California Interlude

Last week we travelled to San Jose, California to attend our granddaughter’s gymnastics meet. She was flying in from Anaheim where her high school team was at a cheer competition. The plane was scheduled to arrive Tuesday and her gym team was arriving on Saturday when we handed her over to them. So, we were there as her taxi service.

We decided to drive instead of fly, and left Bothell on Sunday afternoon. We spent the night in Eugene, Oregon and had a nice visit with Chuck’s cousin. On Monday, we continued to Pleasant Hill, CA which is about 45 minutes from the San Francisco airport. The trip was uneventful until we reached Mt. Shasta Pass where we started getting some snow.

As we crested the summit and started back down, the temperature slowly increased, and the snow turned to rain. The rest of the way to Pleasant Hill was a series of very heavy rain squalls. When we got settled into our hotel and stepped out for dinner, we saw a sign on the freeway.

“Severe Weather. Avoid Travel until Wednesday Night.” NOW they tell us.

We found Pleasant Hill to be, well, pleasant enough and we decided to take a short walk. And we found money.

A shiny quarter in a parking lot. New territory!

On Tuesday, we got to the airport easy enough. We crossed the Bay Bridge which has a toll. The freeway splits into several lanes to pay the toll and every lane was labelled “FastTrak or Invoice.”

We didn’t know what to expect, but the lanes had a speed limit of 25 mph and a sign stating, “No Stopping.” We figured out that this meant we would receive an invoice in the mail, but so far, nothing.

On our way to the airport terminal, we saw this moving walkway under repair.

But we were unmoved by the whole incident.

San Jose is our old stomping grounds and where we met in high school. It has changed a lot, but many of our memories remained. One of them was Togos Sandwiches. We spotted a shop in a mall and shared lunch.

Their first store in 1971 was near San Jose State University. Our apartment was two blocks away and we ate there often. They now have over 160 shops, mostly in northern California, but there is one in Washington about forty miles away from us. We’ll keep that in mind.

We knew that Togos was still active, but the surprise to Chuck was spotting A&M Motor Supply.

It’s a new building in a slightly different location. Chuck had a part-time job delivering parts for them during his early college days.

We did find a roadkill. Just before we arrived in San Jose, they had a windstorm and we found a duck.

It was lying on its side and not moving. Okay, it was a decoy, but still.

We drove through some wicked weather on our travels to San Jose, but the weather was great while we were there. Our first trip after collecting our granddaughter was to Monterey. The main reason was to have lunch with a friend of Janet’s who’s stayed connected since the fifth grade. We also visited Chuck’s grandparents’ house where he lived off-and-on when his father was in the military.

The house and the fence were built by Chuck’s carpenter grandfather in 1923. The house has been added onto and maintained, but the fence is now over one-hundred years old, untreated and has never been painted. It might be driftwood and embedded with salt, but it has lasted a long time.

The second day, we visited Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, most of the attractions on the boardwalk were closed, but we still had an enjoyable time, mainly because we found more money.

Showers are provided to allow people to rinse the sand off their feet. Well, Janet saw the shells and started checking them out. Someone rinsed off a dime and forgot it. She couldn’t let that pass.

Whenever we travel with our granddaughter, we always find a place to show off her talents and embarrass her.

Our granddaughter with the Santa Cruz Walton Lighthouse in the background. Thank you, Lucy.

This is a shot of the Santa Cruz B0ardwalk from the wharf.

A beautiful day.

Under the wharf a sea lion was basking in the sun.

We think its name is Lindsay, President of the Old Sea Lion’s Club, and a meeting was in progress.

It sounds about right. We saw a seagull that scored a small fish.

From what we see, it looks to be a Starry Flounder. The gull stood there floundering for several minutes but was eventually able to ingest the fish.

Tuesday, February 27^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

Back home. It was good to get out and walk again, but the morning was cold and blustery. We did find some money on our first day, a good omen.

Although it looks like a penny, it’s a dime. You can make out Franklin’s outline on it.

We also found a urine bottle.

A bad omen.

The rain must be uncovering some long-buried items. Here is a rusty chain.

It was found near the freeway onramp and has obviously been there a while. We’ve been walking within ten feet of it three times per week for several years and we only just spotted it. It was heavy so we left it where we could retrieve it with the car. It didn’t seem to be any omen at all.

Wednesday, February 28^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

Today was again cold and windy. We wore our heated gloves, though they didn’t seem to help much. We found more money.

Actually, Janet found more money at her favorite drive-thru. Only a penny, but we’ll take it, or at least she did.

We also picked up a tool.

It’s a pocket scribe, $13 for two on Amazon. The marking on metal type of scribe, not the Egyptian kind.

We came across another lost wedding band.

As usual, we’ll keep an eye on the local social media sites for the owner to post something. When we found the first one, we posted about it and had many responses from people who had lost a ring as far back as three years. Now, we just check for recent posts.

Someone lost her dress.

It’s a Sparkle Girlz Doll Sparkly Dress, ten bucks on Amazon. But that includes the doll too, so this is probably worth two bucks or so. It’ll get washed and sent to Goodwill.

Let’s check out what’s in Chuck’s vest pocket.

Starting on the left, some kid’s school picture, and another UNO card. We keep collecting these, but we’re sure we are not playing with a full deck yet. A package of two Oral-B teeth flossers. Or is it tooth flossers? Can you floss with only one tooth?

A piece of a glasses frame with no lens, a Nerf bullet, a car part with “rtable” showing but we couldn’t identify it. What may be a crushed piece of jewelry and a religious bracelet.

It’s made of rose gold, and we found it online for $37. We found it near a church, so will contact the church and see if anybody reported losing it.

Back to the top, a pencil that has seen better days, part of a lamp, someone’s attempt at paperclip art, and some electronics. There is a small LED on the circuit board that blinks occasionally. It’s probably part of a vaping device.

On the right, a hair clip and two hair bands, hair included, a happy-birthday pin, and some toys. A small bear pin, a Minecraft keychain icon, a very beat-up marble and the smallest fidget toy we’ve found. Our fingers are too big to work it.

We initially thought the item on the bottom was part of a phone case, but it’s a magnifier with a small LED light and it works quite well.

Available at an Ace Hardware store near you.

Thursday, February 29^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

Another cold, breezy morning and we found no money today. We picked up a lot of trash, still recovering from our sojourn to California last week. We went a bit out of our Thursday territory and found someone had hidden a box of trash behind an electrical box.

It was ordinary household trash including a few empty beer cans. However, there was also an empty pill bottle.

So, we know it was most-likely Chelsey who stashed the trash. The drug is to treat ADHD, so she lost track of where her garbage can is.

We did find a hat in good condition.

A University of Washington Huskies hat. We have a friend that would just love to own this hat. And we’ll give him some Nerf bullets to shoot at it.

We took a friend to a doctor’s appointment in Seattle this afternoon since he needed a ride home. We had about four hours to kill, so we went for a walk and saw a lot of trash.

Just normal Seattle stuff. A Starbucks cup, a bra, and panties. We left them alone. It’s not our territory.

Friday, March 1^st, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

Yet another cool, breezy morning with no roadkill. But we found more money. Janet went to work on her favorite drive-thru.

Two quarters and five pennies, a total of fifty-five cents. One of the pennies was very corroded and we could only see a partial date of 194. We doubt the fast-food restaurant has been there that long, though.

Down in the ditch on Juanita-Woodinville Way, a shirt had been hanging on a limb and Janet decided it was time to send Chuck down to fetch it.

After retrieving it we found it was a construction tee-shirt.

Both sleeves had been ripped off, so we decided it was not worth keeping. Chuck thought he would look pretty buff wearing it this summer, but Janet just rolled her eyes. It went into the trash.

We found three pairs of safety glasses this morning.

The two on the left were found very near the construction tee-shirt and matched it. The pair on the right were found in the construction zone on 100^th Ave NE. We think this will continue until the construction ends.

Okay, the safety glasses could be considered tools. We’ll try to get it past the TrashWalking judges. However, we also found another tool.

A FloTool funnel. We have found these before. They are three-and-a-half bucks at Home Depot. At that price, we’ll continue to find them tossed out.

At the construction on 100^th Ave NE, they are building with Lego Blocks.

Large and extremely heavy Lego Blocks.

We picked up another used condom outside the Starbucks at 100^th Ave NE and Juanita-Woodinville Way.

Do these come free with Cappuccino or what? And where are they used? Their parking lot isn’t that big.

At the turn-out on Simonds Road, we found two urine bottles.

Did the Amazon drivers have a kegger here or what?

We picked up another hat this morning.

Chipotle. We checked their website to see if this is really an employee hat.

Yep, it’s the official hat. But they are entirely too happy. What do they put in their salads anyway?

Saturday, March 2^nd, 2024 – Riverside Drive

It was still cold this morning, but the winds finally died down making for a more comfortable walk. We found neither money nor roadkill. In fact, we finished a rare, albeit, short walk week with no roadkill to deal with.

As we were heading toward downtown Bothell on Riverside Drive, a total of seven police cruisers with lights flashing and no sirens sped by heading toward Woodinville.

An eighth also went by without flashing lights. We figured the donut shop was about to open.

At the parking lot in Bothell, we found a broken toy behind the dumpsters.

But it wasn’t broken, it’s a Dirt Diggers Two-in-One cement mixer.

The mixer part can be removed and used as a sand bucket which was gone. His mother confiscated it for a flowerpot.

Woodinville Drive was a mess. Under the freeway, we came across a urine bag.

This was the second one we found today.

At this time of year, we can see a lot of the trash that has been tossed into the berry bushes.

When the berry bushes fill in, all will be hidden again. We can’t wait.

Here is some trash we pulled out of one location.

The election sign was from the 2013 Bothell City Council election, so it has been in the berry bushes for about ten years and was well-buried. We wouldn’t have found it if we had not waded in for other items.

Across the street in front of the apartments, the two couch sections are still there after several months. We routinely pick up coffee cups and other trash that people toss behind the couch. Do they do that at home? However, today was a first.

Dog poop bags. Also, a barbecue grill that someone abandoned. Some of the people who live here take no pride in their neighborhood. And that includes the people tossing their trash into the berry bushes.

This condom was on the freeway onramp.

During rush hour this ramp is metered so people have time to kill awaiting their turn.

At the park-and-ride, the 16^th wallet we’ve found.

It was empty except for a YMCA membership card and a post it note with a telephone number that was smeared and unreadable. We will turn it in to the YMCA and let them deal with it.

Four marijuana cigarettes.

At the park-and-ride: “Hey, Zeke, gimme another joint.” “Sorry, Jake, they’re gone.” “Wow, I didn’t think we smoked that many.” “Yeah, Jake, the box was empty, I checked it before I tossed it.”

We picked up two bags of food trash.

But there were two unopened bags of pretzels, so the day wasn’t a total loss for us.

That wraps up our TrashWalking travelog and week. Our take,

• $1.01 including 35 cents from California.
• 19 Mikes Hard Lemonade cans .
• 8 Balls.
• 8 Cop cruisers.
• 6 Items of apparel: 2 hats, a doll’s dress, a sleeveless shirt, a bra and panties.
• 5 Urine containers including two bags.
• 5 Tools including three pairs of safety glasses.
• 4 Joints, the smoking kind, not the knee kind.
• 2 Condoms, used.
• 2 Unopened food items.
• 1 Wedding band.
• 1 Bracelet.
• 1 Wallet.
• 1 Floundering seagull.
• 0 Roadkill.

Have a great week and remember, when you visit Seattle, keep track of you bra and panties.