag and two halves of an unmatched Easter egg, no candy though.  We found a tennis ball that was laughing at us and too far gone for our ball collection.  Also, a VW hubcap that ended up in the first recycle bin we passed.

This being riverside drive, we found,

What? No large wine bottles.  I think this is a first for the Riverside Drive walk.  However, to make up for it, we found a bunch of beer bottles.

There was a lot of trash in this area.  These were near the construction of a new Luxury Gun Club.  We think the construction workers are the culprits.

We found two bags of trash and a wheel that were thrown into the bushes.

We sorted the trash into recycle and trash and left the wheel.  I will notify the City of Bothell to pick it up.

We did find some underwear but are not counting it in our underwear tally.

They appeared to fit a three-year-old.

You Got Mail!

We found some more stolen mail.  All was junk except for a wedding invitation.  It looked like a nice wedding at Columbia Winery and we had an invitation, but we put the back together and placed it in the addressee’s mailbox on the way back.

“Soliciting and/or Distribution of Literature Prohibited”.

And is punishable with the loss of your hat.

While we were walking toward the city limits, a barricade rental truck placed cones down the middle of the street.  There was a 10K Fun Run planned and on the way back, we saw several people in vests to control traffic at intersections.

I asked this person since we were on the road could we get credit for the fun run.  She laughed and told me that some guy ran over one of the cones and it got stuck under his car.  He stopped, got out and removed it.  He threw it in her direction and cursed at her.  Nice guy.  I said it must have been her fault.  10K is about 6 miles.  We walked 8.5 miles today.  We should get credit.

Thank you bag.

There was a Toyota parked in front of the apartments on 112th Ave NE for a few days a week ago and when they moved on, they left some trash that we picked up.  This week, we noticed the car there again and this bag.  It had human feces in it.  It’s bad enough picking up doggie bags, but people bags?  Give us a break.

Also, we noticed the abandoned bicycle in front of the apartments had disappeared and were happy someone took responsibility for it.  It is now back in place.

Someone’s idea of taking responsibility was throwing it in the bushes.  We drug it out and put it back.  Another thing for the City of Bothell.

Other random things we found are, an old linchpin, a couple of large nuts, a flat tire waiting-to-happen, a tire weight and something I can’t identify.  The four pennies were mentioned earlier.  On to the next week.