Monday, August 30th, 2021 – Safeway
Another week and another roadkill. Actually, three roadkills, a small Opossum, a very fat rat and another moderately-sized rat. And what did we get for it, absolutely no money. Plenty of friendly waves, though, which we appreciate.
We found a very small plastic squeeze bottle of some type.
It could have been a whoopie cushion for a rat.
We did find a tool.
But it’s going to take a lot of paint thinner to clean this up. “100% Pure Bristle.” This site indicates that “Natural bristles are made from some sort of animal hair, such as hog or badger.” Made in China, so could have been dog or…
Playing it safe in the Safeway parking lot.
Long ago, there was a grocery store chain in California called Purity. Old Joke: Did you hear about the mouse that lived in Purity until it found there was a Safeway?
Some major work going on at the top of Norway Hill.
Probably someone having a little septic problem.
And this was disturbing.
A clown hiding in the bushes. It was Krusty the Clown from the Simpson’s and he wasn’t clowning around. He is definitely not a class clown, not even a class act.
Tuesday, August 31st, 2021 – Park-and-Ride
After a dry day yesterday, today we found money.
The penny intersection at the 7-Eleven keeps coughing up pennies. Last week, we found a total of forty-four pennies here. Today makes forty-five. If Janet’s theory that a roll of pennies got lost, there are another five pennies still out there. We will keep looking. Remember, a penny saved is worth very little.
We found some car parts today.
A Ford wheel cover that was damaged and recycled and an undamaged ASU Sun Devils license plate frame. Due to the COVID 2020 season, ASU played only four games and finished the season 2-2. They announced they would not participate in any bowl games. With a 2-2 season, would they expect to be invited. Oh, wait, there’s the “COVID Bowl” held in Wuhan.
Last week, we found two credit cards and a health insurance card but had no way to contact the person. Today, in the same area, we found his driver’s license. All were still valid.
With the license, we had a home address and mailed the cards off to him. You are welcome.
Someone left a seed spreader for free. Evidently this guy was tired of sowing his wild oats.
We left it, but perhaps we should have carried it to a dumpster. It looks to be a very efficient method of spreading cigarette butts.
Wednesday, September 1st, 2021 – Safeway
Well, okay. We needed to remove a rat from the roadway but got two cents for our effort.
Neither were from the prolific 7-Eleven intersection, they were random finds which makes cents.
We did find a multitool also.
Yes, we tossed it back over the fence to the KinderCare.
Someone left a wicker bookcase at a bus stop.
Bus wait times must be longer than we thought. Hmm, nice bungee cord holding it closed. It may disappear tomorrow.
On Wednesdays, we have been extending our walk a little way down 100th Ave NE. Today, we found a kid’s shoe.
They say if the shoe fits, wear it. This one didn’t and we didn’t. However, after the fact, we spotted a QR code on the pole. It took us to the site munzee.com. It looks similar to Geocaching, but uses QR codes as the “prize.” Well, we found this one by accident. And for the first time in four years.
It does not seem to be as popular as Geocaching which we used to participate in. Now we find “treasures” every day. Including an old shoe.
We found a Marvel wallet.
It was empty, like some of their movies. It is headed for Goodwill.
As the sun came up, a selfie.
Daddy Longlegs.
Over a year ago before the pandemic hit, we saw several markings of “BK” on the roadway that told us to go back. We finally figured out these were where bicycle lanes were to be marked. Then, nothing happened. Since our last walk on Monday, they have been completed.
We were impressed with the care and accuracy of the markings. Then, later, we found someone left the painting instructions. What the heck? Is this paint by numbers? It’s all white, for goodness sakes! His head is out of proportion, too.
Thursday, September 2nd, 2021 – 160th to 124th Street
The Chinese have the year of the rat. We are having the week of the rat. Today we removed the fourth rat of the week, and we still have two days to go. Also, the 7-Eleven intersection just keeps on giving.
Yet another shiny penny today. This may not be part of the batch scattered in the intersection since it was not run over multiple times.
Off and on, we keep finding sealed baggies with a mask inside.
Today we found a baggie with four masks. We couldn’t let these go to waste and added them to our collection for visitors. Besides, we have our own masks that we’ve found.
We found a very small, abandoned hornet’s nest.
It was about the size of a softball. The hornets must be downsizing. The housing market is getting too expensive for everyone.
The park-and-ride was prolific today. First, someone looked to have slept in the bus stop and left their cap.
We will wash it and add it to our collection. This is a twenty-dollar cap. We wouldn’t pay twenty for it, but someone did. Okay, we will let it go for ten dollars, washed. Five unwashed.
There were some tossed beer cans in the parking lot. Three of them were unopened.
Okay, two were damaged enough that they were leaking, so you could call those opened. We checked their rating on Untappd.com for their rating. 2.12 out of 5. That is what we figured and probably why there were three full cans left in the parking lot.
Also at the park-and-ride, we found a pride dinosaur.
It was a fidget toy. Eight bucks at Walmart. The only thing that fidgeted was the bubbles popped into the other side. Then, turn it over and start again. No loud popping, or anything. We would rather pop the packing pillows.
Okay, not for ten hours. Get a life.
We are continuing our quest to clean up a new road. It has been very neglected, and we have been cleaning it up about twenty feet at a time. When we expand our routes like this, we call it grooming, picking up the big stuff and working down the small stuff. We are still in big stuff mode and, the litterers keep adding to the mess. We may have met our match.
We found another needle.
We added it to our collection, but the number of needles we find has really been subsiding, a good thing. We don’t know how long this one has been here.
In the same area, we found five devices marked Ulta.
After some research, we found they are antitheft devices that detect changes in light and movement to determine if someone has tucked something into their coat or purse. These obviously did not work, even they got stolen. One did go off with a weak alarm as we were sorting out our trash. Good try, but a bit late.
We also found another iPhone.
After some investigation, we determined it was an iPhone 4, circa 2010. It probably communicated with string and tin cans. Wonder what the trade-in value for this is?
Friday, September 3rd, 2021 – 100th Ave NE
Well, okay. After finding one or two cents a day, today we found twelve cents at the 7-Eleven!
Don’t laugh, it is a relatively big jump in profits this week. And no tipping off the IRS. In return, we needed to remove a crow from the road. We hope no other crows saw us. They can be vindictive.
We found a golf ball.
It looks to be an advertising golf ball, but they need to get their money back. Perhaps it was to celebrate a wedding. Smioing marrying Jaioxd Koaixxxx. As we said, get your money back.
Guess this could also be part of the wedding celebration.
Two unused condoms. Probably not part of the wedding celebration, they were not monogrammed.
We did find some tools today, though.
Some type of awl that had been run over. A bungee cord, also run over, but still usable. An Allen wrench, slightly run over. And a dental pick that folks probably swerved to avoid as they do the dentist. It was in good shape. At least we didn’t find a socket.
Saturday, September 4th, 2021 – Riverside Drive & Brickyard Road
On today’s walk, we found no money and came across no roadkill. So, our total for this week ended up at one opossum, four rats, a crow and sixteen cents.
While it was still dark, we spotted something cylindrical beside the road. As we picked it up, it lit up.
It was the top of a solar-powered yard light. We do not know why it decided to light up when we picked it up. It wasn’t like we had any bright ideas at the time.
Under the freeway, we found a Toy Story sticker book.
It had some of the pages colored in, kind of. But most of the blank pages had what looked like estimates for roofing jobs. I am not sure it would instill confidence if your roofer showed up with a Toy Story coloring book to track the job costs.
We found another utility knife.
However, like most of these we have found, it had lost its utility and got recycled.
Janet attempted to take a selfie of herself.
She needs practice.
Thursday as we passed through the park-and-ride, we saw a truck with a Home Depot bucket under it.
Today, the bucket remained.
Have leftover tiles from the job you just finished? Just leave them at the park-and-ride, metro will take care of them for you. We left them too. We do have the license number of the truck if anyone wants to follow up.
In the bushes at the freeway entrance where the panhandler hangs out, we found more stuff.
An unopened bag of beef snack sticks. Guess he could be a vegetarian. Two weeks ago, we cleaned up the area and picked up six signs. Today, there were four more. He must have a stockpile of them. Same theme, slightly different wording. The last thing we found was someone’s credit card. We both think the name sounds familiar like we have found something of his before but cannot remember what. Maybe it’s the panhandler’s name?
Last week, we saw four bags of dumped trash on county property and filled out an illegal dumping complaint on their website, left photo.
This week, the bags were gone, but they left the trash that spilled out of the bags. Sheesh! Do we need to fill out a separate form for each item? Take some pride in your work.
The recycle bag that Chuck has been using for several months reached its end-of-life today. You know the day is coming, but you are never prepared for it.
After a short, yet tasteful ceremony, we said our goodbyes and tossed it into the garbage can. Chuck can be so sappy.
Trash Walking 