Monday, May 3rd, 2021 – Safeway
It was a rather mundane walk today with no roadkill and no money. Unless you count the Hundred Grand we found.
Yes, a bad joke, but there was a real candy bar inside, so that should count for something.
Well, this isn’t good.
The master link of a motorcycle chain failed, and the rider left the chain. Perhaps he had a bad chain reaction.
Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 – Park-and-Ride
Today, we did not find any money, but did remove a roadkill. It was a duck. We rarely find roadkill ducks, this being only the fourth dead duck we have removed. In comparison, since July 2017, we have removed 177 rabbits. Of course, they were dead ducks too.
We also saw the Salinas Construction guy who gave us our vests. It is good to see him regularly again.
In the park-and-ride, someone left a pizza box.
The pizza must not have been that good since they left half of it. The box states “It took three years to satisfy our toughest critics: Ourselves.” Perhaps they should look for some more critics.
After some scam artists plastered a bunch of auction signs by the freeway a few weeks ago, we have been picking up these and other downed signs. We placed them in the corner of the park-and-ride hoping the Metro guys would pick them up. They didn’t, so in the afternoon, on the way back from an errand, we picked them up with our car.
We ended up with six random signs and seventeen of the Forced Auction signs. We have since spotted three more of the auction signs that we will pick up on Saturday on our return route home. Next time, these appear, we will sign up for the meeting, collect their signs and return them in person.
We found car parts today.
A hubcap, or is it a wheel skin?
Then, we found a hex cap with a Honda emblem on it. It turned out to be a tire valve stem cap, ten bucks for a set of four on Amazon. Who spends money for custom valve stem caps? What, $163? Okay, for a Ferrari, maybe, but not for a Honda.
Finally, we found a Nissan Truck tie down cleat. $219 for a set of four on Amazon. Since we have this, it makes us want to purchase a Nissan Frontier or Titan. After reading a review, we decided on the Titan because “The Nissan Titan packs more power and tech.” It would be so much more helpful picking up those damned Forced Auction signs.
Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 – Safeway
No roadkill today, but we did find a quarter.
It’s always a relief finding the first money of the week. It takes the stress off knowing we will not get shut out.
Long ago, we found a one-liter Hofbräuhaus souvenir beer stein and use it to toss our found money in. However, our cup runneth over.
When the glass is full, we count the money and roll the coins. As of today, counting the quarter we just found, we have a total of $321.79. Not bad for six years of walking. Well, actually, it is bad. And no, we are not going to calculate our hourly wage again. In the past, we have found a smattering of Canadian coins, but this year, only one penny. Another casualty of the Covid border lockdown.
We found a cheap Batman knockoff bracelet.
Chuck gave it to Janet as a peace offering, but she was not impressed. She’s still annoyed about his “leftover surprise” comment about dinner last night.
Behind the bushes near Safeway, we noticed a grocery cart with a TV set.
The TV was reasonably small but was an old Philips plasma TV and weighed a lot. We left it by the sidewalk and will contact the City of Kirkland. Though, based on past responses, we are not hopeful. Maybe Safeway will take their cart back and dispose of the TV.
Finally, we found a Stretchy String Fidget stress reducer.
Its soft, stretchy properties are supposed to relieve stress. It stretches from ten inches to eight feet. Okay, get a friend to hold one end and you stretch it eight feet away. What is your stress level?
Thursday, May 6th, 2021 – 160th to 124th Street
Okay, after we counted our found money yesterday, we found another quarter to inaugurate our stein.
Off to a good start.
The roadwork on Junita-Woodinville Way is underway. They put the first layer of new pavement down on a short stretch. And, of course, a small opossum decided it wanted to be the first to perform quality control on it.
We are awaiting its official report.
We came across a lost fingernail.
Yes, we know it’s artificial, but it still sounds painful.
We found a “switch blade” golf divot repair tool.
Switch blade knives are illegal, but this thing also seems to be as lethal. Don’t try to pull a golf tee on us.
Friday, May 7th, 2021 – 100th Ave NE
Today as we were walking down 100th Ave NE, a car stopped ahead of us and the guy looked like he was going to put out some more of the #$#@ Auction signs. Instead, he approached us with two Starbucks gift cards and thanked us. Although not necessary, we do appreciate the thought.
Yesterday, some miscreant dumped a dryer in the ditch on Norway Hill.
When we returned home, we entered a request form on the Bothell website. This morning, as we were approaching the location of the dryer, we received a call from a City of Bothell employee letting us know it was taken care of. And sure enough, it was gone. Bothell is very responsive to our requests.
Yes, from the amount of money we find, we are on a shoestring budget.
But don’t leave us shoestrings, leave us money.
During our walks, we have a lot of time to think about the best way to pick up trash, where to get rid of it, and the equipment we carry.
We wanted to share one of our key findings.
We found this guy half-buried.
We couldn’t identify him on the Internet, but the glasses appear to be drawn on, so he may be trying to hide his identity. Nice hairdo, though.
We picked up a liquid-filled ball with another smaller ball and some glitter inside.
When we got it home, we bounced it and it lit up with blue and red flashing lights for about five seconds. It had a label on it that identified it was from the Dollar Tree store. The description had the following specifications:
- Length: 2.5 in.
- Width: 2.5 in.
- Height: 2.5 in.
- Diameter: 2.5 in.
Well, duh! It’s a ball.
Saturday, May 8th, 2021 – Riverside Drive & Brickyard Road
Today, we found two separate pennies.
That makes fifty-two cents for the week, which is not bad, but not good either. We also removed three roadkill snakes, a mole, and a crow from the road. Really, guys, that should be worth more than two pennies. At least, that’s our two cents.
Okay, now we need to make an apology. Last week, we poked fun at someone who tried to mow an overgrown lawn and only went a couple of feet into it.
Today, it looked like this.
Our hat’s off to the person. Unless he used a riding lawnmower. In that case, we take it all back.
We picked up this mask.
It’s obviously custom-made for Tech Support Folks.
A weird vehicle passed us.
Hope it didn’t drop any random parts along our walking route.
We found a nice cap today.
A Port Authority Can-Do cap. We should wear it because we pick up a lot of cans every day. Can do!
At the freeway off-ramp, a nice twelve-inch ball.
“Hey, Jake. Slow down to sixty and I’ll toss you this ball.” We put it in an extra bag and carried it home to add to our ball collection.
There was a bad accident on the freeway on-ramp.
Lightning McQueen didn’t fare very well.
We get a lot of honks and waves when we walk. As we turned up Brickyard Road, we heard some honking behind us.
It didn’t wave to us, though.
At the park-and-ride, another cracked crack pipe.
“Damn! I accidently stepped on the crack pipe. What’ll we do now?”
A blast from the past.
Beginning in June of last year, a political sign appeared at the intersection of Juanita-Woodinville Way and 112th Ave NE. A few days later the words “Sleepy Joe” appeared on the sign.
This marker-and-tape battle kept going with threats and new signs for the next few months. Today, one of the original signs with the note appeared on the ground. We carried it home and recycled it to close the last chapter in the story.
Trash Walking 