A Long, Cold, Heart-Warming Week

We stopped walking last Thursday due to the weather and didn’t walk for a full week. The weather turned dry and very cold, dropping to 11°F (-11.7°C). Finally, based on the forecast of 33°F and rain for Wednesday morning, we suited up in our TrashWalking gear, which takes about fifteen minutes in cold weather, and ventured out. In the garage, Chuck was putting on his gloves and gathering the bags when Janet stepped out onto the driveway and said, “Nope.”

The driveway was covered with a thin sheet of ice and extremely slippery. 

The next morning, Thursday, Janet refused to get out of bed until Chuck checked the driveway. A light snow had fallen conditions were even worse than Wednesday.

Finally, Friday morning was dry, and the temperature was 33°F and we ventured out.

Friday, January 19^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

After missing a week of walking, it felt good being on the road again.

Well, maybe not that good. Since we skipped a week, we decided to do the Wednesday route, Safeway & 100th Ave, just because. We did not come across any roadkill but did find money.

A lone penny mined by Janet at her favorite drive-thru. After a week, we expected more.

Some poor guy lost his shoelaces.

As a result, he lost his shoe. There was an old adage about this:

For want of a lace the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the touchdown was lost.
For want of a touchdown the game was lost.
For want of a game the season was lost.
And all for the want of a shoelace.

Or something like that. This is what probably happened to the Seahawks this season.

This happens from time to time. We wave to all the buses and sometimes when a new driver is on our route, the driver stops the bus thinking we want a ride.

We waved to a bus near Safeway and the bus driver put on his blinkers and stopped short of the bus stop. Chuck walked over to the bus to explain to the driver that we always wave and to ignore us. The bus was empty, not only no passengers, but no driver either. Then we spotted him walking toward Safeway. We are guessing he needed a potty break.

Along Juanita-Woodinville Way, we picked up a strip of three unopened condoms.

Guess it’s just been too cold in parked vehicles to use these.

Or not.

This was at the Tolt Pipeline Trail parking area.

Saturday, January 20^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

Our Saturday walk is normally the longest of the week at about 7.5 miles. Today we were out for exactly five hours and walked 8.5 miles. That’s going the extra mile. There was a lot of trash along the way, and we also went farther up and zig-zagged across streets to get the odd bits of trash.

We came across a roadkill cat, but we left it by the side of the road in case someone is looking for it. We would normally notify animal control when we find a pet, but this one was in bad condition and unidentifiable. 

We did find money scattered along our route.

A penny in the Bothell parking lot, a nickel on Brickyard Road, a dime on 160th, another penny on the freeway off-ramp and a dime and penny in the park-and-ride. A total of twenty-eight cents. It makes a difference when it’s light enough to see and there’s no rain.

We also found some tools.

A bicycle pump in good working order. It’s an older model, but the current replacement is about twenty-eight dollars. A hand weeder without a handle and an Allen wrench with a handle. We did find the weeder’s handle, but it was in several pieces. We’re thinking a lawn mower was involved.

We also found a squeegee without a handle, and we know how the handle was lost.

It was at a service station, and they left it in the window-washing tank when the cold weather hit. It should be free by next week, and we’ll pick it up if it’s still there.

The second urine bottle of the year.

And two more condoms.

The blurry one on the left was in the park-and-ride and the one on the right was on the freeway on-ramp. We’re glad it wasn’t on the off-ramp. If it were on the off-ramp, it wouldn’t be practicing safe sex, or safe driving for that matter.

We don’t get this.

Triple Glitter Stress Ball, eight dollars at Claire’s. Three squishy balls in a mesh net with a knob/handle. 

Okay, after seeing the video, we decided to give it a try.

We see it’s more than just squishy balls in a mesh bag. That’s good because it sounded like a medical condition.

[Update: Triple Glitter Stress Ball got overstressed and sprang a leak, so we needed to trash it.]

We got a free paper.

This is taking littering to a whole new level. ”Wait Zeke, don’t toss that out the window, write Free on it. That means we are not littering, we are recycling.”

We found the plans for the modifications to the park-and-ride.

We’ll sell them to the highest bidder. Yes, we have no scruples, we sold them when we started TrashWalking.

We found three articles of clothing today.

A scarf, some gloves, and a pair of socks. When we got home, we researched the items. The scarf was really Facesoft Yoga Towel – Infused with Activated Charcoal to Detoxify and Sweat, twenty-four dollars on Amazon. We didn’t know activated charcoal was that expensive. And why do they infuse these towels with sweat? So, the scarf is technically not really an article of clothing. Next there were the four gloves we found, but none matched.

Then, there was the pair of socks. We opened it up and found there was only one sock with what looked to be a condom inside. Yes, we were still wearing our gloves.

The “condom” turned out to be a glove and it was stuffed with wads of tissue paper and small shards of glass. We had no idea, but we folded the cardboard and tossed the mess in the garbage. So, technically, we didn’t find any articles of clothing today.

We picked up a poster asking us to fill out a form about food security.

We didn’t do it. We don’t care how insecure our food feels, we’ll eat it anyway.

Finally, it’s things like this that make our TrashWalking worthwhile: Nearing the end of our walk on Juanita-Woodinville Way, we were on opposite sides of the street when Chuck heard a “Hello” behind him. A young man and his wife had parked in the park-and-ride then hurried to catch up to Chuck. The man said they drive to coffee every Saturday and often see us, and he thanked us for doing what we do. He said that they had purchased a gift card three months ago but hadn’t found the right opportunity to give it to us until now.

When folks do show their appreciation like this, it warms our hearts. It isn’t the money; we really don’t need it, it’s the thought behind it. People often stop and thank us, and we appreciate that. It’s when someone thinks about it enough to do something special like getting us a gift card, a pair of grabbers, a box of rubber gloves, or the vests we wear. We have experienced all this and more during our almost nine years of TrashWalking. It makes it all worthwhile.

Monday, January 22^nd, 2024 – Safeway

This is the pseudo-start of a new week, and we were looking forward to an exciting start. We are trying to streamline our posts and concentrate on the more interesting finds, not things like wheel covers and lug nuts. We’ll see how that goes.

We found no money and no roadkill today, but we did find some credit cards.

To be precise, one debit and a credit card. When we find something like this, we assume that a wallet was stollen and the perps were tossing items that they didn’t want.

However, we found no other evidence of stolen discards. The cards expire in 2027, so they were still valid. Perhaps the guy had too much debt and decided to get rid of them, but we don’t think it works that way.

However, we were able to contact the person through Facebook. He said that someone tried to use the cards last night, Sunday and obviously tossed them when they didn’t work. He asked us to shred them. 

During the messaging conversation, we mentioned that we find wallets and try to return them. He responded that we had contacted him before. And sure enough, we had as we reported in this post. So, this is at least the second time he lost his wallet near Safeway. He needs to get one of those wallet chains.

We find a lot of balls, especially during the summer, and they are overwhelming our garage.

Our balls are categorized. These are the large balls we’ve found. We also have buckets of baseball, tennis, and golf balls. The smaller ones are easy to store, but the big ones are getting out of hand. We sorted out thirteen soccer balls in various conditions, and eight generic playground balls and bagged them up. Now we need to figure out what to do with them. Unfortunately, our go-to Goodwill will just dispose of them.

Tuesday, January 23^rd, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

Wow. This morning’s temperature was a relatively balmy 45°F (7.2°C) with no rain. Give us five more degrees and it will be perfect walking weather. We found no money but did find some roadkill, of sorts. A small bird and this.

A drone. This is the second one we’ve found that decided to play in traffic and didn’t live to tell about it. They’re no match for a ’57 Buick. We speak from experience, but that’s another story.

As we passed the freeway off-ramp, we spotted something in the bushes. A guy often sits here playing music hoping for money, but some good Samaritans give him a gift bags instead. They often get tossed into the bushes.

A full can of lemonade, socks, and a toothbrush among other things. Also, a three-pack of Chapsticks. We’re not sure why they thought he needed three Chapsticks, and obviously he didn’t either.

We picked up a needle in the park-and-ride.

We rarely find needles these days. Early in our walking we found a lot of them, but since Fentanyl showed up, their usage has seemed to have decreased. King County gives out syringes to drug users to help prevent diseases due to reuse. They are probably sitting on pins and needles waiting for the demand to pick up.

Finally today, another heartwarming event.

A lady who parked her car at the Jackson’s gas station in the background litterally ran down the street to meet us. She told us that she started picking up trash and we were her inspiration and that she has seen more folks picking up trash too. She gave us two gift cards which we thanked her for.

She just better keep off our turf.

Wednesday, January 24^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

Today was again warm but drizzled throughout our walk and we arrived home wet, but comfortable. We found no money, no roadkill and little else of interest.

We picked up a sweater.

It is the Old Navy brand and in very good condition. Headed for Goodwill.

In the middle of the intersection of 112th Ave and Juanita-Woodinville Way was a small plastic bag.

In it was a small steel ring. It didn’t take Google Lens long to find it. It’s a Multi-Tool/Oscillating Tool Blade Adapter. We still don’t know what it is, but it’s worth sixteen dollars on Amazon. If you know what it is, we’ll let it go for six bucks, but you pay shipping. Let us know.

So, as you may recall, last week we counted the money in our TrashWalking tip jar. We put the coins in rollers placed the money in an old Bank of America bank bag we have.

The bag is full and contains $706.81 according to our accounting. We need to find another bag.

Time to check out Chuck’s vest pocket.

It’s pretty sparse and boring. Starting with the cards, a business card for manager of the apartments on 112th Ave NE. It was in the park-and-ride, so evidently the person was not interested in the apartment, but he didn’t need to litter the card. Then, one-and-a-half credit cards to add to the other two we found this week.

We always seem to find at least one writing utensil, and today is no different. We may be stretching it a bit, as this is a carpenter’s pencil from a local lumber company. The lead is missing as is the other half of the pencil, but we are still calling it a writing utensil. We’ll see if the TW Judges let it slide.

An undamaged but cheap pair of tweezers, the top view of a candle that is used to keep casseroles and other dishes warm. It’s the opposite poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay about a candle with two ends. It only has one end and should last the night.

A couple of leftover holiday stickers, two hair ties, and part of a Rubik’s Cube. In fact, this Rubiks Cube part is a cube, so the Rubik’s Cube could be called a Rubick’s Cubes. A Sponge Bob Pez dispenser with no candy to dispense. And a power button with nothing to power.

Finally, there is a bread bag fastener.

When Janet saw it, she said, “Oh, you found a yellow tag.” Chuck, oblivious to such things asked, “What’s special about yellow bread tags?” As if Chuck was a complete food imbecile, which he is, she said, “That means the bread was made on Saturday, so you know how fresh it is. There are websites that explain this.” Chuck said, “Why don’t you just read the label?” Janet just rolled her eyes. Chuck ate left-over pizza that night.

Thursday, January 25^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

We had moderate temperatures this morning but with a light drizzle throughout our entire walk. We saw no roadkill but found some money.

One dollar on the inside edge of the I-405 on-ramp. Not bad for the first money of the week.

We came across a downed street sign.

We see a lot of signs that are down, but normally they had help by some out-of-control vehicle. This one just fell over on its own. All the rain we’ve had may have had something to do with it.

We found a lot of trash along 116th Ave NE that parallels the freeway off-ramp.

We saw many cigarette butts in a twenty-foot stretch of the road. We both picked them up with our pickers and Chuck kept his count for a total of fifty-three, so there were about one-hundred butts. 

Maybe we should start a live YouTube Channel.

We found a couple more CDs at the Tolt Pipeline Trail.

One was unplayable, but the other was a tribute to a lady who passed away in 2007. We have no idea why this would show up now. Then again, we don’t know why half of the stuff we find shows up.

Finally, in the ditch, a bag of trash from KFC and a hair extension.

At least we hope it’s a hair extension and she just didn’t lose the fight over the last chicken wing.

Friday, January 26^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

The walking conditions today were like yesterday but without the drizzle, which was fine with us. We found no roadkill again but did find more money.

A penny at the gas station. Not much, especially after taxes.

Coming down Simonds Road, for some reason the construction crews put cones down the dividing line and some of the cones had been knocked into a travel lane.

We watched as cars turn the corner and then swerve to miss the cones. We waited for a break in traffic and set the cones back up on the dividing line. Good deed done for the day. That is, unless they wanted them that way.

Along NE 145^th St, someone decided to dump some tires. Such good citizens.

So, normally, we would notify the City of Bothell, but 145^th is the boundary between Kirkland and Bothell, but it seems to belong to Kirkland. We’ll try them first.

Also, along 145^th, we spotted where someone has been dumping beer bottles in the bushes.

There was a twelve-pack of Coors, a bag with another twelve pack of some Mexican beer, Barrilito, we have not heard of. There were also two large quart-sized beer bottles and a heavy glass. We’ll need to keep an eye on this spot. We stashed all the bottles and picked them up later with the car.

At the Tolt Pipeline Trail at the top of Norway Hill, we found a condom wrapper.

No sign of the condom, though. The guy was probably so proud that we wore it home to show mom and dad.

Three weeks ago on Simonds Road, we found a walkie talkie lying in the weeds.

Today, we found its mate. Unfortunately, during that time there was a lot of rain, some snow, and some extremely low temperatures. When we got it home, we could see moisture inside the case, so we put it in front of the fireplace to let it dry out. Eventually, it came back to life, and we could get them to communicate. Unfortunately, the microphone on this one is not working, so it would listen, but so far, it’s a walkie no-talkie.

Saturday, January 27^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

Today the weather started as a slight mist and proceeded to grow into a full-blown rain, and we arrived home cold and totally soaked. To add insult to injury, we didn’t find any money either.

Under the freeway, we finally see what they are making with all the construction.

It’s a giant slip-and-slide!

Across from the apartments, a loan condom

We find these here often. Do they realize that across the street, there are literally a hundred windows staring in their direction? Maybe they like having an audience. 

A lost pair of kid’s gloves.

They’ll be washed and sent to Goodwill.

On the freeway off-ramp, car parts.

An electric pump and a wheel well liner. We can understand the liner because it can fall off on its own, but the pump was replaced on the ramp and the bad part dumped in the ditch. We carried both to the end of the ramp and left them on the corner. We will pick them up with the car later.

On the freeway on-ramp, someone tossed a box of empty Modelo cans.

It took a few minutes to pull the pop tabs off the cans, crush them, then collapse the box. We have picked up our share of cans and bottles this week.

In the ditch along Riverside Drive, we found a broken piece of pottery.

Using Google Lens, we were able to track these down to a Trader Joes offering.

From the markings, we could tell that the one we found was the cat. Ours did not have a head or tail, and the succulent was missing too.

That wraps up our eight-day TrashWalking week. Our take,

• $1.30.  But it took eight days to do it.
• 33 Mikes Hard Lemonade cans, a lot, but it is two weeks’ worth.
• 8 Articles of clothing, six of which were disqualified.
• 7 Condoms, three unused.
• 3 Roadkill including a small drone.
• 3 Tools
• 3 Gift cards from appreciative folks.
• 2 Car parts.
• 2 Twice-found credit cards.
• 1 Urine bottle.
• 1 Set of secret construction plans.
• 1 Triple Glitter Stress Ball, overstressed.
• 1 Day-of-the-Dead Cat.
• 1 Walkie No-Talkie.

Have a great week and remember, don’t let your balls get overstressed.