Monday, September 7th, 2020 – Safeway
The weather this morning was good and, since it was Labor Day, the traffic was very light. During the olden days, prepandemic, we would see five or six buses on our walk and on holidays, one or two. Now, on a normal day we see two or three buses. Today, we saw none. This must be the Pandemic Holiday Schedule. Overall, it was a nice walk. Except that we did remove a roadkill rat from the road.
On Juanita-Woodinville Way NE, walking toward Safeway, we found what appeared to be a well-runover money clip, but no money.
On the way back on the opposite side of the road, we spotted some litter. As we leaned over the guard rail, we spotted some money.
Real folding money, not like the stinking single penny we found last week. We are guessing that there was more money in the clip, but others collected it. We would have missed this one if we had not stopped for the first piece of trash. Yes, we did search the area for more, but no luck.
Really?
A Hello Kitty cloth handkerchief? Suppose we could use it for a Covid face covering. But how much would you trust Kitty? We’ve heard lots of stories about dogs rescuing people. But cats? The house catches fire in the middle of the night. The cat jumps into action and pounces on its sleeping owner-servant screeching “You fool! Wake up and save me!”
We found a pair of socks.
They were in bad condition and ended up in the garbage. Wonder what knocked his socks off.
We thought we’d hit the found tool jackpot. We found the case for a Gerber Truss Multitool.
But the case was empty.
We found a Mario Brothers game.
But the case was empty.
Some lost Samsung Galaxy ear buds.
Jeez! But the case was empty!
We found a jumper cable box.
Great. This was full, the container of the cheapest item. It was also the heaviest to carry home. They’re designed to provide a charge, but they drained our energy.
We found another piece of litter.
Damn! We would really like to catch one of these perps. Fingerprints are difficult to obtain from paper, but in this case…
What the heck?
A wrapper for an adult graduation gown. We thought all formal graduations had been cancelled. And it’s a bit late for graduation anyway. Oh wait, Halloween is coming up. It may be for a Halloween party. But there shouldn’t be any parties with the Coronavirus lockdown. So confusing.
What should one do with an expired handicap parking pass?
Toss it out the window, of course. Let’s see, if we punch a “1” out of the “21” and paste it into the “20” hole, who would notice. Heck if we just used it, who would notice.
Yep. Another McLitterers trash.
This was standard issue, two used: clean platters and tea bags, and unused: two plastic utensils, two syrups and four butters. We are well over sixty of these bags.
Chuck is playing it safe.
He found a Covid-19 shield for safe walking. Jay Inslee would be proud.
Tuesday, September 8th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
Overnight we had a shift in winds.
Instead of clean ocean breeze, we got eastern Washington smoke and falling ash. Nice sunrise, though.
We found no money, perhaps because of the smoky conditions, but more likely due to cheap litterers. We almost witnessed another real-time roadkill. As we were walking along 145th, we saw a rabbit run across the street into the path of an SUV. The SUV swerved into an intersection to miss the rabbit which was unharmed. Everyone was safe. We know it was instinct, but to risk a $40k SUV for a rabbit?
At the park-and-ride, someone left a bag with a head of cabbage and some lettuce.
We have no idea why someone would leave it. Both lettuce and cabbage are slang for money. Maybe the guy was going to buy some drugs and was told to bring plenty of lettuce? He must have just fallen off the cabbage truck.
More furniture by the side of the road.
A dresser and its mirror. This was obviously dumped here. No free sign and was located in the driveway of a closed school, far from the street. It looked to be in good condition and the mirror was intact. Haven’t they heard of Goodwill?
A lost glasses strap.
Which is ironic because its purpose is to not lose their glasses.
Someone set their Thermos Beverage Can Insulator with a can of beer on their vehicle and forgot it as they drove off.
What a waste of beer.
We found this but don’t know what it is.
We tried to use Google Lens which has helped with some other items but it kept coming back with pictures of raccoons. We can’t see raccoon resemblance. Well, maybe a tall, skinny blue raccoon.
“Careful, fittings are included in this pack which are required for assembly, do not discard with packaging.”
They didn’t. They discarded it on the road without packaging or fittings.
We have passed this Wacker Neuson 20kw generator a few times now and it is very quiet.
We have a 7kw generator that is much louder than this, so we wondered how much this one is. Its base price is $28,458.00. Then, let’s discuss add-ons. $190.00 for a battery charger? Nope, that’s a deal breaker. We’ll stick with our $1000 Westinghouse.
Wednesday, September 9th, 2020 – Safeway
Today’s weather was much like yesterday, but unlike yesterday, much less smoky. Also, we removed a roadkill squirrel from the street and found some money.
A dime in good condition. Not “Good Condition” as in coin collecting, “Good Condition” as in not run over by multiple vehicles.
We also found a poker chip.
We tried to convince the TrashWalking rules committee that this is worth a dollar, but they didn’t buy it. They can be such rule-following prigs sometimes. Well, most of the time.
Someone tried to entice us up a street.
But it’s going to take more than a smiley face. At least a quarter or better, a dollar bill.
This is one of the first things we picked up this morning.
A condom box with the used wrappers and condoms stuffed inside. Wow, this guy is fast. There was some liquid on the outside. We do wear rubber gloves. See item #3 on our reasons we wear gloves.
Someone tossed there Great Britain vacation plans.
It’s going to be a while. A long-range trip these days is Boise.
We found someone’s headband in the middle of the street.
It had a tie-dye look that reminded us of the sixties with flower children, free love and peace. Or maybe it’s just a sweat band.
Another pack of unsmoked cigarettes.
We find a lot of unsmoked cigarettes including full packs and a lot are this brand. They must not be very good. We have accumulated several packs of various brands, so if any one is interested, we will let them go cheap. Don’t bother reading the following.
Warning: Tobacco smoke can harm your children. smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers. causes head and neck cancer. causes bladder cancer, which can lead to bloody urine. during pregnancy stunts fetal growth. can cause heart disease and strokes by clogging arteries. causes COPD, a lung disease that can be fatal. (This statement is paired with two different images.) reduces blood flow, which can cause erectile dysfunction. reduces blood flow to the limbs, which can require amputation. causes type 2 diabetes, which raises blood sugar. causes age-related macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness. causes cataracts, which can lead to blindness.
We haven’t found a painted rock in a few months.
Thank you, Elia.
We found a small spoon.
We have found a few of these, mostly used for drugs. They are burned on the bottom and the handle is wrapped with tape for an insulator. This one appeared to be a measuring spoon or belonged to an inept druggie.
We passed a milestone today. We were given a Garmin Activity Tracker for Christmas of 2015 so have been using it for about four and a half years.
Today we passed the 10,000 mile mark. Too bad they don’t have a cigarette butt count.
Thursday, September 10th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
We didn’t find any money and and no roadkill. Well, Janet tried to claim a dragonfly.
I informed her that, per the TrashWalking rules, it didn’t count. She finally started talking to me by the end of the walk.
Today was smokier than yesterday.
A giant cloud of smoke from California and Oregon is supposed to hit the area tomorrow. Depending on the smoke, we may forego our walk.
We picked up a heavy Rae Dunn stainless steel coffee cup.
It appears to cost about $18. Well, not this one anymore.
We found another steel coffee cup.
However, this one turned out to be a large tailpipe extension. Fortunately we were near the 7-Eleven dumpster and it got recycled.
A golf ball on 145th?
The nearest golf course is about a mile-and-a-half away. Great range, but a terrible hook.
We found a bottle of Fairwinds Lifestyle Sativa Tincture.
We’re not sure what or how this is used, but we appear to have about $15 worth.
Okay, a tincture is “a medicine made by dissolving a drug in alcohol.” They make a big deal about it being blended with avocado oil. We still don’t know how to use it, but it is made with marijuana, alcohol and healthy avocado oil. We’re in. Not really.
More screwing around on Norway Hill.
We’ve seen several of these slugs fighting over something and we finally Googled it. And we wish we hadn’t. Children, avert your eyes .
This is an X-rated photo of two slugs having sexual intercourse. They are slugs, so there is not much action. Slugs have both male and female organs and can reproduce singularly or with each other. That sounds convenient. “Huh? No one else around? So what.”
The white ball consists of “everted penises.” Try to get that out of your mind. Sorry, we won’t suffer alone. We also tried to figure out evert versus invert, but we started to get a headache.
Friday, September 11th, 2020 – Safeway
The massive wall of smoke is still headed for Washington, but seems to be stalled, or at least greatly slowed.
We checked the air quality as we left this morning. We shined our flashlights in the air and we could see the smoke, not too dense, and saw no ash, so we decided to continue. We spent about $10 on our flashlights. We hesitate to guess how much the State spends on their air quality sensors, but we’re sure our flashlights are much cheaper.
Overall, we probably should have stayed home. Not because of the air quality, but the lack of any interesting trash. We found no money, didn’t remove any roadkill and found very little of interest. To make our point, one of the things we found was another golf ball.
And this one was a Wiffle ball, not even a real golf ball.
King County has a proclivity of placing bus stops by storm retention ponds and ditches. Some litterers think these are put there for them to dump their trash. We regularly clean out one on Brickyard Road, but there is one on Juanita-Woodinville Way that we have neglected. It has a long fence separating it from the sidewalk and has a lot of blackberry bushes in it.
Chuck took the machete, actually the clippers Janet carries, and headed down.
We collected about two full bags of cans, bottles and other trash.
However, about half way through the trek, we had a disaster.
The cable inside the trash picker that we were given by a kind soul a few weeks ago broke causing it to disassemble. It was still useful for the rest of the ditch clearing spiderwebs out of the way, but the treasures were retrieved by hand.
As we rounded the sharp corner on Norway Hill, we found someone had dumped a bunch of lumber by the side of the road. They not only dumped it, they had thrown it into the bushes.
We pulled them out and stacked them in a pile. We’ll probably need to contact the City of Bothell yet again to remove it. Bothell has always been very responsive to our requests, but we don’t want to wear out our welcome.
Saturday, September 12th, 2020 – Riverside Drive: CANCELLED
The air quality continued to deteriorate yesterday.
AirNow.gov fire and smoke map.
After our walk we stayed inside with the windows closed. This morning it is slightly improved but still much worse than yesterday morning, so we cancelled our walk today.
Epilogue: We attempted to walk on Sunday, but conditions were worse. Smoke is bad, but we will take that over fire any day. Our prayers go out to those suffering in the fires.
Trash Walking 