Illicit Traffic Control

Monday, July 17^th, 2023 – Safeway

This morning was overcast with a slight mist turning to rain. It was a welcome change to our recent walks, but was not enough to help with the dry conditions. We found some money today.

Janet’s favorite service station paid off with two pennies. Remember a penny saved is a penny not worth much.

We did find a roadkill, but we can’t count it.

A ball from the KinderCare strayed too far into the street. We don’t normally show pictures of roadkill, but this can serve as a lesson to the inmates at the KinderCare.

We picked up two beverage containers today.

No, not beer, soda, or Mike’s cans that we found, but reusable drink containers. First, a Thermos drink bottle in reasonable condition. Well, we wouldn’t use it, but we’ll send it to Goodwill. Then a drink cup celebrating Kentucky. It had probably been filled with bourbon, but there was a hole in the bottom. Oh well, there went breakfast.

Nice. Someone left a chair on the corner.

The sign was wet and smeared but it probably said “Free.” But perhaps they paid the Junk Luggers to haul it away. Yeah, right.

Tuesday, July 18^th, 2023 – Park-and-Ride

Back to our clear warm days. We had a nice walk with no roadkill and found another penny.

It was on the freeway overpass, so a bit beat up. But it still makes cents.

Yet another unopened beverage.

This time an AriZona drink. From the manufacturer, “Born in the heart of Brooklyn, AriZona Beverages came onto the scene with a fresh take on iced tea, which has now taken the world by storm.” Wait, what? There is a Brooklyn Arizona? Nope, the AriZona drink is made in Brooklyn. And there isn’t any alcohol in it. Go Figure.

On the freeway onramp, we picked up another rubber duck.

We added it to the other six we’ve found since we’ve been keeping track. They are all from the same China factory and are shipped by bundling them all in a big net, tossing it in the ocean and letting the ocean currents carry it to the U.S. in about three months. Okay, we may have made that last part up. Obviously, our ducks are not in a row.

Four months and 682 miles later, we retired our fifteenth pair of Brooks shoes.

And start on the sixteenth pair on the bottom. They look like a bunch of raw recruits, fresh out of boot camp. Make that shoe camp.

Wednesday, July 19^th, 2023 – Safeway and 100th Ave NE

It was a bit warmer this morning and reached 60°F (15.6°C) by the time we reached home. A little uncomfortable, but we’re not complaining. We found no roadkill and another penny.

This is getting a bit monotonous. It’s like we are playing penny-ante poker each day and not winning a pot. And, no, four cents does not make a pot. Now if there was a raccoon or opossum…

This was probably important.

A lost pin about three inches long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Arriving at the lake, “Wait… What happened to the boat?” No, we didn’t see any boats nearby.

People left us more unopened food.

We appreciate it, but really, we can afford our own food. But after this, can you order extra dressing on the side?

The city mowed more weeds along Juanita-Woodinville Way revealing a lot of random, mostly chopped up trash, but also this.

We checked the Internet sources and it’s no longer registered. So what do you do with an old license plate? One site had this list.

• Mail Them Back to the Washington State DMV.
  
  • Right. We should take the time and money to package it up and mail it? We think not.
    
• Sell Your Old Plates Online.
  
  • This suggested the plate could be vintage and valuable. We don’t think so in this case. Of course, on eBay, we could just put “Vintage” in front of the description and sell it for ten bucks.
    
• Recycle Your Old License Plates Responsibly.
  
  • In the end, we did recycle it. But we just put it in a dumpster. Is that responsible?
    
•  Get Creative With Your Washington State Plates.
  
  • This suggested turning it into a work of art. Sorry, but we don’t have the time due to picking up trash like old license plates.
    
• Donate Your Old Car In Washington State
  
  • What? We didn’t even find the car.
    
• Use them in your next holdup of a 7Eleven.
  
  • Okay, we added this one. And we would only use it as a last resort.
    

Near Safeway, we found some bedding and clothes.

It was all very clean, and we rolled it up in the dark-grey blanket and picked it up later with the car. We took it to Goodwill, and they accepted everything but the dark grey blanket. Really? We’ll fold it up and take it back again.

We saw one of those plant identification tags on a bush.

One-year guarantee. Hope they kept their receipt.

Thursday, July 20^th, 2023 – 160th to 124th Street

This morning we picked up a lot of trash, but nothing of significance. Well, we did remove two rats from the road and found some money.

Eleven cents at a gas station, found by Janet, of course. On the way back Chuck checked a different station and found nada. Go figure.

We did find a lost cap.

A Kailua hat, to be exact. It took a few searches, but it appears to be a district in Honolulu. But on our way to find out, a slight misspelling can result in a lot of places that are close to the same spelling plus or minus a few letters.

• Kailua-Kona, another place in Hawaii, located on the western side of the Big Island, famous for its coffee plantations and scenic landscapes.
• Kuala, which is a common prefix in various place names in Southeast Asia, such as Kuala Lumpur (the capital city of Malaysia) or Kuala Lumpur (a town in Indonesia).
• Kalau, a village in Estonia, or as a misspelling of “Kalu,” which is a town in Nigeria.
• Kailan, a town in the Philippines.
• Kalila, a village in Lebanon.

We probably hit them all until we found the correct one, though Estonia sounds interesting.

On 160^th, some work was being done on a school zone light and they left it unlocked.

Well, not really unlocked, more like broken locked. Anyway, it was tempting to turn on the 20-mph speed limit sign during the summer at rush hour, but we didn’t. It would have been fun, though.

Later, not during our walk, we spotted the mowers in our area.

This is both good and bad. They clean up the weeds that overtake the roadsides, but also shred a lot of debris that we failed so spot on our walks because of the weeds.

Friday, July 21^st, 2023 – 100th Ave NE

So, today Janet is really miffed. We often see two guys walking together for exercise, not trash walking, but that’s okay. But today we got off to a very slow start because of yesterday’s said mowers and got waylaid with freshly-revealed treasures. Anyway, as we approached Janet’s favorite drive thru, she saw the two in front of us walk through the drive thru, one picked up something on the ground and put it in his pocket. Bottom line, we removed no roadkill and found no money, which comes back to the part about Janet being miffed.

Thanks to the mowers, as we left our house, we found a urine bottle.

Okay, this is slightly different in that it is a coke bottle and not a water bottle, but in the end, it’s a urine bottle.

Farther down the street near a school, some construction has been underway, and we finally saw what it was. A new crosswalk. Of course, we needed to check it out even though there was no traffic to be seen.

Yep, when we pushed the button, the lights lit up. But it started asking for a password. So the students need a password to cross the street? That is just weird.

Farther down the street there was a newly-installed light like yesterday to draw attention to the school zone sign. Also, like yesterday, they left it unlocked.

Still no traffic, so we gave it a try. It worked. We are trying to figure out how to control it by remote control. Yes, retirement can be boring.

After our short trek into unauthorized traffic control, we thought we were free and clear, but it was not to be. As we were walking down Juanita-Woodinville Way a cop suddenly appeared in front of us with lights flashing.

He passed us by. We have encountered him before and he was thanking us for picking up trash. If he only knew our criminal record of illicit traffic control.

We did find a tool.

A 13/16^th drill bit, which is pretty specific, but it is in good condition, so we will keep it in case we ever need to drill a 13/16^th hole.

Isn’t this nice.

Someone provided some seating to give the garbage men a rest.

We found a missing missing cat sign.

And a cat that wasn’t missing. It looked wary of us. Perhaps it saw our trash bags and thought we let the cat out of the bag. Or it could just be a scaredy cat.

We found some ballots and we immediately thought of stolen mail.

We were able to return them to the owners and the lady said that someone put them on top of the car and drove off. “Not me” she assured us. Too bad they were for Kirkland. If they were for Bothell, we could have voted twice.

It’s Friday, time to see what’s in Chuck’s vest pocket.

Starting on the left with the cards, a business card for a civil engineering consulting firm, Red Barn. The card is for the vice president but has “Mom’s Phone” and “Mom’s email.” So, does he need Mom’s permission to take on a project? Another debit card, however, this one is expiring this month so it may have been tossed rather than lost.

Then there is the SBP card which stands for “Seattle Bouldering Project.” After some research, we learned that bouldering is climbing artificial walls without ropes. On the back of the card is this statement.

It’s no wonder why the guy threw it away. Finally, a Safeway rewards card.

At the top, a ballot stub. “Voter, please remove this stub.” It would be nice if they added “and don’t litter it.” A pair of children’s sunglasses missing a lens and found separately, two lenses, neither of which fit. Somebody’s reminder note, “Lights Phone Window.” It probably means turn off the lights, remember the phone and jump out the window, but who knows? Two unopened packs of candy.

The green card is a donation card to record your donation to the Northwest Center. It states, “Donor, please fill out and keep for your records. Oh, yes, we did donate our Ferrari. It was used, so it was only worth $400,000. When the IRS starts asking questions, it’ll be a good thing that we have this receipt in our records.

A pink Post-it note with the words, “Apology to Travis.” We are not sure if this is a reminder to make the apology or if is the apology itself. Either way, we’re sorry we can’t tell you more.

A Lorus watch model V533-7000. Well, the back of the watch anyway. We searched for this model on the Lorus website, but it was unlisted, so it must be rare. Below the watch is a cigarette lighter. We find a lot of empty Bic lighters, but this one still works. Now if we only smoked…

Back to the top, two hair bands, one with hair still in it. The broken lock from the traffic controller, a Refresh auto air freshener logo, a ticket to smile. Moving to the car emblem, we picked up pieces of at least six shattered cars this week. Two were Hondas based on stamps on the plastic parts, and this one, obviously was a Mustang.

A toy bottle of poison. Is it just us, or do others think giving a child a bottle of poison to play with is a bad idea? A mermaid sticker. Actually, that would be called a fishhook. A marble that did not move during the photo. That’s because the bottom has a big chip out of it.

Then there is a green H and another sticker stating “Be Kind. Like H we will!

Saturday, July 22^nd, 2023 – Riverside Drive

This morning we walked eight miles and only needed to remove one roadkill, a small bird. And we only found one moth-eaten penny on Woodinville Drive.

So, this proves that a bird in the hand is actually worth very little.

This wasn’t roadkill but we did remove it into the bushes.

Under the freeway, someone left a bag with several pieces of unidentifiable meat, and it reeked. We tossed it into the bushes. Right now, we imagine people are passing overhead at sixty miles-per-hour saying, “What’s that smell?”

At the Sammamish River Park, someone left a bag of fast-food trash.

And some beads for our next trip to New Orleans.

There were three cars in the parking lot. Two of the cars were bicyclists out for an early-morning ride on the trail.

But we think this guy got there much earlier.

There is a game store that shares the Bothell parking lot with other businesses. Someone purchased a bunch of 12-card booster packs for some game and tossed the wrappers into the bushes and we worked to pull them out.

The bushes BEHIND the dumpster. Are they trying to upset us or are they just playing with us?

We thought we found some foreign coin on the freeway onramp.

But on further examination, it has an image of Paradise Point State Park and the East Fork of the Lewis River on one side and Battle Ground Lake State Park on the other. These parks are about five miles from each other. Why have a coin with two state parks on it? Saturday with the Miller family of Battle Ground Washington. Okay kids, where should we go today? Boy: “Let’s go to the river!” Girl: “The river is yucky, the lake! The lake!” Now, now, kids, we’ll let the magic coin decide.”

We found a tool today.

An air compressor valve in mostly good condition. And yes, we do have an air compressor.

On July 1^st, we found this mess at a Sammamish River access road.

We notified the City of Bothell who promptly notified us that this was King County’s jurisdiction and they had passed it on to King County, and here it sits. As a little history lesson, we routinely reported illegal dumping to King County several years back. People would drive down this road out of sight and dump all kinds of items like general trash, appliances, estate items and so on. We kept reporting these to King County and they would eventually clean it up. Then came their ultimate answer: Block the road with the cement barrier in the above photo. That didn’t impress us, solve a problem by eliminating access by everyone. It did cut down on the illegal dumping though, or probably moved it somewhere else. Now the litterers just dump in front of the barrier. So, it’s week three.

We found another hat.

We did a couple of searches to determine what LW stood for but came up empty. And no, Google Lens failed also.

Along Riverside Drive, we found a discarded DVD.

Yes, a porn video. Cluster —- 2. Use your imagination.

Then on the way up Brickyard Road, two condoms.

We found one then about 100 feet later, a second. So, we may be wrong, but our theory is the guy had the porn video then suddenly found the real thing and went wild. Or not.

At the top of Brickyard Road, someone crashed into the fence at the bus stop.

We hope it wasn’t a bus driver, but we are thinking the guy who tossed the DVD and the condoms. Just a guess.

We are sensitive to the amount of abandoned construction signs, pylons and cones. So, this week, we decided to take a photo of all abandoned construction equipment on our routes. Here is the photo rogue’s gallery we came up with.

A few comments:

• The sign on row 1 is fairly new within the last three months.
• The no parking signs in row 4 are left over from repaving done in 2017.
• The cone on the right of row 4 has been there for several years and each year some small flowers grow out of the top.
• The cat-fish sign in row 3 is from a repaving project a few years ago on Juanita-Woodinville Way. We contacted Granite construction and were ignored.
• The first column of row 7 is from the bridge overhaul of the Bothell Senior Center bridge a few years back. At the time, we contacted them by email and were, of course ignored.
• The oldest one we know about is in the third column of row 6. It predates our walking that started in 2015.

With that, we put a wrap on our walking week. Our take this week.

• 16 Cents. A dismal week.
• 32 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans.
• 4 Balls.
• 3 Roadkill. Much lower than last week.
• 2 Tools, no sockets.
• 2 Condoms, used.
• 1 AriZona can, unopened.
• 1 Caesar Salad, unopened.
• 1 Urine bottle, opened.
• 1 Ducky, rubber.
• 1 State parks selector coin.

Have a great week and remember, you can’t understand someone until you’ve walked 682 miles in their shoes.