Monday, September 21st, 2020 – Safeway
Today was dry and cool which made for a nice walk. We didn’t remove any roadkill. Better. And we found money. Even better.
A shiny dime. Great start to the week. Let’s keep it up.
One of the first things we found was a cell phone.
It is beat up and the screen is cracked. When we got it home, we plugged it in to charge and it powered up, but like most we find, is locked. It’s an LG phone with TracFone service. We’ve found several cell phones and when we find a working one, we take it to one of the carrier stores like AT&T or T-Mobile.
We had not heard of TracFone before and looked it up. The phones are sold by 7-Eleven stores, Target stores and several others. Somehow, we think taking the phone to 7-Eleven will not get it back to the owner. We’ll leave it powered on for a few days to see if someone calls it. No calls today, not even from a telemarketer. Whoever owned it must not have been extremely popular.
We also found another pair of smashed earbuds.
We went to pick it up and saw a slug had the same ideal. We were able to snatch them from him, but it took our lightning-fast reflexes.
We picked up two balls for our ball collection.
A whiffle dog ball and a tennis ball. The tennis ball is likely also a dog’s ball.
The sign war is still going on.
The sign owner set up a new sign and Marker Guy modified it which was subsequently taped over by the owner. Can they keep it up until the election? This may be an omen. Should we contact CNN and Fox News?
This is a bit unsettling.
It looks like about a 30-round ammo clip for an assault rifle. Perhaps the guy used it on the slugs.
After all, there are a bunch still screwing around here.
We found more stolen property.
About ten pounds of music CD’s and other random items. Fortunately, there was an address and phone number among the items, and we were able to track the person down and reunite her with her property. She said that there was also $15 in the car that was broken into, but we didn’t find it. No, really.
One third-consumed food.
Near Safeway and the Papa John’s pizza establishment, we found tw0-thirds of a can of Rainier Beer and nearby, two-thirds of a Canadian Bacon and Pineapple pizza. Whoever left it must not have liked either very much. We cannot speak to the Rainier, but pineapple does not belong on pizza. Janet disagrees. However, we’ve been to Italy several times and we’ve never seen a pineapple plant.
We pick up a lot of marijuana packages. Before it was legalized in Washington and for some time after, we would report on it. However, it has become like cigarette packages and wrappers. However, every once in a while, one catches our eye.
“Blueberry Trainwreck.” What’s next? “Cucumber Catastrophe?”
Great. A Lime ‘Rita Chiller BuzzBallz.
15% Alcohol by Volume. “Hey, guys. Let’s see how many BusBallz we can drink and still make it over Norway Hill.”
This guy tossed his eye protection and ear protection.
What’s next? Running with scissors?
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
Another comfortable day for a walk, this time to the Park-and-Ride. Again, no roadkill and we found more money.
Yet another dime. Keep it up. We would be happier with more, but we understand times are hard with the pandemic and all.
More balls.
The baseball on the left was obviously from the school across the street, so we tossed it back. The blue ball on the right was a very soft foam rubber ball. We slogged it all the way back home then decided to dispose of it. It was light and not a big deal. Still, we schlepped it back home to trash it.
We found several tools, or at least parts of loosely defined tools. We found a pair of scissors without handles.
Did the guy from yesterday disregard our warning and run with them? Safety first.
We found a spray nozzle on our way toward the park-and-ride.
Unfortunatly, we don’t have a flat hose to fit it.
Of more use were two Sawzall blades and a wrench.
The wrench was a 5-16ths inch combination wrench, and the blades were used, but still in reasonable condition. We’ll use them. One tends to use things longer if you pay for them yourself.
Another water bottle.
This one’s in bad shape. We may not be able to fix it. Sorry, Goodwill.
We found two credit cards in close proximity on Simond’s Road.
They were likely stolen because they had different names, and neither was expired. The one on the left was torn in half and does not look like the expired typical bend-and-break cards we find.
The number of rubber gloves we find has really slacked off, but we are still finding a lot of masks. A lot of typical blue/white masks (that we cannot get a straight answer on whether blue or white is worn out), homemade cloth masks, a few Seahawks masks. But this is one of the weirdest ones we’ve found.
What’s the message? Come close and you die? Do you like my Jolly Rogers mask? Perhaps it was “Mumble-Like-a-Pirate” day, “Afoy Natey?” Damn masks.
We had a surprise today.
We were mugged. Just kidding. A gentleman stopped and waited for us to approach. He thanked us for keeping the area clean and gave us each a gift card for the Gourmet Latte coffee shops. We are very thankful for this gesture of appreciation. We also appreciate all the waves, honks, and verbal thanks we receive.
And we appreciate coffee, but please don’t give us cups of coffee while we’re walking. Yes, it has happened. Still a nice gesture.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2020 – Safeway
We had nice weather today for our walk, and did not find any roadkill, but also found no money.
But wait, two more gift cards.
We found these in the gutter near Safeway and the security code on the back had not been scratched off. When we got home, we checked the balance. Zero, zilch, nada. Gee thanks for getting our hopes up. AND we had to carry them home. Geesh.
Another hubcap.
We’ll try, but this one is probably beyond repair. Sorry, Goodwill.
These two deer greeted us on Norway Hill.
A mother and its fawn, but it looked like a two-headed deer. They took off before we could pose them. Ingrates.
Well, this looks like fun.
A nasal cleaning party kit. Travel Friendly, too. It’s tempting, but we’ll need to wait until the pandemic subsides before we can plan our party.
The McLitterers are getting sloppy.
They didn’t tie up their bag as they usually do. If this continues, we will need to write them up and report them to the TrashWalking Board of Directors.
Thursday, September 24th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
Today’s walk started out with reasonable weather with the Orion Constellation overhead but deteriorated as the morning progressed. No roadkill and no money. Oh, and no gift cards.
At the bus stop at the park-and-ride was an unopened can of soda for us.
Cherry 7-Up? If you make a new cherry soda, shouldn’t it have a unique name different from 7-Up? Like, maybe Cherry-Up or Throw-Up? Maybe that’s why the guy didn’t open it. No, we didn’t drink it either.
We did find another tool.
Well, kind of. Another Ikea Allen wrench. Well, that’s worth walking for.
At this point, everything went downhill rapidly. There was thunder, lightning and Biblical- or at least Mississippi-downpours. We did not wear our raincoats and decided to cut our walk short at the four-mile mark. We headed home.
Not really interesting, but on our way home, we took a picture of a tiedown strap someone lost.
This is after the rain had subsided but was still heavy by Seattle standards. Note the three raindrops in the center of the photo, one light and the one very close to the lens on the right.
Friday, September 25th, 2020 – Safeway
Okay, today it was raining when we started, not the typical Seattle mist, but a reasonably heavy Seattle rain. Given yesterday’s experience, we decided to suit up with our rain jackets. The temperature was 60° F and we feared we’d overheat on our trek over Norway Hill, but it worked out fine. The rain was steady, and our walk was comfortable, but we were soggy, and our walking finds were few.
We found no money, and removed a small opossum, a rat, and a large bird from the streets.
We did get a bungee cord in good condition.
It hadn’t been run over and we added it to our collection of forty or so other bungee cords we’ve found.
Along a stretch of Juanita-Woodinville Way, we’ve found three or four masks.
They have all been in sealed zip-lock bags. Why would someone put a mask in a bag then toss the bag? Maybe the mask was dirty, and the person thoughtfully put it in the bag before they littered it?
Someone tossed a bunch of used Q-Tips at the top of Norway Hill.
Either a druggie was cleaning his drug gear, or he had very dirty ears.
Saturday, September 26th, 2020 – Riverside Drive
What a difference a day makes. This morning was partly cloudy with no rain which made for a very nice walk. Except that we found no money and had to remove a large frog and a crow from the roadway and picked up a lot of trash, of course. Otherwise, it was a nice walk.
The first thing we saw was a blue bucket down a bank about ten feet below the road. We scaled down and found it was a five-gallon Sherwin Williams paint bucket. We started to move it and found that it was heavy.
When we got it up to the road, we checked the contents and it appeared to be sand. They do sell something called “Additive Sand Finish” on their website, but the page never refreshed. Anyway, we dumped the sand out and the bucket was much lighter.
The rock painters are still at it.
We find these periodically somewhat hidden. These folks need to learn how to hide their rocks. There is a Bothell Rocks Facebook page with some elaborate rocks. When Chuck was a kid, he painted the shells of Gopher Tortoises that haplessly wandered into the yard. They can live up to 80 years, so some of them may still be ruing the day they crossed paths with him.
At the Sammamish River Park parking lot, we found a pair of women’s underwear.
They were near a park bench. Was she using the park bench for something other than sitting? Maybe she shouldn’t stand up so fast? They went into a nearby garbage can.
We saw a “THANK YOU FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING” sticker on the road.
We automatically stopped and stood on it. We looked around and didn’t see another sticker to go to. Nor did we see anyone else on the road this early in the morning. We picked up the sticker and continued on.
Okay, we’ve been here before. Another lost headlight.
So, you are driving down the road and your headlight happens to drop off your car. Wouldn’t you notice? It is worrisome that some folks don’t notice. It’s probably the same people who drive in the fast lane of the freeway at five-miles-an-hour below the traffic flow. We call them Oblivions.
Now we find this.
An umbrella. Where was it the last two days when we needed it? It was in marginal shape, so we recycled it. But we wouldn’t have yesterday.
Another needle.
At least he put the cover back on it. We carried it home and put it into our needle jar.
Really?
On the freeway off ramp, miscreants tossed a hot water dispenser. We don’t know if it was working because there was no electricity nearby, but we can guess. We walked it back to a pull-out on the off ramp. We may stop and pick it up one of these days. In the meanwhile, if someone wants to steal it, it will be our loss. NOT.
Well, someone went radio silent.
Someone lost their CB antenna. “Breaker, breaker, hey, Good Pal, come in. Breaker, breaker, hey, Good Pal…”
We did find some unopened food today.
The can on the left is Amy’s Organic Soups Lentil Vegetable soup. About $2.40 a can at Walmart. It was technically unopened because the pop-tab lid was still in place. However, something was leaking out, probably lentils. It went into the garbage.
The package in the middle was open, but filled with several unopened Nugo Protein Bars, about $21 for the boxful at Walmart. It was early in our walk when we found them, and they were relatively heavy. Garbage.
Finally, we found sandwiches, one of which was unopened. However, it was labelled “Keep Refrigerated.” It was not. This too went into the garbage.
We found this guy.
A minion in bad shape. His uplifted arms were gone, and his goggles were destroyed.
Using Google, we found that this is a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy in the lower left of this picture.
But wait. He is in the week five group, October the first through the seventh and we’re still in September. Is a McDonalds employee dealing in illicit minion trafficking?
Trash Walking 