Monday, June 29th, 2020 – Safeway
We started the week out with a roadkill squirrel and a rat. But we found no money to make up for it. We did get a lot of waves and one verbal “thank you.”
The first thing we found on our walk was a tape measure.
A Stanley 25-foot “Fat Max,” $20 at Home Depot. Hope Fat Max doesn’t find out we have it.
The Angry Litterer was a no-show for half of last week, but he made an appearance today.
Complete with a cap. Only one, though. He seems to be loosing his enthusiasm. Or perhaps he’s learned to control his anger.
Someone dropped his sweatshirt.
Harrah’s Reno. Long, long ago in a city far away called Lake Tahoe, we visited Harrah’s and lost $20 worth of nickels in a two-hour period on the nickel slots. And got free drinks. Years later, while at a conference in New Orleans, we again visited Harrah’s with another $20. Ten minutes later we were out of money and out of there with no drinks. And it took five minutes to find a nickel slot.
We another found a guitar pick.
Make that a ukulele pick. 0.45 mm. That must be the thickness. It turns out Lohanu makes ukuleles and they are sold on Amazon for $90 for one model.
And there’s the 0.045 mm green pick included. Wonder if they will give us a discount since we don’t need the green pick? We wouldn’t thumb our nose at the offer. Pick it, perhaps.
Tuesday, June 30th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
Day two was a heavy mist, enough that our shoes got wet during the walk. Well, so did we, but our shoes are important. We removed a small roadkill bird from the road and found a nickel.
Okay, due to the photographic technique, we won’t say which of us took this photo, but she overexposed it. After close examination, it was determined to be a nickel. Ka-ching!
On the down side, we found another broken wheel cover.
On the up side, it was very near the 7-Eleven dumpsters where we, dumped it.
Okay, we’re at the end of our rope.
Another lost lock.
And again, no key.
A nice t-shirt.
It’ll get washed and sent off to Goodwill with the other clothes we found.
This guy is continuing his activities on Norway Hill.
He’s not practicing social distancing, but he probably wears a mask.
Wednesday, July 1st, 2020 – 100th Ave
Today was our abandoned Sunday route moved to Wednesday. We removed a roadkill crow, always a dicey situation since you don’t know if the other crows will blame you. But did find a penny.
It doesn’t add much to our hourly wage, but it helps our net worth. Well, not really. At least it was shiny and not run over… much. We’re half-full type of people unless you consider cigarette butts.
Someone lost their Apple iPhone.
We’ve found a few phones in the past and attempted to power them up and return them to their owner. We’ll try to power this one up. If we can find where to plug it in.
Okay, we may have a problem here.
He’s at it again. Two wrappers and one used condom. We hope it’s with the same partner. Otherwise, Norway Hill may become a Covid-19 hotspot. And “hotspot” in two meanings of the word.
We found a business card.
Sean Chavez Electric Bicycles. And good for an hour’s free ride. A free ride for the cost of a trip to San Diego. Delta has a nonstop for $177. Now if Sean will reimburse us for the fight, we’re in.
Oh, no.
Someone became unhinged. We need to watch our backs.
We found a lose parking pass.
We know that Washington State has a parks and recreation Discovery Pass that we routinely purchase. Well, we haven’t yet this year. We were not aware of the WDFW Vehicle Access Pass.
After some research, it turns out to be free parking pass for individuals who purchase hunting or fishing licenses.
More disturbing to us is we found that there is a roadkill license. We have been picking up a lot of roadkill without a license. We’re talking about over 375 roadkill to date. We may need to relocate to Idaho.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
The day that wasn’t. Other things came up that prevented us from walking. It made the rest of the day just wrong.
Friday, July 3rd, 2020 – Safeway
Ah, back to normal. Cool and overcast. There was one big change. The City of Bothell did their second mowing of the season punishing us for the recent easy walks. We made lots of trips down into the ditches retrieving previously-hidden trash including whole and shredded cans. But it did uncover some interesting finds.
Someone tossed a perfectly-good extension cord.
Okay, so only two feet long. And missing the other end, but still.
We found four balls.
The softball-sized green whiffle ball was near a fenced yard so we tossed it back. The two golf balls were in the rough, so we improved their lie and are now in our ball collection. The other blue ball may be the remains of a cat toy. It didn’t bounce at all, so was no fun to us.
Along Juanita-Woodinville Way, we found several sheets of accounting paper from 1975 and 1976, forty-five years ago.
Yes, kids, back then records were kept using typewriters and Xerox machines, not today’s namby-pamby computers and email. When you burned one of these, it would disappear and could not be hacked and leaked to the public over the Internet. Of course, unless you carelessly littered it and we found it.
We found a pair of socks.
Okay, they were not really a matching pair. The one on the right had been in the ditch for a while and there was something in it.
Another sock and a marijuana pipe.
The pipe was undamaged and will make a nice addition to our found drug paraphernalia collection.
In the middle of Juanita-Woodinville Way, we found a very nice knife.
Even though it was in the street, it had not been run over and was in perfect condition. It is a Kershaw Pocket Knife, $23 on Amazon. Nice.
Saturday, July 4th, 2020 – Riverside Drive
Today was again overcast but with no rain. And the City of Bothell had not yet mowed this route, so the trash was still relatively light. We removed a small bird and two rats.
We did find some money. At one of the trailer parks on Riverside Driver, someone evidently had an accident.
They hit a rock and pushed it several feet into the lawn. The rock had been replaced, but they left several car pieces that we picked up. However, we were rewarded.
They also left $1.35 in change. Then, later on our walk we found a nickel. At least we think it’s a nickel. If you tilt your head to the right and squint, you can see Monticello. At least we can, so it’s a nickel. Total take today, $1.40. Not bad for a three-hour, seven-mile walk.
Being the end of the week, we present the glove and poop bag report.
Twenty gloves and eight poop bags. Both gloves and poop bags are up. Check your portfolios.
At the Sammamish River Park we found this fireworks trash.
If you did this out of patriotism, thank you. If you just wanted to blow something up, that is sixty dollars up in smoke that we picked up for you.
We found two balls for our collection.
The on on the left is a very lively “super ball.” The one on the right has a fluid with a plastic fish in it. It is marked as a choking hazard. The ball is about two inches in diameter, you’d have a tough time swallowing it.
Also, more tools for our tool collection.
A 3/8ths-7/16ths Craftsman wrench in pristine condition and a 9mm hex-socket in not-so-pristine condition. We’re not picky, they both went into our collection.
By one of the trailer parks on Riverside Drive we found another needle.
The needle looked old, but we also found three needle caps nearby.
Another lock.
Unlike most locks we find, this one was not lost. It had been cut and tossed. In this case, a key would be of no use.
Under the freeway, we find a lot of things discarded from the passing cars above. Today we found some personal lubricant.
You shouldn’t be using this stuff while driving on the freeway.
“Under here, Goodies are near.”
The only thing we found was a cigarette butt.
We pass by a secluded entrance to a City of Bothell public works area with a portapotty and wash station.
We picked up some trash in the area including some paper and beer cans.
Also, a couple used condoms.
Congratulations to Bothell for providing a full-service, make-out area.
The Senior Center on Riverside Drive put up a lot of holiday decorations including a photo booth.
Happy Independence Day, everyone.
Trash Walking 