A Rewarding Week

June 10th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Today was a beautiful day for a walk.  Traffic started out light and gradually increased.  We got a wave from Mr. Handyman.  The last few times we’ve seen him, he has not honked.  Perhaps his horn is broken.

Janet flung a roadkill squirrel. It didn’t get caught on top of a fence or in a tree branch or anything.  She’s getting better, but still throws like a girl.

Then we almost flung another rat, but a crow swooped down and snatched it. It landed on a nearby shed and dropped the rat.  It had something to crow about.  It made us eat crow. [groan]

Another litterer. And also a loser to boot.  Next time just drop the five dollars.

Outreach to litterers.

Another dog’s ball. We found its rightful owner and returned it.

We started finding parts of something with plastic gears and a housing. It looked like parts of a watering timer, but after some Googling, it is a Frigidaire refrigerator timer.  It didn’t work, so why not toss it out the window?

Yet another painted rock. This must be a thing.  We are finding these on a regular basis.   We left it in place.

Yes, we need help. But we don’t think you’ll help with the littering.

The only glove we found today was in a Safeway shopping cart. We took the glove and returned the cart.

Now that the former Gatorade Gully has been mowed, it’s easy to see any trash. A Bud Light and a Monster Muscle Protein Shake.  The Monster bottle was full of cigarette butts, so the perpetrator has switched from Gatorade to Monster.  Gatorade Gully had such a nice ring to it.  We can’t think of a new appropriate name to go with these items.  Neither Bud Butte nor Monster Mountain work.  Litterer’s Lowland is too general.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

At one of the bus stops on our route, we found this. Some random trash, a green shawl, a Japanese-themed shirt and a lanyard.  The lanyard is from the Monticello Casino and Raceway in New York.  At least this guy didn’t lose his shirt there.

We found a free beer! This is a specific date and it’s at the Boundary Bay Brewery in Bellingham, WA.  That’s eighty miles away from us.  According to Google Maps, it would take us about 26 hours to walk there.  And we would have a ton of trash to pick up.  Yes, we know it’s a free beer, but pass.

Call 3M, here’s a new use for Post-It notes! A rolled-up Post-it note (straw) and another folded with some white power in it.  We’ve found a lot of drug paraphernalia including straws, aluminum foil and even a dollar bill straw accidentally tossed with a wad of aluminum foil.  This is the first powder we’ve found.  We think it’s powdered sugar.  No, we’re naïve, but not that naïve.

So, we found this. McDonalds Positions at $14 per hour, Open and Closing Positions at $15 per hour and Manager at $16 per hour.  We thought, what are we doing this for?  What is our hourly wage?

Then this happened.  A guy waved us down and said he sees us all the time and wanted us to have lunch on him.

He gave us two, twenty-five-dollar gift certificates. Obviously better than McDonalds.  Thank you so very much!  Nice car, by the way.

 

June 11th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

Another good morning to walk, though it could have been a bit cooler.  We know, we shouldn’t complain with the winter weather not long ago.  We got a wave from Salinas Construction and flung a snake.  The snake looked pretty dead, but we saw this article about a Zombie Snake in North Carolina.  We’ll keep an eye out to see if it returns.  If it does, we’ll quit walking or at least quit flinging snakes.

The first thing we found this morning was not one, but two dog poop bags at the bottom of the Tolt Pipeline. Team irresponsible dog owner competition.

At the park-and-ride, we found more of these cards.  There are too many to have dropped off car’s windshields.  Maybe they are opening another location at the park-and-ride.

We found a water bottle for Goodwill. 

Someone dropped the ball. It’s now in our ball collection.

More money! A penny saved is worth very little.  We gather them up anyway.

Another rubber glove. Again, behind a bus stop.  Perhaps we need to set up a camera there to find out what goes on.  Then again, maybe we don’t want to know.

Give us credit. This morning we found two credit cards, Kohls and Macys.  Different people and different places.  One was not even registered and the other had a very common name, so no way for us to track down the owner.  Shredded.

Aw, come on.  This is piling on. Guys, there’s room for more.

 

June 12th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

This was a warm morning at 62F.  We need to rethink our wardrobe.  We got a honk, albeit weak, from Mr. Handyman.  We also flung a young rabbit who obviously didn’t know the rules of the road yet, and never will.

Ok, guys, we were being sarcastic.  You didn’t need to add more stuff on this corner.  Sheesh.

We found more money! A penny for your thoughts.

Balls! A golf ball, a dog’s ball and a beach ball.  Good thing we didn’t find any more balls.  The next would probably be a bowling ball.

We found a giant Lego. Probably a knock-off, so it got recycled.  Did you know that more than 400 billion Lego bricks have been produced since 1958.  There are about 62 Lego bricks per person of the Earth’s population.  Ok, how many do you have?  How many have you tossed out the window?

Trash.  We found a lot of trash on Norway Hill today. A bag with six Mike’s Harder Lemonade and a half of a sandwich in a bag.  Probably drank too many Mikes to finish the other half of the sandwich.

Another bag of discarded lunch. Six tall buds and random trash including an almost full jar of Skippy peanut butter plus several more unopened or half-eaten food.

Oh, and also, one unopened Scope Breath Drops. Wouldn’t want your boss to think you were consuming all that alcohol on your lunch break.  You should have kept this last one.

Another tool for our found tool collection. A rare 11/32nd socket.  Ok, not so rare.  Or useful.

Another pack of mostly unused cigarettes not good for much. Except for littering, of course.

A drug syringe cap. We didn’t find the rest of the syringe, though.

We got an R magnet. We put it, where else, on our Refrigerator.  It’s a good thing it wasn’t a T magnet.  Our toilet is not magnetic.

We found a relatively-large cardboard box that needed to be cut up. “Starbuck’s Item.”  Great, not only do we need to pick up Starbuck’s cups, napkins and bags, they are upping the ante with Sopressata and Monterey Jack cardboard boxes.

Crow haven. Perhaps you need to think about more bins.  Is that a big, black plastic bag in the recycling?

This guy is happy to see the sun. We’ve talked before about Norway Hill’s Monster-under-the-Mailbox as an answer to the Fremont’s Troll-Under-the-Bridge.  He seems to have survived the winter well.

 

June 13, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

Today’s temperature was a very warm 62F, but the walk was comfortable.  We saw Mr. Handyman from across the street but he didn’t see us, so no honk.  We also got two random honks.  We did get a wave from Salinas Construction and our friend Vanessa plus several others we do not know.  People seem to get friendlier when it gets lighter.  This was the first day since last summer we did not take our flashlights with us.

The general trash was moderate including the continuing assault on Norway Hill including another bag of four Mike’s Harder Lemonade cans. There were also several more cans and other trash strewn along the road.

Julie, this is a nice piece of art. What’s the price?  Is it a cheapskate?

Also focusing on the feet, we found a shoe. But only one shoe, not a pair.  We left it where we found it in case it was dropped accidently.  If it’s there tomorrow, it headed for Goodwill.

Walking down NE 145th Street, we saw some small bright pink pieces of paper in the middle of the street.  When a break in traffic came, we retrieved them. Two more Post-it notes with white powder residue.  Like Monday, two more packets of cocaine in some form.  This is not a good turn of events.  Except, maybe, for 3M.

So while crawling down a hill to pick up some strewn McTrash on Norway Hill, Chuck fell through some thin branches and came face-to-face with this comforting scene.  A happy face.

Fortunately, it was not this happy face.

Fun movie, by the way.

 

June 14th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Today was a bit cooler.  We got a honk from Mr. Handyman and many waves from different people.  Juanita Woodinville Way was mowed even deeper uncovering even more trash.  We flung a Rabbit and, sadly, came upon a large pet cat that had been hit.  We pulled it off the road into the grass.  There was no collar so we  notified the Kirkland animal control.

There was more trash strewn on Norway Hill. It’s like they go out of their way to spread their trash as much as possible.

Yet more dog poop. 

And more rubber gloves. Again, two of these were at a bus stop.  Maybe a proctologist is giving free exams to bus riders?

We found this. It was lined up in single file.

Someone’s teeth guard. This guy is probably gnashing his teeth that he lost it.

This person got sent back to Prekindergarten. Too bad, he was a junior in high school.

Chuck picked up a cigarette butt in the middle of the street and tossed it into his garbage.  As he tossed it in, he smelled smoke.  He dug the cigarette out.  It was still burning.  Someone left a few puffs for us.  How thoughtful.

And this person left us several unsmoked cigarettes.  We really appreciate the chances you guys are giving us to start smoking, but we would feel silly smoking a cigarette, tossing the butt, then picking it up.

We found a hubcap. Well, this is the only part we found.  But we’ll count it. At least it was easy to carry.

We found several Post-it notes with this stamped on them. Some of them had two stamps.  This may be some kind of Quality Assurance stamp, but if it is, one on every note is overkill.

We have been finding the hot-pink Post-it notes with the white powder residue and today we found several chartreuse Post-its along the road.  We found no residue, though.  However, we did find vaping refuse. A large bottle of Ruby Red Ice E-Liquid, what ever that is.

Also, two of the biggest pot envelopes we’ve found. 

 

June 15th, 2019 – Riverside Drive.

Today was another nice walking morning with temperatures in the 50’s.  We got off to a bit of a rocky start as Chuck forgot his “Far Stick” and had to return to retrieve it.  After that, we reached our pace and ended up with a relatively fast walk.  It was a bad day for birds.  We flung two birds and a crow that had been hit by cars.  Also a large mole.

The very first thing we picked up was a glove.  We thought this was an ominous glove start, but we didn’t find any others.

Travelling down the hill toward Riverside Drive, we found a piece of stolen mail. The address was only about 50 yards down the road so we returned it to their mailbox.

As we continued, we picked up several more pieces of mail, all with Riverside Drive addresses.  We were able to redeliver all of the mail, including this one. It was the packaging for a prescription.  It had been opened and the contents were missing.  The thieves were probably looking for some “interesting drugs.”  We placed the packaging in the mailbox to let the owner know it had been ransacked.

Later, on our trip back up the hill, we found the contents in some bushes. Allopurinol.  This would do the mail thieves good if they had gout.  Anyway, the name on the bottle was very distinctive and, with the help of Google, we returned it to the owner.

Under the freeway we saw something red on the river access that the county partially “cleaned up.” Investigating, we found it was a bandana/do-rag.  But next to it was a shirt and a pair of pants.  They had been there a long time.  We placed them with the trash that King County didn’t take.

The intersection of the street we turn into downtown Bothell is where most car traffic turns right into Bothell and most bicycles, of which there are a lot, continue straight on Riverside Drive.  As we passed the intersection, two bicyclists were riding and talking to each other.  Evidently, they had not confirmed their route because when they reached the intersection, one turned in front of the other.   One cyclist went down, but fortunately was okay.  As we continued on our way, they were inspecting the bike.  When we came back on our return route, they were gone, so all’s well that end’s well.

At the parking lot we pass in Bothell, we have noticed more cars parked in the lot as nearby apartments are built.  The parking lot owner put up new signs at either end. This is 6 am on Saturday morning.  Okay, maybe these are customers who want to make sure they get a beer at the Hop and Hound when it opens at 11:00 am, five hours later.

We found someone’s PDA.  Hey, if an atomic bomb goes off, the Nuclear EMP won’t bother this.  Of course, the other effects may.

Another tool for our found tool collection. Yet another socket.  There were no markings, but three-eights, we think.  Nice condition.

A reusable cup. Well, Mimi lost hers, so it wasn’t.

Let’s get this over with.  Yes, it’s repetitive, like all the irresponsible pet owners.

Someone lost her mustache. Yes, she was better off for it.

Maybe this is why we are waking up too early.  We didn’t read this book, but perhaps its solution is to try to read this book every night until you fall asleep?

We found another lug nut. We’ve found one of the same type of lug nuts three days in a row now.  Someone’s in for a bad surprise.

Along Riverside Drive, we saw this.  Someone set up a small bird house.

When we went closer to get a better photo, we noticed the door of a small utility trailer was open facing away from the road. The trailer has been there for a few weeks.  We’re pretty sure someone’s living in it.

Money, money, money.  We found some change scattered in the grass. There was a total of sixty-two cents.

Then we also found a shiny quarter. 

We walked by a recycle bin with the lid open.  As we were closing it, we glanced in and saw something shiny. A penny!  We used our trash grabber to retrieve it.  Okay, we admit it.  We were dumpster diving.