Upon Further Reflectors

February 19th, 2019 – Park and Ride Route.

Today was another midday walk.  It was 40F and we walked in a light drizzle the entire time.  There has been a lot of snow melting and we found more snowplowed reflectors.

We also found two gloves.  One was signaling Victory!  The other was showing what it thought of it.

We saw another Rockstar logo. This one was not a decal like yesterday, but on a discarded can like we normally see it.

At the Park and Ride, we came across an abandoned bicycle. It was probably stolen and the thief made their getaway by bus.

We found another hubcap. Toyota.  It doesn’t fit ours.

We found some more remnants of the storm. We found three separate sets or broken tire chains.  We left them and will pick them up later with the car.

We found another spoon. It is in our found utensils collection.

We also found a needle. Yes, we wear gloves.

Could it be? Signs of Spring?

We have been walking and picking up trash for nearly four years now and this is a first. Someone drove by and gave us the bird.  We have no idea.

February 20th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

For the first time in a while, we ventured out at our normal time of 5:30 AM, flashlights in hand.  This time we were able to do the full route though some sidewalks were still dicey.  As the snow continues to melt, we keep finding more of the road reflectors scraped up by the snow plows.

We found yet another set of broken tire chains. These may be from the busses that travel this route.

More lost or discarded gloves. 

We found another lost gas cap. This was in the gutter next to the Safeway gas station.

We found a dime bag. It would be ironic if it contained cocaine.  A bag of “snow” in the snow.

February 21st, 2019 – Park and Ride Route.

It was too cold to walk this morning so we walked this afternoon.  The sun was out and the temperature had warmed to 43F.  The street sweepers had swept a good part of our route and we picked up three bristles that it shed.

At the park and ride, we found a bus pass someone had lost so we took it to one of the busses that was parked waiting to start its next run.  We showed the pass to the driver through the closed door. He opened the door and asked what was wrong with the stop?  He thought we were trying to get early access to the bus.  We explained we found the pass and he laughed and said he would turn it in.

We did find a dirty quarter. We added it to our found money mug.  Maybe we could’ve used it to get on the bus?

We found a pair of doggie bags left by irresponsible pet owners. One was at the bottom of the Tolt pipeline and the other was at the top.  Perhaps we should ban dogs from the Tolt pipeline trail.  Or at least their owners.

we came across this note. We have found a few of these types of notes.  They probably don’t help.  It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing.  It wastes your time and annoys the pig.  No, the note was not on our car.

Creative litterer?We almost missed it!

We found another offering from the McLitterers. This one was behind a concrete barrier on 112th Ave NE.  It had all the normal contents, but had some unopened jams and no syrups.  These guys are branching out.

We came across this. There have been a lot of tree branches down due to the snow, but if the snow caused this, it deserves to be down instead of being held up by a bungy cord.  Also, there is no yellow curb here.  The curb is red.  We should’ve removed the bungy.

We found this mirror and got a partial self-portrait. It seems some object got a little too close.

Finally, we ventured down into Gatorade Gully. We found four Gatorade Butt-Bottles, three old balls and a Bud Light can in a pear tree.

Strangely, the ball next to the Gatorade Butt-Bottle is the one that we lost a few days ago.

 

February 22nd, 2019 – Safeway Route.

This morning was predicted to be very cold, so we slept in and walked in the afternoon.  BIG MISTAKE!  It turned out the predictions were inaccurate.  The temperatures were in the low-to mid thirties and the weather was clear.  When we started our walk around noon, a front came through and the wind increased along with rain.  We even got snowed on over Norway Hill. It really was a miserable walk.

However, someone left us some food for the walk. These were both unopened.  The Sweet ‘n Salty Mix was Gluten Free and the Green Beans were microwaveable.  Perhaps that is why they were discarded.

But they did not leave us anything to drink.  Both were empty.  Margaritas?  These were found outside the fence of a church.  Communion?  Perhaps we need to switch churches?

We found three more dog balls. 

No, we are not going to get into that discussion.  Two of them were outside a house fence so we threw them back.  This one was across the street from Safeway and was added to our ball collection.

We retrieved someone’s ear protectors. “Stay safe out there.”  “What?”

We saw this well-worn sign post. 

Obviously a veteran of many garage sales.  The arrow is a good efficiency feature.  Whatever it is, its this way.

We found this near the air pump at the 7-Eleven. We figured that someone was filling the air in their tires when someone attempted to kidnap them.  The kidnapper wore rubber gloves and tied the victim’s wrists with the zip-tie.  He then sedated the victim with the substance in the red bottle.  The victim awoke, had a pocket knife, cut the zip-tie and escaped.

Or maybe it was just a bunch of trash.

February 23rd, 2019 – Riverside Drive.

Due to the snow and cold temperatures we missed our Saturday route along Riverside Drive the two previous weeks.  We thought there would be a lot of trash and we were right.  To complicate matters, there were many more of the Bott’s Dots road reflectors.  We left the house at 5:30 AM and got back at 11:00 AM.  It was a long, hard walk for us.

We found the reflectors all along the walk.  We started out leaving neat piles of them and by the end we were collecting as many as we could handle and dumping into fewer large piles. The biggest piles were left by the City of Bothell barricades.  They should pick them up.

Many of the reflectors were newly uncovered by the melting snow.  At one point along the walk, we passed a huge pile of snow created by the snowplows. It was taller than us.  We shudder to think how many reflectors it contains.  The gift that keeps on giving.

We found a security warning sign. It was probably stolen.

We found an inordinate number of gloves. None of them matched each other.

We also found another type of glove. Fortunately, there was not a matching one for this either.

We also found a wrapper for an adult device. It had helpful instructions on the reverse side.  We’re not going to explain it.  Look if up if you are so inclined.

This mattress is still in the street. It’s been here over a month now.  We guess we need to report it to the City of Bothell.  It’s not like they haven’t seen it.  They spent enough time scraping the reflectors off the street.

We found a pair of keys. Then about 40 feet down the road we found a lock.  And they match!  This is called a pin lock and is used to secure trailer hitches.

On the way toward the Bothell City limits, we were overloaded with both trash and recycling.  We had two larger bags with us and unloaded both of our bags into them. This worked well.  We continued to the City Limits and on our return past the bags, we again unloaded everything.  Later, we went back with the car and retrieved them.

We found another license plate. It got recycled.

Then we found yet another license plate. And the bumper, the front grill and other miscellaneous wreckage.  And it’s obviously not a BMW.

We also found a VW car emblem. No license plate, though.

Someone left two separate batches of food for us. Prepared Right Here. We didn’t eat it because we didn’t want anything that was prepared where we found it.

Someone left two bottles at the Sammamish River Park. But they were empty, none for us.

However, under the freeway, we found a Tequila bottle. It was half full.

We found this trash in a ditch. A bag from the Bud Hut with five, 300 mg packs of cannabis and a High Drate Pomegranate, Blueberry and Acai juice to quench their thirst.  Oh, it also included 100 mg of THC.  And this person was driving.  Maybe that was his license plate and grill we found.

Finally, as we trudged the last 100 feet to our home, someone left us a balloon to cheer us up. But it was deflated.  Just like us.