Monday, November 23rd, 2020 – Safeway
Today’s weather continued with the same Seattle-typical autumn weather, 41°F (5°C) and rain. As has been the recent norm, we found no money and no roadkill. One of our friends said he scattered some hidden change along our route, but either he hid it too well and we didn’t find it, or he didn’t hide it well enough and others found it, or he was kidding. We think the latter. In case this friend is reading this, we prefer paper money.
This was a first for us. There is a bus stop on Juanita-Woodinville Way where we rarely see anyone during the pandemic-work-from-home edict. As we were nearing it, a bus came from the wrong direction and made a three-point U-turn.
It then proceeded to stop at the bus stop and then continued on. Evidently, the bus sailed by the bus stop not expecting anybody to be there, saw the rider and backtracked to pick the rider up. As we passed the bus stop, the rider was still waiting for the bus. Thanks anyway, but wrong bus.
We found an L.A. Fitness ID tag.
Normally we find these on lost key chains and we can find the owners through their membership, but there were no keys around in this case. This person probably decided to make a pandemic resolution to get into shape. However with the new lockdown, gyms are closed for the second time. “What the hell, I’m done with the fitness stuff. I’m going for pizza and a beer. Takeout, of course.”
Ok, you tossed your L.A. Fitness membership out the window, but the pizza box too?
And what’s with the pepperoncini? You wolf down the entire pizza and toss the pepper to watch your weight?
Hopefully this wasn’t littered by the same guy.
Charred foil for cooking dope. It’s a steep descent from L.A. Fitness to here.
Someone lost their dog leash.
An expensive one, too. Hopefully they didn’t lose their dog. Oh, no. Not the L.A. Fitness guy again.
Tuesday, November 24th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride
Today was about the same as yesterday, but without the rain, only misty. No money and no roadkill again. We still see several (live) rabbits on our walks, but we figure these are the ones that learned to deal with traffic. This is making the gene pool stronger. At the rate rabbits procreate, and strengthen their gene pool, a rabbit will probably be elected president in 2032. With mail-in ballots, of course.
We see a lot of construction markings on the sidewalks and streets, but these are strange. The first one was at the bottom of the Tolt Pipeline.
It was an arrow painted on the ground with three hash marks behind the pole in the camera shot.
The second one was near the freeway offramp.
It pointed back the way we came.
At the park-and-ride, we found these markings.
We had no idea what this was about. Google to the rescue. This is part of a Hash House Harrier (H3) activity. They describe themselves as a “drinking club with a running problem.” The activity is not a race, but more of a try-to-follow-the-trail-to-the-beer activity.
To follow the trail, a set of symbols are used to provide hints for the trail. Now we can partially interpret the message above. The top line appears to be the name of the Hash House Harrier (H3) group or member creating the run.
The arrow obviously points to the next arrow we saw at the freeway offramp. The only other symbol we can discern is “BN” which is supposed to be “Beer Near.” We don’t understand this because there is definitely no beer available within a hundred yards of this location. Lots of empty Coors beer cans, but no beer.
This sounds like a fun activity, except by the time we reached the end, everyone would have had their fill and gone home.
Another couple littered a used condom on the street.
And in a no-parking zone, to boot.
Wednesday, November 25th, 2020 – Safeway
Our walk today was again in cool and misty. No money and no roadkill.
We picked up a couple of wayward balls though.
A Wiffle ball by the KinderCare. Wiffle balls don’t go far so the 4-year old must have had a great arm to toss it over the fence. We tossed it back. Of course we were able to toss it back. We might have used our trash picker. The dog ball was found outside a backyard fence and got tossed back. We hope they have a dog.
Stumptown Coffee.
We find a lot of Starbucks coffee bottles but this is the first Stumptown we’ve found. Starbucks seems to bottle a lot of their frou-frou drinks like Frappuccino Mocha and Caramel Macchiato. These guys seem to be going with the basic coffee. Well, except it is cold brewed. Is that like sun tea?
You wonder about people. A donation container has been gone for several weeks.
“Hey, the donation box is gone. Well, they allowed us to leave junk here before, so we’ll leave it again. Once they give us something, they can’t take it away. It’s our right.”
In the middle of 100th Ave NE, we found a metal disk that had been run over.
Nothing special except for the label. September 2020 52 AD. This is confusing. Perhaps it was found in September but has been dated 52 AD. Well, in 52 AD, Pliny the Elder wrote his account of the German Wars. We may have found his ashtray!
After reading about the Hash Hound Harriers yesterday, at the top of the Tolt Pipeline Trail, we looked around for a marker and found it at the gate.
It was very washed out, because they use flour, not paint for marking the course.
This was a sick person.
We often find forks in the road and use them to guide us home. This guy cost us an extra hour to get home.
Thursday, November 26th, 2020 – 124th Ave NE
Today, Thanksgiving, we tried to shake things up a bit with a new route, or at least a modified route. Instead of the normal Park-and-Ride Route, we went beyond the freeway to 124th Ave NE then turned back.
We bypassed the 100th Ave NE/Simonds Road path. We may keep this for our Thursday Route. Anyway, it didn’t help. No money and no roadkill.
No 5K Turkey Trot for us – we did a 10K Trash Walk.
As we left home, at the side of the road next to our house, was a bag of McDonalds trash.
It’s like these guys knew we were embarking on a new adventure and attempted to dampen our spirits.
At the bus stop at the freeway, we found a $100 wrapper, probably for one or five dollar bills.
We looked around very carefully in case the guy misplaced one. No luck.
We picked up a large piece of fabric like we have seen under storm drain covers near construction projects.
The are called drain guards and are designed to strain the rain water to keep pollutants, presumably construction debris, from washing into the streams. Wonder how many of these are at the bottom of the Puget Sound? This one ended at the bottom of a dumpster.
Arrgh! On our new route, we found this in the bushes.
Someone plastered our neighborhood with these last year and, even though they advertise “Takedown,” left them for us to remove. We thought we saw the last of them. Well, perhaps we have now. Or not, since it is the season to put lights up again.
On the freeway overpass was another Toyota hubcap.
It was broken and we donated it to the 7-Eleven dumpster.
This was in the gutter.
We almost tripped over it. They should have put up something to warn people it was there.
Back on the familiar part of the route, we saw a white shopping bag that had blown against a fence. As we approached, we saw it was a cat.
A very spooky-looking cat. It just stood there and we quickly moved on.
Friday, November 27th, 2020 – Safeway
This morning was mild and dry but started to rain after we returned home which puts this in the good walk category. On the other hand, no money.
We found more stolen mail today.
Two batches along Juanita-Woodinville Way. It was mostly junk mail, spam in email terms, but we will return the important ones. One sad one, a power bill, that had a sticker saying that the bill was overdue for over a thousand dollars. Later, no photo and unrelated, we found a tag on the ground from a power meter stating that power had been disconnected due to lack of payment. IF this is due to the pandemic, it’s very sad.
We found a nice microfiber towel.
It was from REI for $25. It is advertised as “The extra-large REI Co-op Multi Towel Lite covers enough territory that you can wrap up in it after your swim—but it still packs small and light.” Okay, so how much territory are we talking about? And where is the territory distributed? [Chuck wanted to add some illustrations here but Janet wouldn’t let him.]
Someone lost their cap.
This depicts the California bear/star symbol on the United States flag. Does this signify that California is part of the United States? Or that California is leading the United States?
Well, perhaps they need to be their own country…
We found another dog ball.
Many homes along Juanita-Woodinville Way back up to the street. This ball was found outside the fence near the property line between two houses. We picked the most likely suspect and tossed the ball over the fence. There was an audible “Bong.” And we disappeared stealthily into the night.
Saturday, November 28th, 2020 – Riverside Drive
We are at the end of our walking week and have not found any money. Until today, that is.
We found a dime in the Bothell parking lot. This is the third week in a row that Saturday has kept us from being shut out. We also removed two rabbits and a large rat from the road.
We found more stolen mail near the start of our walk.
At first we thought is was part of the batch of mail we found yesterday, but the addresses were from a different area. Nothing worth returning.
Wild Mike’s Ultimate Pizza.
“Over 2 LBS – Super Size Uncured Pepperoni.” It didn’t look very appetizing and there was at least a pound left, so it must not have tasted very good. Let’s see. “100% All Natural – No Artificial Anything.” Probably why it doesn’t taste good.
We found some tools.
Another socket and another bungee cord. The socket was along Riverside Drive and the bungee cord was on the freeway offramp. They are both in good condition and made it into our collections.
We found some clothing.
We scarfed up this North Face cap then found a scarf to cap off our walk.
Under the freeway, the McLitterers left their mark.
They dropped it in the traffic lane and it was flattened and sticky from the smashed syrup containers. Glad we were wearing our gloves.
We picked up several things strewn along the freeway offramp.
Toiletries, a towel, a sports chair and an umbrella. We ended up schlepping them home. If they are in good condition, we’ll send them to Goodwill. Well, not the toiletries, they’re in the garbage can.
Someone left us a tin of snus.
We have found the packets before but didn’t know, or care about the name. However, we did a bit of research on these. On the FDA website, we found a 171-slide PowerPoint presentation from R. J. Reynolds requesting a modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) application trying to convince the FDA to allow them to change their labeling.
- removing the current warnings, “This product can cause mouth cancer” and “This product can cause gum disease and tooth loss.”
- replacing the current warning, “This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes,” with “No tobacco product is safe, but this product presents substantially lower risks to health than cigarettes.”
It wouldn’t convince us to use it.
Across from the apartments on Woodinville Drive, we came upon what looked to be a duffle bag in the weeds.
As she approached, she realized it was someone sleeping. She did a quick about-face and continued along. We wondered if the person was OK and determined to do a better check on our way back. We did see some movement from across the street so assumed that the person was OK. Well, other than sleeping in the weeds along the street.
While we were looking for the guy we saw we were being tailed.
Another cat watching us from across the street. Hope it’s not the same cat that was watching us on Thursday on Juanita-Woodinville Way. We’re in no mood to play cat and mouse with it, especially since we know which we would be.
Trash Walking 