They’re Baaack and Butter Than Ever!

October 14th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

We had a comfortable walk this morning with lighter-than-usual traffic, probably due to it being Columbus Day.  We got a few waves but no honks.  It seems people don’t feel as appreciative when we aren’t suffering from the cold.

We thought we found a roadkill mouse.  But it wasn’t.

Every so often, we find grocery carts along our route, usually Safeway, but sometimes from  other stores.  We return the Safeway carts to the Safeway lot.  For the others, we notify the store and eventually they magically disappear.  Today we found two stray Safeway carts that we pulled back to the Safeway parking lot.  Of course, they had litter in them.  A can, a shopping receipt and a bicycle seat?  We checked but couldn’t see where the seat would attach.  Perhaps a bicyclist lost it, but he would have had a very uncomfortable ride home.  We picked up the trash but left the seat in the cart.

Near the 7-Eleven, another lost gas cap. Lost, even though it was a locking cap.  This is an aftermarket Stant gas cap available on Amazon for $12.50.  So this is at least the second time the guy lost a gas cap.  Perhaps he will consider one with a tether like this one.  But it’s twice the price.

A child’s ballet slipper.  She’s probably a goody-one-shoe.  Baby needs a new pair of shoes.  This will be a small shoe to fill.  Need we go on?  Such an easy target.

Someone tossed an almost-full can of whipped cream.  Wait.  Make that Whipped Topping with “Natural Flavor Added?”  What’s natural flavor?  Cream?

We found a small plastic bag in the 7-Eleven parking lot.  It looked like it contained two wads of hardened gum, one black and one white.  It ended up in the garbage.  Nope, we weren’t interested enough to open it.

We found a nice bracelet.  Not expensive, but nice.  We put it with the other jewelry we’ve found.  When the time comes, we’ll pass it down to our sons with our other family jewels.

At the top of Norway Hill at the Tolt Pipeline, we found more tossed Q-tips.  We found others with the drug paraphernalia last week.  Doing some Googling (in private, of course) we found several articles noting that Q-Tips were a sign of heroin use.  Maybe they apply alcohol with them before shooting up.  Just guessing.

On the way up the hill, we found a discarded Woodinville Whiskey bottle.  We’ve been to a tasting at the distillery and it is very good whiskey, but a bit pricey at $37 a bottle.  Hey, our litterers are not the cheap kind.  The bottle alone, without the contents was very heavy so got deposited at the next available recycle bin.

Then we found this. An unopened bag of paver sand.  We don’t know what the drug users would do with this.  However, it’s about a half cubic foot or 50 pounds.  No way.  We left it and MAY get it with the car.  We do have some paver stones, fittingly underneath our garbage cans.

We found a women’s shirt.  We won’t speculate on how she lost her shirt.  “I’m bossy, open-minded, sensitive, honest.”  Except for the first attribute, this applies to both of us.  However, it IS a woman’s shirt.

 

October 15th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

Yet another comfortable walk today but with a lot of traffic and considerable trash.  We removed a roadkill raccoon.  Since July, 2017, counting this one, we’ve only removed six raccoons.  Now we have found two within the last week.  Let’s hope it’s not a trend.  They are heavy.

We didn’t find any money again, but did get two honks.  At one point while waiting for traffic to clear to cross the street a woman stopped to let me cross.  It took me by surprise and I gave her a wave and walked quickly across. As she slowly rolled by she yelled a “Thank you” out the window.  The vehicle behind her happened to be the Salinas Construction truck we wave to.  For a long time, we got honks from Mr. Handyman and suddenly we quit seeing him.  We finally called his office and they reluctantly told us he retired.  Good for him.

On the way to the park-and-ride, we found several automotive inspection sheets scattered along the way.   

When we got to the freeway ramp, we found the motherlode.

It was a book of the forms that had been dropped and the passing cars were methodically tearing them out, one-by-one, to be carried away by the traffic.

Also on the way to the park-and-ride, we found part of another gas cap that was run over. Then, on the way back, we found the other part of it.  We glued it back together before recycling.  [We’re kidding] 

We found a few things that probably fell off workers’ trucks.  Another bungee cord.  It was run over but still had some elasticity, so it went into our bungee cord collection.

A roll of duct tape.  It was pretty beat up and ended up in our garbage can.  We know, MacGyver would have used it.

And, finally, a PEX elbow.  But we don’t have PEX in our house.  We tossed it into our random found hardware collection.  You can’t just recycle something new.

We also found some hedge trimmers.  The blades were stuck in the dirt by the side of the road with the handles in the air.  Unfortunately, they had also been run over and destroyed.  They ended up in a recycle bin.  They just couldn’t cut the mustard.  Well, maybe mustard.

We found a Bell bicycle seat cover. Dang!  We should have kept the bicycle seat we found yesterday.  The memory foam cover would have made all the difference.  Does the memory foam remember whose butt was on it last?

On the way up Norway Hill, we found more Taco Time Tokus trash.  Extending their lead to be King of the Hill over the no-show McLitterers.

This belongs in Gatorade Gully.  It is filled with cigarette butts, butt [sic] it isn’t a Gatorade bottle.  And it isn’t in Gatorade Gully.  What’s the world coming to?  Anarchy reigns.

There is another gully on our route, so far unnamed, that sometimes has random trash tossed into it, but lately, it’s been Bud Light cans.  It’s work for us to descend into the gully so, we’ve learned to wait until we can see at least five cans.  Today we descended.  Seeing five, we expected ten cans, but only found nine.  The black one is a Seahawks branded Bud Light can, so we will count is as two.  It must be the center because it’s on the line slightly ahead of the others.  Could they be headed for the Bud Bowl?

At the top of the hill, we were treated to a nice sunrise.  Well, it was fifteen minutes before sunrise, but we weren’t willing to stick around.

And our big news, our new shoes arrived.  Our seventh pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS’s since we’ve been walking. The shiny new pair on the left have zero miles on them.  The old pair on the right have 848 miles and will get recycled.  Hmm, how many miles do we have on us?  According to Garmin, our total distance is over 7900 miles.  This is worrying.  We don’t know how long until we get recycled.

 

September 16th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Today was warmer with rain.  Not ideal, but much better than cold and rain.  When it’s raining, we are in the habit of wringing out the litter before putting it in our bags otherwise our bags get very heavy.  Bet not many people say “we wring out our litter.”

We found relatively little litter which made for a quick walk.  We didn’t get any honks today but waved to some of our regulars including the Northwest Medical Linen Supply driver.

It really ticks us off when we see evidence of parents teaching their kids to litter.  Our ire passed quickly as we were pacified.

Some truck lost an expensive-looking part.  A quick-connect plug about three inches by 1.5 inches in diameter.  It had a wire tether that failed.  It’s probably expensive, but got recycled.

At the Kindercare, a ball had escaped the fence.  The toys are getting scarcer as the weather gets colder.  We tossed it back.

We saved four drivers from flat tires.  Or maybe someone’s job.

• Due to the nail the tire was lost.
• Due to the tire the Uber was lost.
• Due to the Uber the ride was lost.
• Due to the ride the day was lost.
• Due to the day the job was lost.

No matter.  He didn’t like working in the nail factory anyway.

 

October 17th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

Today was a warm 51F, but felt colder because of breezy conditions with a light off-and-on rain.

We came across a roadkill salamander in the gutter.  We went to pick it up, but it skittered away from us.  A very lively roadkill.  Chuck dove in and picked it up by its tail to return it to the meadow whence it came.  However, he missed it and looking back, it was scurrying into the busy Juanita Woodinville Way.  Again, we grabbed it, this time less delicately, and placed it deep into the bushes.  So, not a roadkill removal, but a save…  We think.  Salamander Zombies?

This was a rather strange trash day.  We found the normal amount of trash for today except for some strange stuff near our house.  As we left on our walk, we glanced up the road that we normally return home from and found a respirator. Janet continued down the road while I retrieved the respiratory.  The respirator and filters are about $43 on Amazon.  I walked back to the house and left it in the driveway.

A little farther down the road, we found some Japanese artwork.  Again, Chuck walked it back up to the corner and left it to be picked it up later.  It turned out to be priceless, because we couldn’t find it for sale on the Internet.  Something else to hand down to our kids.

By now, Janet was well ahead of me when I found another item, within a hundred feet of our house.  An unopened flexible supply line.   I put this in my bag and continued with our walk.

Near the park-and-ride, we picked up a lot of torn-up insulation.  We stuffed most of it in the trash bin at the bus stop.

As we approached the bus stop shelter, a lone rider we often see was standing on a Woman’s Day Magazine on the ground.  We asked if we could pick it up.  He looked from is phone, surprised and stepped back.  We didn’t mean to startle him.

The top of Norway Hill was pretty clear of trash except for the firecrackers.  We would have lit them up, but we didn’t have one of those disposable lighters we find.  Also they were soaking wet.  The crowd waiting for the fireworks were getting restless.

Near the top of the Hill, we found a tool case. It was empty, but had contained a Disc Brake Caliper Tool Set.  We’ve done many brake jobs on our cars, mostly drum brakes, but some discs.  We’ve never heard of this tool.  They probably also wear rubber gloves when they work on cars.  Sissies.

As we rounded the corner nearing home, we started picking up thick pieces of glass, then some plastic and little metal.   Across the road was this.  Someone lost their blender.  It probably contained their morning margaritas.

Then we found two bags of crumbling foam material. One bag was still sealed, but the other had broken open and we spent a few minutes picking the mess up.  We’r sure it wasn’t memory foam, but we’ll remember it.  

 

September 18th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

It was 45F today with no rain.  There was light traffic and light trash.  In fact, we probably picked up less than ten cigarette butts between us.  This is probably due to the overnight rain that washes them into the Puget Sound and the wind that dropped a lot of leaves that cover up the litter.

We saw five busses on our walk, got a honk from one and waves from three of them.  All very nice.  However, the best thing was an email we receive from a former coworker.  She sent us a link to a Facebook posting about an “elderly couple” picking up trash along Juanita Woodinville Way.  We want to find that elderly couple is so we can tell them to stay off our turf.

One of the first things we found was a pair of safety glasses that had been dropped on Juanita Woodinville Way.  They are BearKat BK110 safety glasses that looked pretty cool.  We’re glad the company that provides these to their workers are providing quality safety equipment.  Online, these are about a buck twenty apiece.  Cheap.

We also found a ball.  This is a good reminder to use quality eye protection while playing sports.  Well, but this is a wiffle ball.

We found another irresponsible pet owners litter.  This one was a 7-Eleven bag with the message “Please Reuse and Recycle”, not “Reuse and Litter.”  And especially not with these contents.

We found some smashed items on the road and collected them up. 

It looked like a casserole server base that had been flattened.  We found a similar one with Google, but not this one.  This one was going for a pretty penny on eBay.  But then again, it had not been run over.

Near the top of the hill, we spotted a McLitterer’s bag.  But on further inspection, it was obviously not the signature McLitterer’s bag.  Yes, we do know the difference.  We are professionally-trained trash practitioners.  As we sorted out the contents of the McDonald’s bag, we found this.  Is McDonald’s marketing a brand for their first McPot rollout?

 

October 19th, 2019 – Riverside Drive.

This morning we started our walk in the rain and the rain continued until near the end, four hours later.  We had our rain jackets on so we kept mostly dry.  We got a few waves and removed a roadkill rat and opossum.

Last week we didn’t find money and this week we hadn’t found any money, until now.  Today, the last day of our walk week, we hit paydirt.  One dollar!  It was a bit soggy, but so were we.  After we let it dry, we put it in our Walking Money Stein.  It’s probably getting time to count the money in the stein, but it’s depressing when we figure out our walking hourly rate.

This was the week in found gloves.  The two on the bottom were found today.  The ones on the left were found one inside the other and full of water.  I picked them up together and squeezed the water out of them.  One had a hole in the tip of a finger emitting a thin stream of water.  I had a flashback to milking a cow on my Grandparent’s farm in Mississippi.  It took a while to get that image back out of my head.

This was a depressing sight. Each year, to mark the start of the storm season, The City of Bothell places road closure equipment at four locations down the hill to close the road when trees go down or mudslides occur.  They will remove them at the end of the storm season in ten or eleven months.

Earlier this week, we were driving down the hill and saw a Volkswagen with the two right wheels stuck in the ditch.  Probably as a result, the City put two erosion control barriers in the ditch.  They were small, perhaps eight feet long and about three inches in diameter and had a cord to anchor them, but they weren’t tied down.  We figure they will be at the bottom of the hill by spring.

Closeby, we found bits and pieces of what turned out to be some hair clippers.  We figure the guy was driving his Volkswagen up the hill, giving himself a haircut when clippers snagged and he ended in the ditch.  He probably just missed the curve by a hair.

Oh, and maybe he was brushing his teeth also.  At least he wasn’t using his cell phone.

Or was he? 

We found an empty box for a Shibari Mini Halo “Wand”.   The person didn’t wait to get it home to open it.  Must have been an emergency.  Among the listed features on the box are,

• Wireless
  • Ok, we see no wires.
• USB rechargeable.
  • Good feature unless you are close to the destination.  Can’t just put in new batteries.
• 20x pulsations.
  • We’ll take your word for this.
• 8-speed motor.
  • 8 speeds times 20x pulsations is 160 combinations.  Guess you never get bored.
• 100% water resistant.
  • What does 100% resistant mean?  A sponge is 100% water resistant, it just has a low resistance.  

The person also tossed out the warranty.  Some of the warranty exceptions are,

• Damages from misuse, abuse and accident.
  • We need some definitions of terms.
• Damages from incorrect voltage.
  • Uh, it’s USB. 
• Damages from service from an unauthorized technician.
  • “Fred, we have a rush job at 2344 Blackberry Lane.”  
• Damages from improper installation
  • We don’t even want to think about this one.

By the way, does this count as distracted driving?  Hope she was careful not to end up in the ditch.  BTW, yes, you can buy anything on Amazon.  $28.

Last Saturday, we found a Lime Bike in distress in a ditch and reported it to the company.  They came back within an hour thanking us for the report and that they had notified their local team.  Today, it was still in the ditch. 

Guess they put their best man on it.  

But, maybe we are being too harsh.  Across the road from the ditched bike was a newly-placed bike stand. Perhaps Lime Bike company is preparing to send over a team on Lime Bikes to remove the bike.  Sorry, if we knew we would cause this much commotion, we would have pulled it out ourselves.

Also last week we noted that King County blocked the Sammamish River access road to prevent people from using it to dump trash.  We wondered how long it would take for someone to dump trash behind it.  We were wrong.  They dumped trash in front of it.

Down an embankment, we spotted three Budweiser cans and went down after them.  As usual, we found a bagful of other cans and random trash including a bunch of needles. Unlike most needles we find, these appear to be unused.  Not sure we would trust them, though.  They’ll get disposed of with the rest we’ve acquired.

Finally,

After several weeks of absence, the McLitterers made an appearance under the freeway.  A neatly-tied McDonald’s bag with two used but clean platters and two used tea bags.  Also, two sets of plastic utensils, two syrups and six butters, all unopened.  We should go back and count how many we’ve found, it’s well over fifty.