Thanks, Zeke

Monday, June 10^th, 2024 – Safeway

The week is continuing with the boring weather, the good kind. There was no rain, mid-fifties in the morning, and low seventies in the afternoon. How much better can you get?

Daily, we track five categories of finds; money, roadkill, balls, Mikes Hard Lemonade cans, and tools, but we don’t necessarily cover them in our daily updates. Today, we found items in all categories, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

We came across a roadkill crow.

Roadkill crows are rare, this being only our fifty-seventh out of over a thousand roadkills. They are also tricky to remove. If another crow notices us removing it, we can be permanently blamed for its demise. We checked the vicinity carefully then, seeing no other crows, removed it. In the past, when there were other crows around, we left the remains, pausing for a moment to offer our respects, of course.

We also found money in three separate places.

Eleven cents at Janet’s favorite drive-thru, another very beat-up penny at the McDonalds driveway and a shiny penny at the new Mexican food truck on Juanita-Woodinville Way.

We picked up a Honda cap.

Head cap, not hubcap. A nice one for our burgeoning hat collection. And it is very reliable and gets great gas mileage.

The end of an epic journey.

The new fence is complete after the tree came down on the old one. Now they need to concentrate on the shed behind the fence.

At our turnaround point at 100^th Ave NE, we picked up a lot of shatter-scatter of a automobile altercation.

If you know someone who has bad breath, an older car, and was recently in an accident, let them know we have their mouthwash and automatic steering fluid. Wait, that is a small ice scraper. We would normally recycle it, but the TrashWalking judges are on vacation this week leaving Zeke the janitor to fill in for them. Good luck on that, we are counting this as a tool.

Heading down Norway Hill toward home, we found a used condom someone tossed after parking at the top of the hill.

But wait, this was on the side of the road going up the hill. Evidently, they couldn’t wait.

Tuesday, June 11^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

The weather degraded a bit, turning blustery and threatening some light rain. And the rain did eventually come, but not until we arrived back home. After checking all our category checkboxes yesterday, today we filled none. What we did find was urine, which is not a designated category.

On 112^th Ave NE early in our walk, we picked up a tied plastic bag with some urine in it. Then, at the park-and-ride, a urine bottle. Evidently, there were a lot of pissed-off folks yesterday.

We keep finding floor mats.

We just don’t understand how they lose them. They are right there under your feet, for goodness sakes.

On the freeway onramp, someone lost a cooler.

We cleaned up the mess and carried the cooler back up the ramp. Then we started thinking what could be in the cooler. Rotten food, or worse body parts left by a serial killer? Slowly we opened the cooler only to find an ice pack, no longer frozen. It’s a good thing there wasn’t a severed head, it would have been ruined.

Wednesday, June 12^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

Today was a little cooler but still quite comfortable, and we got back to checking some categories. We found money.

A single penny in a parking lot. And we found a tool in the street.

A landscaping edger blade. It is probably warn out and tossed, but the TrashWalking judges are still on vacation and Zeke doesn’t care.

We picked up part of a solar-powered landscaping light.

When it is light, the solar panel charges a small battery, and when the ambient light is low, the light comes on. We found them online at Walmart.

We’ll set it up in our back yard and see how it works. If it works, we’ll need to create a path for it to light. Stay tuned for the official test report.

Thursday, June 13^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

We were back in the mid-forties this morning with clear skies. We found no roadkill but did find some money.

Chuck found a very beat-up penny in the travel lane of the freeway overpass. Then we found a dime in the park-and-ride, another dime on 116^th Ave NE followed by yet another dime on NE 160^th St. At this point, Janet happened to tell Chuck that one of our friends found dimes in strange places when her husband died. Now why on earth would she tell Chuck that at this time?

Of course, we found yet another dime at the top of the Tolt Pipeline.

Fortunately, Chuck safely made it home.

We also picked up another tool.

A run-over and bent Allen wrench. It counts, the judges are still on vacation.

Another traffic sign was knocked down on 116^th Ave NE.

Fortunately, this one took a bite out of the car. It looks like part of the wheel well lining.

We found a note from a parking lot attendant.

We get the gist, but can’t quite parse the note. Also, let us know what a Dent Pooler is.

At the approach to the freeway on-ramp, someone filled a five-gallon gas can at the nearby station and promptly dropped it off their vehicle.

It was in the travel lane, but someone placed it on the sidewalk before we got there. We left it in case someone came back to retrieve it. Also, it was heavy; five gallons of gasoline weighs about thirty pounds, so there was little we could do with it anyway.

We found a Junior High achievement certificate.

It was for Junior High achievement in Varsity Tennis. Then we noticed the date: November 4th, 1992. So, the guy is like what 45 years old now? The certificate states, “We congratulate you and have confidence that your future will be equally successful.” We searched for his name, but did not get any hits with tennis, or anything else, for that matter, but at least he has the certificate. Well, not anymore.

Friday, June 14^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

Today we removed two roadkill rabbits from the streets, and we found a lot of money.

We should say we found a lot of coins, not a lot of value. At the drive-thru, we picked up six pennies followed by five more pennies in three separate locations. Then separately, we picked up a nickel and, of course, two more dimes.

We also acquired some tools.

Two bungee tie-downs in good condition and a 7/8^th inch drill bit in reasonable condition.

More clothes for Goodwill.

A Rainstate Earthworks hoodie and a sweater. The hoodie looks clean, but the sweater appears to be the one doing the earthwork. They will be cleaned up and sent to Goodwill.

Saturday, June 15^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

Today the weather forecast stated that rainy conditions were expected, so we suited up in our rain jackets. The mist started about 45 minutes into our walk then turned to intermittent downpours. We returned home thoroughly soaked.

But our walking and getting soaked paid off.

But not much. We found a single penny submerged in about a half-inch of water in the gutter.

More evidence of folks parking and riding at the park-and-ride.

On the freeway onramp, a boater lost his boarding ladder.

He is going to be up the proverbial creek without a ladder.

We found a discarded soda can.

No big deal, right? We find a lot of beer and soda cans on our walks. However, this one is a kid’s toy, only about an inch-and-a-half tall. Great. A training aid to teach kids how to litter.

We had a couple of encounters with drivers today. The first was what looked to be an abandoned car.

It was at a bus stop half blocking a travel lane. However, upon closer inspection, there were two guys in it who were asleep. After some discussion between us, Chuck tapped on the window and awakened them. The driver was difficult to understand, but he tried to start the car while pumping the gas pedal, but the engine was barely turning over.

Our Nissan Leaf has a big battery to run the electric motor, but only a small 12-volt battery to run the instruments and accessories. However, we had purchased a portable jump starter that we keep in the car.

Chuck offered to try to jump start the car and found that the battery cable was so loose that it could be lifted off the battery. He twisted it on the best he could and hooked up the jump starter. The guy tried several times to start the car, but Chuck could smell gas, so the engine was probably flooded. The jump starter was nearly discharged, so wrapped things up and went on our way. Neither of the guys ever got out of the car.

Later, on the freeway onramp, a car pulled over ahead of Chuck. The driver got out, walked behind the car then got back in. He pulled up to Chuck, rolled down the window, and started saying something.

With the freeway noise Chuck was having trouble understanding him, so the guy finally yelled, “You got five dollars?” Chuck said sorry, no and the guy took off. And no, Chuck does not carry any money on these walks, but he didn’t mention the penny we found.

With that, we wrap up another TrashWalking week. Our take,

• 92 Cents, including seven eerie dimes.
• 11 Balls, mostly returned back over fences.
• 6 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans.
• 5 Tools, thanks to Zeke.
• 5 Gallons of gasoline.
• 3 Articles of clothing including an economical hat.
• 3 Roadkill, including a crow.
• 2 Condoms, used.
• 2 Urine containers.
• 2 Unhelped, helpless drivers.
• 1 Decorative light.
• 1 Sign that went down fighting.
• 1 Litterer training aid.
• 1 Playmate, the cooler, not the bunny.

Have a great week and remember, finding dimes is a bad sign.