Fall Has Arrived

Monday, October 12th, 2020 – Safeway

This morning was cool and wet. The trash and traffic were light, and we found no roadkill and no money. We did find three Coors Light six-pack cartons, but only two bottles.

That probably means we missed a lot of trash in the debris left behind by the weekend heavy rains and winds. Even with the debris, it was another blah morning walk. We discussed expanding our territory, like to Tucson. Instead of snowbirds, we would be trashbirds. It could work.

Another sidewalk store opened up.

This one was reasonably useful, so it will probably go quick, given the price.

However, this one from last week is still for sale.

It looks like they’re trying for the boom box approach, but we’re not buying it. Literally.

This looks like an online learning failure.

In the middle of a parking lot was a plastic homework bin. Inside was a single waterlogged book. Either they have one student who is not keeping up or enrollment is way down. We returned the bin to the probable business. We expect a good grade for civic responsibility.

Someone purchased a “Whole Roasted Chicken” at Safeway and ate it in the parking lot.

And, of course, left the trash. Okay, are we talking about a “Whole Roasted Chicken” with claws, a beak and feathers? Or are we talking about false advertising?

On the last half of our walk, we came across a mouse that initially seemed confused but took off up the street.

We followed it for about a block and took a short video. It eventually crossed the street toward the median and we let it be. Okay we are not mouse whispers.

Tuesday, October 13th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride

Today we had a heavy rain (for Seattle) during our entire walk. It was not uncomfortably cold, but we hurried along anyway and finished our walk in a fast two hours. Before we reached the freeway, a guy walked across the street wearing jeans and no shirt. He asked if we had a cigarette. We said we didn’t. He asked if we were sure. We could have offered him a soggy cigarette butt.

As the day wore on, the winds kicked up and at about 1:00 pm, we lost power. A tree about 100 yards up the hill from our street fell and took down the power lines. We reported to the power company with our phone app. Surprisingly, it notified us that the estimated repair time was 3:00 pm. At 3:10 pm, the estimate was changed to “under investigation.” It is now 8:00 pm with no activity in sight. We fired up our generator. The status remained “under investigation” except we haven’t seen anyone investigating. Power company give us a call, we’ll tell you what happened; a damn tree fell on your power lines.

Storms like this create havoc in the area because of all the trees. But the power company should provide better updates of the outage.

1. Minor, we’ll be there in two hours.
2. Major, it’s going to be a day or so.
3. It’s going to take a while. If you have a generator, fire it up. If not, find the nearest Hilton and order room service. It’s cheaper than a generator.

Ok, back to our walk. Someone left a bag on the road that was slightly heavy.

When we find these bags, we think of a dead animal like a squirrel or rat. You could count this as better or worse. It was a very dirty disposable diaper. At least they didn’t just dump the diaper on the street like most we find, but, sheesh.

Another good bungee cord.

Nice condition for being in the middle of the street. Watch for the grand opening of “Bungees R Us.”

At the park-and-ride, we find a lot of empty Coors beer cans. Whoever is tossing these was thoughtful enough to leave us an unopened one.

We fully appreciate the gesture, but we are not big fans of Coors Light, and especially not for breakfast. Now if it were Georgetown Bodhizafa IPA…

We found another nice tool.

A long screwdriver for our lost tool collection, good for long screws. Okay, get your mind out of the gutter.

And almost another nice tool, but it had been run over.

A folding utility light. It was $40 from Harbor Freight. That is expensive for a Harbor Freight flashlight. At home, we charged the battery, but the light was dead. Wonder if they have a warrantee?

These things are springing up like mushrooms.

Well, they are mushrooms. Last year, there was a log here that had hundreds of these mushrooms on it. The log is gone, but the second generation sprung up.

This mushroom picked a questionable location to take root.

It should get its mind out of the gutter.

“Fred, a big storm is predicted. Did you replace the windshield wipers?”
“Yes, yes, I replaced the windshield wipers.”
“Did you make sure they were secure? Remember last year.”
“Yes, they are tight. Quit nagging.”

We found a kid’s book, good thing it was waterproof.

For the rest of the walk, Chuck could not get the tune out of his head. He tried to get Janet to sing it in rounds.

She refused.

Wednesday, October 14th, 2020 – Safeway

This morning was clear and the wind had subsided, but we were still without power. We checked the status of our outage. It had been updated with crew on site, estimated restoration time, 6:00 pm this evening. It was 5:10 am and we didn’t hear any activity. As we left the house at about 5:20 am, two utility trucks showed up heading up Norway Hill.

We start our walks going down the hill and come back from the top of the hill. We asked the flagmen if they had an estimate of how long the repair would take. They had no idea.

We decided to play it by ear and, if the road was still closed, we’d walk down the Tolt Pipeline Trail. As we reached the Tolt Pipeline, we decided to continue to see if the road was really closed. It was, but the flagman let us go to a bend in the road where a trail leads through the woods to the Tolt Pipeline.

The image on the left is from yesterday after the lines were down looking up the hill. The one on the right is this morning from the bend in the road. The trucks were still there. We took the trail to the Tolt Pipeline and continued down to 112th Ave NE.

As we approached home, we saw the trucks leaving the area.

The balance of power had been restored!

Back to our regularly scheduled walk. Today was clear and calm but cool and we wore our rain jackets for warmth. No money and no roadkill.

We found another tool in exceptionally good shape.

We almost wished we hadn’t. It was a heavy 1-1/8 inch combination wrench measuring 15-1/2 inches in length. We schlepped it back home.

Toward the end of our walk, we came to a guard rail with a large bolt so we thought we would tighten it, just in case.

The wrench was too small, it needed an 1-1/4-inch wrench. Damn. No wonder someone tossed it.

A Halloween tree ornament.

Do they have such a thing? Well, yes.

Nearby, a pair of ladies’ undies.

So, did she get scared out of her underwear by the scary Halloween tree? We think not, it must have been something scarier, but we won’t speculate.

This looks like a total disaster.

We figure this guy was launched in a rocket, parachuted back to earth, and got caught in a tree. Then, after spending months in the branches, the high winds yesterday caught the chute and dumped him on the ground. He probably didn’t lose his underwear, but they cannot be in decent shape.

We’ve all seen this bumper sticker.

Well, it looks to us like this guy’s candidate isn’t even a contender.

We found two 32-proof cocktail drink bottles.

A Grape Smash and a Watermelon Smash. The Grape Smash was empty and the Watermelon Smash was full. They must not have liked the Watermelon. We would have done our own taste test, but they didn’t leave us any grape. Very inconsiderate.

Thursday, October 15th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride

Today was the coldest day so far this season at 46° F with no rain. There was moderate trash, mostly left over from the windstorm.

At the park-and-ride, the Coors Party moved to a different corner.

More Pandemic bar hopping.

Still early in our walk, we came across a part of a trailer hitch. We’ve found several hitch pins, but this is the first hitch.

It is made of quarter-inch steel and weighs about five pounds, too much to carry on our walk. We left it near a turn-out and picked it up later in the day. We don’t know what to do with it, but we have plenty of hitch pins for it.

Someone dropped their toothpaste.

Like walking and chewing gum. When you jog and brush your teeth at the same time, you lose your paste.

Black Diamond earrings.

This is what happens when you jog and try to put on your earrings at the same time, you lose your paste. We assume they’re paste. If not, these are worth about $20K. We better check.

We found a package of “Pocket Protector” on-the-go probiotics.

According to Wikipedia, “Probiotics are live microorganisms promoted with claims that they provide health benefits when consumed, generally by improving or restoring the gut flora.” We don’t know about you, but we try to keep that unsightly gut flora trimmed back. It can be embarrassing when your gut flora is showing. In fact, we’re considering getting a gut-wax.

Friday, October 16th, 2020 – Safeway

Well, we are officially into the Fall season. Even though the temperatures are in the low 50’s, we started wearing our rain jackets, for warmth. We did overheat walking up Norway Hill though.

This has been a bleak week for money. There is still tomorrow, but we won’t hold our breath. And we won’t give you our two-cents worth, even if we had it. We did remove our first roadkill of the week, a very large rat. As we said, a very bleak TrashWalking week.

So, this is one of the most frustrating items we’ve found.

We have no idea what is. It’s about five inches long and is obviously electronic in nature. But there were absolutely no model numbers, serial numbers or other identifiable markings on it. If anyone knows, let us know. Anyone with the correct answer will get a mystery prize. Hint: It’ll be about five inches long and obviously electronic in nature.

Okay, you lost your chance at the single track-speaker.

The only thing left is the original Conair Swamp Cooler. These evaporative coolers are effective in dry climates like Phoenix. Not so much in Seattle.

A doll’s dress.

No sign of the doll, so we can’t tell what kind of doll it was for. What we know is Barbie wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress like this.

Trace the word eight.

Well, Freddie, that’s an X, but great try anyway.

It’s been a pretty boring walk so far, but we were hoping this would stir things up.

But it didn’t.

We found two masks a few yards apart.

It looks like two guys had a disagreement. Was it a University of Washington-Washington State University argument or a Biden-Trump argument? We’ll never know, but we hope they kept socially distanced without their masks.

Saturday, October 17th, 2020 – Riverside Drive

Today was cool and misty, but not too uncomfortable. We needed to remove a roadkill opossum but, we finally found some money.

A single well-runover penny. The last time we got shut out finding money during the week was mid-March. This kept our streak alive. Barely.

Past the freeways on NE Woodinville Drive, it was still dark and misting heavily. We kicked a small branch off the road down a bank.

Evidently, the branch landed on a rabbit who was hiding by the side of the road and the rabbit ran off ahead of us.

A little later, we picked up some wood and tossed it into the bushes. When it landed, we saw a beer can get tossed into the air above the bushes and disappear again.

We waded through the berry bushes and found two beer cans on the ground with some paper bags and a white plastic bag hanging in the vines. We picked up a total of four beer cans and a marijuana tube there. We’re going to quit tossing wood off the road.

Early in our walk on the way down the hill toward Riverside Drive, we saw something shiny down the embankment. We crawled over the guard rail and retrieved it.

It was a fifteen-foot, glow-in-the-dark fish stick. We tried to figure out how a fisherman uses it. We did some research when we got home. It’s for pulling electrical wire within walls and crawl spaces, not for catching dinner. $39 on Amazon.

We covered quite a few departments today. From the Food Department.

A bag of precooked chicken and two hotdogs, unknown if they are cooked or not. We weren’t about to try any of it. The food ended up in yard waste.

From the Clothing Department.

A cap and a bandana or do-rag.

Also, a pair of socks. The clothing will get washed and sent to Goodwill.

From the Automotive Department, hubcaps.

The one on the left is a Mitsubishi and the one on the right is from a Fiat. The Mitsubishi was very badly broken, so we helped it on its way and broke it into smaller pieces that would fit in the bus stop trash can. The Fiat was in good condition and will head for Goodwill.

From the Pet Department.

Another ChuckIt! dog ball. If Chuck sees another one of these, he is going to upchuck.

Finally, from the Tool Department.

We picked up a drill bit. But it was broken. The hammer is a Kobalt 16-oz Smooth Face Steel Head Steel Rip Claw Hammer. The hammer was in much better condition than the drill bit, it was only slightly bent. It might be good for hammering around corners. On the other hand, according to the website, it has a lifetime guarantee. Wonder if it covers being runover.

A soggy half-pack of cigarettes.

Perhaps we should keep them in case we run into the guy bumming cigarettes again.

Well, this is a crock!

A Crocs shoe on the freeway offramp, but only one. And it’s broken.

A while ago the trailer park on Riverside Drive installed a bicycle rack, we assume for the passing riders to take a break. Now they added more accommodations.

How thoughtful, a rest stop.

We found a cover or cap of some kind.

It’s the second one we’ve found, and we still don’t know what it is. The one on the left was found months ago and the other we found today. Now we have two things we don’t know what to do with.