Airing our Dirty Laundry

June 3rd, 2019 – Safeway Route.

There was a lot of trash this morning which made for a relatively long walk.  We didn’t receive any honks but got several waves.  We flung a squirrel and a rat.

We also flung a crow. Before we removed it, we made sure none of its friends were around.  We didn’t want to be blamed for its demise.

We moved a large moth off the street, but didn’t count is as a fling. It’s a Polyphemus Moth.  Thanks Google.

We did find more money. A shiny quarter.

Two balls. One was by the KinderCare.  It was flat but we returned it anyway.  The other is now in our ball collection.

Two Coors Light cartons not far from each other. But only one bottle.  The others will probably show up eventually.

Three rubber gloves. The ones on the left are a pair.  A guy probably accidently lost the one on the right when he threw his cigarette butt out the window.

Three dog poop bags. Not sure what the iPhone did to the image on the left, but there are two bags there.  Trust us.

Unopened package of 32 sheets of decorative computer paper.  We’ll find a use for it.

We picked up a lost, lost cat sign. 

We saw an old friend. We first found this on December 26th, 2018 and tossed it into the bushes, but somehow it got out again.  It lay in plain sight until today when we tossed it into the bushes again.  If it returns, we will stay away from it.  We’ve see those Zombie movies.

Another hubcap. A Subaru this time.  It was broken so got recycled.

At the top of the Tolt Pipeline, we found several discarded items.  Another Butane refill canister. Premium North Sea butane.  Normal butane is C4H10.  Maybe with premium, but get an extra hydrogen atom? C4H11?  Also “Buy 1 Get 1 Free!”  We looked for the other one but no dice.

Several nitrous oxide cartridges to get high on. Ok, it was near the high point of Norway Hill.

It must have worked because when the guy got high, he forgot a sock,

And a hat. College Pro?  Yes, the same company that plants those yellow signs everywhere.  We’ve harvested several when they fall.

We saw more trash in the bushes by the Safeway driveway. A bag of apples, a six-pack of water, a milk drink, two snack bars and a cup of Cheez-its.  All unopened.  We have seen people begging for handouts there.  We think they want money and when they get food, they dump it in the bushes.  We placed them in a trash can at the Safeway Gas Station.

June 4th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

We got a honk from Mr. Handyman and a wave from Salinas Construction.  We also flung a rat that was in very bad shape.  We could tell it was a rat only by the tail.

We have been leaving the house a little later on the park-and-ride days to try to better time the busses.  We like to cross the busy intersection with the bus and have the bus stop cleared out before we arrive.  Today it backfired.

On the way to the intersection, we found a large piece of cardboard. It was part of a bicycle carton and took some time to slice into small enough pieces to fit into our bags.  We missed the bus.

At the bus, we came to this scene. An abandoned backpack.  We’ve seen this kind of thing in the past and it’s probably stolen, pilfered and left. There were some uneaten and partially eaten snack foods and some clothing.  We picked up the trash and disposed of it and larger food items.  The bag was cumbersome so we left it in the park-and-ride lot and picked it up with the car later.  The bag and the clothes are headed for Goodwill.

In the bag were some alcohol wipes and the orange cap of a syringe like we often find. Both were probably provided by our tax dollars through King County.

Also at the park-and-ride, we picked up about 25 of these.  The Relaxing Station in Bothell, walk-in only, no appointments.  These were probably placed on the windshields of the parked cars.  Picking them up was not very relaxing to us.  However, they offer a foot massage.  We may look into that.

More rubber gloves.  The one on the left was found behind the bus stop on Juanita Woodinville Way and the other behind the bus stop at the second bus stop at the park-and-ride.  What goes on at these bus stops anyway?

A rubber balloon. Fun Party Zone!  It didn’t look too happy, to us.

More apartment parking space wars.  This could get ugly.  Apparently, the car owner didn’t think the sticky note was his either since he threw it out the window.

We found two audio cassettes.  One was smashed to pieces and unreadable, let alone playable.  This one looks playable.  Is it Tim Coyne – Bar! or Tim Coyne – Bari?  The is a Tim Coyne Quartet, but they are centered around Ohio.  Bari is in Italy.  We’ve been there and nobody mentioned Tim Coyne to us.  Now if we could only find that old cassette player… [addition] We listened to the tape and it sounds more like a modern barber shop quartet group.  Still no use to use.  In the trash.

Someone planted a planter in the plants next to a plantation. Ok, we are lying about the plantation.  But the rest is true.  Really.

We filled our second jar of pop tabs since we have been keeping track. If you want to know the story, see here.  We emptied the jar on November 3rd of 2018.  This jar weighs 1.33 pounds which, according to Google is about 1685 pop tabs.  This gives us a TrashWalking total of 3500 tabs or about 9 cans per day.  Okay, we may have added a few ourselves.

June 5th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Traffic seemed lighter and we didn’t see any of our usual honkers this morning.  Janet flung a rat.  True to form, she attempted to fling it over a low cyclone fence and it got caught on top.  She retrieved it and succeeded on the second try.

The city of the  Bothell mowed about half of Norway Hill so we picked up a lot of uncovered cans, mostly shredded.  There are stumps and rocks in the ditches and we wondered what kind of blades could survive the mowing.  Later in the day, the mower passed our house and we saw the “blades.”  This mower is called a Flail Mower for obvious reasons.  No way an aluminum can would survive.  Our ferns didn’t either.

However, we found some balls. The two on the left were outside the KinderCare and looked familiar.  We tossed them back over the fence.  If they reappear, we will leave them at their front door.  The basketball and the golf ball were in the mowed ditch.  They somehow survived the flail mower.

More rubber gloves. Only one was found at a bus stop.

Sucker! 

Someone lost a sweater. It’s headed for Goodwill.

At the Tolt Pipeline, we found a Lolli & Pops Mason Jar. This is one of their refillable products.  Guess someone wasn’t interested in a refill.  It is refilling our recycle bin.

This is either a wrap or a very old burrito. Either way, it didn’t taste good so went into the trash.

We found a sunglass. It didn’t make a spectacle of itself.  Nice clouds, though.

A week ago, we saw a sign that had been hit by a car.  Bothell fixed it, so that’s a good sign.  Get it?  “Good Sign?”

The parking wars continue.  It may be the apartment managers from yesterday.  Same litterer, though.

We found some contents of Kyle’s wallet. We were able to track him down through the Internet and return the cards.  Maybe we should have kept the $50 gift card.  He wouldn’t have known.

Oh, and Kyle got some ink. We don’t know what it was or where he got it.  And we don’t want to know.

$400 for a tattoo?  Wonder what Michelangelo got for the Sistine Chapel?  According to this site, he was paid an equivalent of $78,000 in today’s dollars.  According to this site, the most expensive tattoo today was $924,000.  Where are our values?

This is a first for us.  A whoopee cushion.  Are these things still around?  Guess bathroom humor never dies.

After the mowing, we picked up another empty package of American Spirit cigarettes. Inside we found an empty dime bag and a straw.  Someone is selling dope kits for dopes!

Someone’s not playing with a full deck.  

It may be the person who left this.  A used diaper dumped in the bushes.  They probably own a dog, too.  Great.  TrashWalking.blog parenting tip:  Teach your child to quit using the bushes before high school.  Don’t let them make the same mistakes you did.

 

June 6th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

Today was another cool day that started out clear but switched to a dark overcast by the end of our walk.  The rest of Norway Hill was mowed today uncovering lots of trash.  We also flung a rabbit and got a wave from Salinas Construction.

Salinas Construction. One day a while back, this guy pulled over and gave us the vests we both wear on our walks.  Thank you.

At the Park-and-Ride, a bus pulled up next to us. The driver asked what we were about.  We explained we were getting exercise and picking up trash.  She said she sees us often and wondered about it.  She also said this is one of the cleanest park-and-rides around.  Thank you.

With the hill mowed, we ventured down into Gatorade Gulley.  The mower did not go to the bottom of the gulley so there were still a lot of weeds hiding stuff.  We got very little trash out of it. The Muscle Monster bottle was full of cigarette butts.  We may need to rename the gulley since Gatorade has fallen from favor.

Someone went camping at Deception Pass. Three days of camping for $135?  That seems pretty steep.  Also, it says Please Retain, not Please Litter, you yoyo.

Someone used the Bubble Truck to wash their windows. Is spewed bubbles the entire time they were working.  Now everyone needs their windows washed.

Somebody REALLY, REALLY wanted us to pick up this candy wrapper. We’re pretty sure SDM stands for Salvage Discarded Material #4.  Although hard to miss, we have yet to see the other three items.

Finally, this is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, and the beginning of the defeat of Nazi Germany.  Every person in the free world should be aware of the sacrifices of the men who participated in that event.  It was horrific.  Watch this.

We also remember the men and women who served during World War II.  Thank you for your service and sacrifices!

 

June 7th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Today threatened rain, but it failed to happen.  Fortunately we didn’t put on our rain gear because we would have overheated for nothing.  We got a honk from Mr. Handyman and flung a small mole and a medium-sized rabbit.

At the KinderCare, we found a ball. We threw it back.

Someone had to eat and run. Sure, leave us to wash the dishes.

But we did find two gloves.  One rubber glove to protect our delicate hands and the other to handle the tough burned-on food.  Ok, there was no burned-on food on this pasticware.  But there could have been.

DeJa Vue. Another lost lost-Luna sign.

We found a box of sprinkler parts that escaped a truck.  We will watch the Next Door website for any reports in the area.  If no one reports this missing, we will donate the contents to our sprinkler guy.

Another irresponsible dog owner. What a surprise.

Nicotine warning notice. From the number of cigarette butts we pick up, these messages have done little good.  We like Italy’s tactic of graphically showing the results of smoking.  Of course, that also appears to have done little good.

We found a landscaper’s card in this very overgrown yard. They should probably find a better place to advertise.  And litter.

At the soon-to-be-renamed Gatorade Gulley, we found more debris uncovered by the mowed weeds and reduced vegetation. Some was old, but some fresh.  No Gatorade bottles.

We found a water bottle.  It’s in pretty good condition and headed for the Goodwill.

Someone over-filled their garbage can.  Some critter got into it and made a mess.  We debated leaving it so the owners would learn, but in the end we picked it up.  Fortunately (or unfortunately), they also threw away some empty plastic bags we used to stuff the loose trash into.

Along our walk, we began hearing a couple of crows making a lot of noise.  Then a third crow joined in.  We saw a crow on the ground under some trees. It was standing, but not moving.  When we took this picture, the other three crows were getting very excited, so we left it alone.  Later in the day, we passed by in the car and the crow appeared to have died.  R.I.P.

 

June 8th, 2019 – Riverside Drive.

During the week, the mowers visited Riverside Drive uncovering a lot of trash.  As a result, this was one of the longest walks – over four and a half hours.  We left some bags under the freeway and picked them up later with the car.  At some points, there was so much trash we had to leave it.  This is where a motorhome was parked for several weeks.  Thank you. 

However, we got a very nice “thank you” from a jogger. He stopped and talked for a couple of minutes.  He asked if we did this for fun.  Janet almost said “yes, we like picking up trash,” but caught herself.  We appreciated the thank you.

And, we found more money. Twenty six cents.  They were not together, so two different finds.

We collected two pieces of clothing. A tee-shirt and a woman’s sweater.

This week we got quite a wardrobe. Three shirts, a sweat jacket, a pair of pants and a cap.  Lots of laundry to wash and send to Goodwill.  We did find a sock today, but it ended up in the trash.

Oh, and rubber gloves. Six, count ’em, six!

Of course, what walk would be complete without a full dog poop bag? Left by an irresponsible dog owner.

Another fork for our used silverware collection. 

And another ball for our ball collection. 

A few weeks back we came across this on a river access road. We notified King County and they indicated they would take care of it.

Today, we found they had cleaned up the area. Kind of.

This really teed us off. 

Another cigarette package with only a couple of cigarettes gone.  At about fifty cents per cigarette, this pack is worth about $9.  Now if we can find someone to buy it from us.  Hey, half price!

Mike Bielecki Baseball Card. According to this site, in near-mint condition, the card is worth thirty four cents.  The card is not close to mint condition.  We probably need to hold onto it for a while.

We picked up a Kohl’s garment bag. Either these people can’t read or can’t follow instructions.  The bag clearly states to “Please return to any Kohl’s store for recycling,” not “Please toss out the window for Chuck and Janet to pick up.”

It’s a good thing we know how to navigate our routes.  This would be no help at all.

Someone bought six Guppies and a Lucky. We have no idea what a Seas Lucky is, but it is the most expensive item on the receipt.  They also did not make a donation, probably the Guppy Replenishment Fund.

Another hubcap. Well, bits and pieces of one.  The bigger pieces were recycled.

Another car air freshener tossed out with a cigarette butt.

And another loser. Gnome me the money?  Does that make any sense at all?

It’s a little late for us to be finding this. 7 years and 38 days late to be exact.  It was cracked so we don’t know what’s on it.  Music? Photos?  Margarita Recipes?

Optimum Extracts. Pure CO2 Cannabis Oil. “Keep Out of Reach of Children.”  What about adults who act like children with no regard for the environment.

More drug litter. A bag from the Higher Leaf dope shop in Kirkland with packaging and a receipt.  The receipt shows a purchase of a Super Lemon Haze Vaping Cartridge – $18 for 0.5 grams.  We would need to be in a haze to buy this.

We found a small needle in the gutter. But we completely missed the haystack.

LOLI (Litterers of low intelligence.) When the instructions state “Throw on Ground” they mean the torpedoes, you numbskull, NOT THE BOXES!

We came across a slug playing a very slow game of poker.  

It had a Jack of Spades.  That beats our Ten of Diamonds we found earlier in the week.  One thing we can be sure of, it doesn’t have anything up its sleeves.  And won’t be trying to pull a fast one.