Sunday, May 17th, 2020 – New Route
Nice walk this morning. We got out of the house early and, being Sunday, traffic was very light. We had a nice chat with a guy fueling his truck. He said he sees us walking all over the place and thanked us for picking up trash. A good start to the walk week.
Well now, this is also a nice start to the week.
We found money in four different locations. Thirteen cents! Six and a half cents per hour. We’re on a roll!
Then again, this tempered our spirits.
A lost nondescript hub cap early in our walk. To cap it off, it was in bad condition and we had to slog it over a mile to a recycle bin.
We found another cap that was much easier to carry.
Unfortunately, in much worse condition. You just can’t win.
We found yet another nitrous oxide whipped cream charger to get light headed.
These can cause harm and don’t provide any advantages. Well, perhaps one.
Maybe the guy got lucky.
We found a discarded mask.
It was dirty but in good condition. We could wash it and use it when we run our errands. Nope. Not a chance.
Monday, May 18th, 2020 – Safeway Route
Today was a beautiful morning for a walk, mostly sunny. Traffic seems to be on an increase and, as if to underscore the point, we removed a roadkill rabbit from the road.
Perhaps the admonishment last week about finding only one penny the entire week had an effect.
We found another nickel! That makes eighteen cents this week and we are only two walks into it.
We found a golf ball.
It was in the rough on Juanita-Woodinville Way about a mile from the nearest golf course. Great drive distance, but a terrible hook.
At the 7-Eleven is an overflowing clothing collection box.
We checked their website and they have several drop locations, but this one isn’t listed. Maybe they lost track of it. Anyway, if you need some clothes, check out the 7-Eleven.
A few walks ago, we came upon a woodpecker pecking at a crack in the sidewalk.
Since then, we’ve seen a few more that have been cleaned out and today we saw another woodpecker cleaning out this crack. If this becomes a trend, what would you call the bird? Cementpecker? Crackcleaner? While checking if this is common, we stumbled upon this.
Really? It comes in many “fragrances” but what is “Man Scent?” Hopefully not “but” with two t’s.
Someone’s Zucchini garden.
It obviously failed.
At the Safeway where the beggars stand, we found a bag in the bushes. Again.
Inside there was food, mostly uneaten and some personal toiletry items given by well-meaning folks to help out the needy. There was one empty container, though.
Obviously these beggars were not wanting food or essentials. Among the items was an aptly-named “Eau De Toilette.”
“With the compliments of Pan Am.” Pan Am went out of business almost thirty years ago in 1991. After some searching, we found that this was part of a complimentary freshen-up kit provided to first-class passengers.
This kit was on eBay for $30. So what we found today must be worth two dollars.
One time, on a business trip to Taipei on EVA Airlines, Chuck was bumped up to first class on a Boeing 747. He received, among other things, slippers and a sleep mask, but nothing like this kit. The seats were motorized and reclined to an almost flat position which was good for sleeping. Waking up with a guy next to you was not.
Tuesday, May 19th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride Route
Today, we didn’t find any money and didn’t come across any roadkill, but we picked up a lot of cigarette butts. Most of the time the butts are background annoyances but we go through periods when they rise to the point of irritating, like today. We’ll probably find out that this is yet another possible symptom of Covid-19.
Can you guess where we found these?
Hint: The name of this route is the “Park-and-Ride Route.”
We did find two wrenches today.
An Allen Wrench and a give-away wrench. Both were in good condition. Besides being rusty. And run over a lot. They made it into our tool collection. Our standards are pretty low.
A pot receipt.
$162.50 for 28 grams FTG Cherry Pie and 0.5 grams of PPD GDP Pax Pod. The Pax Pod is a cannabis oil.
The Cherry Pie is pot from Fainting Goat.
Yes, we too love the smell of “sweet and sour burnt cherry pie.” They have a long way to go to catch up with the descriptions of wine.
Last week, we found a fork in the road.
This week it is a spoon by the side of the road. Like the fork last week, we have used spoon puns too many times. We don’t want to spoon feed them to you. Although not flat, it’s in our flatware collection.
We went down an embankment to retrieve a Mike’s Hard Lemonade can and uncovered a Busch beer can.
It had obviously been there a while and was unopened. It seems to have lost it’s clarity. We should have checked its use-by date.
We found a hat in good condition.
Except that it had been run over, is very dirty and has “Marines” on it. Thinking about it, this is very appropriate. During the Viet Nam War, the Marines did the dirty work and were constantly being overrun. We will wash it and proudly add this to our found hat display. Thank you for your service.
Wednesday, May 20th, 2020 – Safeway Route
Another day without money and very light trash. Even the cigarette butt density seemed to be less. Overall, a boring walk.
We may have to buy stock in The Higher Leaf.
This person purchased a Water ‘Yer Melon Cartridge of marijuana extract. One site reviewed as,
“Hellavated’s Water ‘Yer Melon Cartridge is loaded with a sweet sativa extract with a rough vapor. The result is typically happy and balanced, but it takes quite a few hits to get there. You can keep this high activated by staying mobile, but it’s still short-lived when compared to other vapes. It can take the edge off after a harsh day, but it won’t do much if you’re already in a good mood.”
Not exactly a rave review. Only use this if you are in a bad mood.
A few weeks ago we noted that someone left a chair frame by a fence.
Today we found it caught a falling branch.
We found a sparkly ball though it does not look like it in the photo.
It was a Christmas ornament. A black Christmas ornament.
But the big find today was a roll of masking tape.
There was very little left.
And that’s about it. We told you it was going to be boring.
Thursday, May 21st, 2020 – Park-and-Ride Route
Today it rained during our entire walk, hard at first then turning to a heavy mist at the end. There was significantly more trash today that yesterday.
On the way to the park-and-ride, we came upon a crow feeding on a dead bird in the median of Juanita-Woodinville Way. As we approached, the crow flew up onto the telephone wire and watched as we removed it from the road and tossed it under a bush. So we now have yet another enemy in the crow rookery. So, what’s new.
We found some pairs of items this morning. First, money!
A pair of pennies. They were about a mile apart, so it probably wasn’t the same person.
We also found these about a mile apart.
A Lychee Ice vaping cartridge and it’s box. What are the chances we’d find both on our route. Are we being stalked?
The next thing we found was a couple of balls.
A nice dog ball and a respectable golf ball. Both are a welcome addition to our ball collection.
At the park-and-ride, the parties continued.
The eleven cans were found in three distinct P&R locations over two days since we last visited.
Yes, It’s a disposable mask.
But “disposable” doesn’t mean tossing out your window. We hope this wasn’t dropped by a First Responder. We do consider ourselves “First Refusers”, as in “Refuse,” discarded trash.
We found a very small bone.
No, this is not another penny, we placed it near the bone for the relative size.
Our thought was that a Lego Caveman bonked the sexy Lego Cavewoman on the head and dragged her off into the proverbial sunset, losing her Hair-Bone” in the process.
Ok, we found the match.
Her hair-bone looks looks exactly like the one we found. Is that a bump above the bone?
Friday, May 23rd, 2020 – Safeway Route
This morning was cool, dry and overcast. Traffic was light and the trash moderate.
The money is piling up this week.
The term piling up is probably too strong. It was a penny, but it made “cents” to pick it up.
We found some unopened ear plugs.
These will help protect our ears from all the traffic noise. Okay, we’ll hang onto them. The traffic is bound to return one day. Right, probably when they are all quiet electric vehicles.
This morning as we passed the sheltered bus stop on this route, someone was sleeping in it.
On our way back from Safeway, we passed him again on that side of the street. He was still there and stirred as we passed. There was a backpack and a McDonalds bag on the ground. We went on an errand later in the day and passed the bus stop expecting to some trash, but it appeared to be clean. Nice.
It figures. It wasn’t raining and we picked up an umbrella.
It was heavy and bulky, but we carried it home. It turned out to be in very good shape except that the handle was missing. But other than that, it was fine.
Someone at the top of Norway Hill is trying to give up smoking.
Three empty SYN pouch containers. Maybe they’re addicted to ZYN?
This is one of the weirdest beer cans we’ve found.
American Solera beef from Hoof Hearted Brewery in Connecticut. They seem to put a lot of effort into can art, and the beer is fairly highly rated. We may try it. But this is 12% ABV. Chuck doesn’t do well with high-octane ale.
Saturday, May 24th, 2020 – Riverside Drive
This morning was cool and misty for the most part but we got rained on for about the last half mile. We removed a squirrel, a rat and a snake. This week we removed a menagerie from the road: a rabbit, a squirrel, a rat, a bird, and a snake. These are also the most frequent animals we find.
We found a dime in pretty good condition.
This was a pretty good week for money at thirty-one cents.
We also found this.
We think this is an attempt by China to flood the U.S. with counterfeit silver dollars. They certainly did a poor job of it. The design is wrong and it’s made of plastic. Cripes, they even inscribed where it came from.
At the very beginning of our walk Janet found a golf ball.
And then lost it somewhere. First she misplaces our found money and now golf balls. What’s next? Dog poop bags?
Speaking of which, this is the last day of our walk week, we review the statistics.
Twenty-seven gloves and five poop bags. Both are down from last week. The reduced poop bags are, again probably due to the poor weather this week. We’ll see if the trend continues.
We find a lot of Nerf bullets.
This is the first time we found a gun. We tried it, but it was jammed. No wonder the Nerf gang dumped it.
More unopened food.
A Monster energy drink and a large tub of vanilla yogurt.
We don’t think this hub cap is worth taking to Goodwill.
Although, it is a rare Ford hub cap, not the Toyotas we normally find. It might be a collector’s item.
We don’t know if this is abandoned or parked.
Or both. Perhaps the guy was driving it down the road and got the flat tire. It looked to be in reasonable condition, except for the wheel and was in the area where a couple of landscapers park their trucks, so it may belong to them. Every time we see one of these, we are reminded of the movie Fargo.
On Saturdays, we take a more thorough walk through the park-and-ride. The first thing we found was, surprise!
Three Coors cans. And a Slim Jim wrapper. During our walks, we visit the park-and-ride three times. This week, we found a total of twenty Coors cans. We are thinking of bidding on the P&R Coors Light Concession. If we get it, you come down and buy your Coors, drink it and just toss it anywhere. We’ll pick it up.
The park-and-ride also provided some tools.
Another cheap stamped kit wrench and another 3/8th inch socked. How many of these do we need? Wait, my personal socket set is missing a 3/8th inch socket. Duh. Well, not anymore.
You know how much we like cigarette butts.
At one corner of the lot over the tire barrier, was a bunch of butts, many of the minimally smoked. This image does not do it justice, here is the full resolution image. We didn’t count how many there were nor did we pick them up. Well, not all.
Finally an identifiable bit of litter at the park-and-ride.
Ken’s littered Starbucks coffee cup. So all we need to do is track down all Ken’s in the Puget Seattle area. We know two. We’ll start with them. Maybe we’ll get lucky.
We picked up a soggy newspaper, off the ground, not from a news stand.
It was congratulating the 2020 High School Graduates. Our first thought was, how did they pick the students to show on the page from the entire graduating class. There were honor students, the Valedictorian, the Salutatorian, Honor Students and Regular Graduates.
So we looked up the high school. It is located in (surprise) Herreid, SD. According to this site, the high school, grades 9-12, has 43 students. So, this is the entire graduating class.
One of the sponsors was Brandon Bro’s Trucking. We can imagine Bubba Brandon asking “What’s a Salutatorian?” Yes, we had to look it up too. “The student who ranks second highest in a graduating class and delivers the salutatory.” Thanks, Google. That really helps a lot.
Trash Walking 