Our Main Characters

Dear Diary,

By the time I finished exploring Magnuson Park yesterday I was pretty thirsty, since I hadn't found a single water fountain in the park providing water.  (It's a huge place; there may have been such a fountain that I didn't find, but actually I doubt that.)

The thing to do, of course, was to go to Burke-Gilman Playground Park, where I so often start my days.

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

This park's main current claim to fame is that it's the only park in a large part of Seattle with a working drinking fountain.  While that should change any day now - heck, the water in Cal Anderson, Volunteer and Roanoke Parks has been on for some time already - yesterday none of the others worked.  The fountain is built into the wall of the restroom, which doubtless helped keep the pipes from freezing over the winter, but there's a fountain built into the wall of Magnuson Park's warm-water restroom, and that fountain was off yesterday.

The other thing that makes BGPP so appealing these days is that it has two sinks, at least in its men's room, which means that at least early in the morning there's no reason at all to worry about the actual shortage of sinks; I can wash my hands and dishes in peace.

Anyway, yesterday around noon the restrooms were open:

These rooms are way off at one end of this small but long park, much easier to reach from Sand Point Way than from the Burke-Gilman Trail.

Laurelhurst Community Center

This isn't actually a major character in you, dear Diary, because although it's much closer to where I sleep than any of the others, it's a nightmare to get to.  You have to approach it through the steep hills of 41st St, and it's down another steep hill from the community center proper.  But if you manage to get there, what you get is exceptionally nice:  two separate lockable stalls, with everything working in the one I tried.  Unfortunately I found this out sort of the hard way yesterday:  as I tested the sink my middle-aged bladder snuck up on me and made me do Number One in my pants, two feet from a toilet.  Photo (no, not of that):

I don't know if you can see it, but the sinks have two taps, one of which gives warm water right away.  Sadly, at least the nearest water fountain to these rooms isn't running, or it'd almost be worth the arduous journey.

Ravenna Park

Since this is much the closest park to campus, I have some history with it.  The main restrooms, a block or two east of Ravenna Boulevard, are usually open and work fine:

Unfortunately, the restrooms north of 20th Ave are "seasonal", which yesterday still meant "not yet".

See that lock on the door?  The women's room didn't have such a visible symbol but was also locked.

Cowen Park

This isn't going to be a major character either, because its restrooms can only be reached across a whole lot of gravel, or some gravel and a whole lot of stairs.  (They're what's down the stairs from where Cowen Pl meets 15th Ave.)  That said, a photo I took earlier but deleted showed the actual announcement of seasonal closure as litter on the men's room floor.  That's been removed, but the locks remain:

The water fountain near these wasn't running yesterday.

University Playground

Last comes the one I used to know best.  I slept on Roosevelt for years, making this parklet at 50th St and 8th Ave practically next door; before my aging bladder forced me to make peace with doing Number One outside, I used the "sanican" here many times.

Not so much the restroom proper.  It was preferable, though creepy, for the chance it offered to wash hands; but I usually wasn't around during its open hours.  Except that once a year, for a few weeks, the restroom was left open 24/7.

It's been too long for me to describe the amenities, because this is yet another "seasonal" restroom not open as of yesterday:

So that was my tour.  I'd meant to go to a gas station and get a more up-to-date map of Seattle than the one I carry, but instead had to hurry back to Ravenna Park.  Then I ate supper there - that last photo is from around 5:30 P.M. - and that kept me there long enough to find something new and different:  a jazz performance in the green bowl at the park's eastern end, a socially distanced concert.  No pictures, because it wasn't quite as socially distanced as it probably should've been, but a very nice end to a day in the parks.