The Curious Incident of the Light in the Night-Time

Dear Diary,

For a couple of days I'd been using the visible lock on the "upper" Ravenna Park men's room door as my sign:  If that lock went away, I'd need to look into the three previously closed restrooms, including Cowen Park's and University Playground's.  But it didn't budge.

Well, last night I rushed from downtown to Ravenna Park's "lower" restroom, wanting to wash my hands.  I got there at 9 P.M. sharp and found it locked.  So I resigned myself to washing my hands instead in the upper water fountain, with my detergent.  It turned out to be a huge hassle to get all the detergent off, then get my hands dry, and I had a lot of time to fill, so I got curious why lights were beaming brightly from the upper restroom building, and also how far tbe paved path around the building went.  The path turned out to end at the women's room, which was OPEN, not just unlocked but with the door propped open too.  So I tried the closed door to the men's room - and it opened too.  It turned out not to be much of a Promised Land:  one toilet clogged, no soap in the dispenser, no dryer at all - in effect, the same conditions as the water fountain had given me for hand washing.

I figured some park employee had started to open it up for the season, had reached shift's end, and had forgotten to re-lock the restrooms.  So I looked eagerly forward to the big changes that surely must come on May 1, and today went to all four of the usual north of 45th St parks.

NO CHANGES.  I was astonished all over again, but having started out taking all those door shots, kept at it.  So here goes with yet another report on the same old conditions.

Burke-Gilman Playground Park

OK, sort of a change here.  I arrived around 9 A.M.  The doors were locked.  I dozed off at 10, when they were still locked.  At 11, I woke up to find them open:

Here's a closer view of the sundial:

Ravenna Park

Lower restrooms open:

OK, these may need some explaining.  The men's room shot is meant to illustrate the vandalism I mentioned in my last page.  I'm pretty sure there'd been a metal door where that plastic one now is, a few days earlier.  (EDIT 10/19:  Nope, this was my memory lying.  See the later page "Ravennawards".)  The women's room shot was meant to be an action shot, as a woman entering became hidden by the closing door, but I waited too long and just got the closed door.

The pretty deposits on the still not running water fountain, kind of washed out in these shots:

The upper restrooms were locked again.  These shots aim to make the bolts visible that actually lock those doors, as against the padlock that, it turns out, locks nothing:

The upper water fountain still runs, and still has a slow drain.

Cowen Park

Here, the padlocks do (still) lock the doors:

Those restrooms are in this building, which seems big enough to me to hold some heat and keep the pipes from freezing:

Here's the water fountain.  Maybe you can see how the controls are pushed in so they can't draw any water:

University Playground

This building may actually be too small for heat:

Here's the water fountain:

I'd been worried in case the attacker I previously identified as a troll was actually, say, a bear, so I went around to his front for the first time in a while, and yes, he's a troll:

Odds and Ends

It had gotten personal:  I had to go downtown again, where there are no restrooms, and didn't want to have to go back to Ravenna Park first.  Just then I saw a woman in a uniform emerge from the University branch of the Seattle Public Library, from its back door, and remembered that its restrooms were to reopen.  The uniform turned out not to be police, but an actual SPL garment with logos on each shoulder.  The signage:

I then walked down 15th, looking for the U-District's street water fountain that turned out not to be on the Ave.  Well, there's a water fountain on 15th, running with good water too, but nothing like the set described in my last page:

I can hardly wait to find out whether there'll be a light in Ravenna Park tonight too.  Also, to find out when the "season" will come, when all these restrooms will be open and all these fountains give water, and whether I'll live to see it.

I've been hiking way too much.  Tomorrow I'm just going to concentrate on Laurelhurst Community Center and Playfield, and if that means I have to get my drinking water from U Village, so be it.