Hike 8A: Near North

Dear Diary,

On January 19 I set off for Ballard.  My plan was always to visit the three parks in this page along the way, which is why I designated Wallingford Playfield and Meridian Playground, too far up the wrong hill, as "inconvenient" right from the start.

And although all these hikes were kind of predictable once I had decoded the map, from the city's Department of Human Services, of restrooms supposedly open this winter, the map these hikes were meant to check, a decoding described in "How to Lie to the Homeless" too many days ago - still they were part of the task.  They'll also get a bit more interesting after this page, which hasn't much story to it.  Sorry, dear Diary.

Sunnyside Ave N Boat Ramp

This small park is also presented as a street end by those who deal with those.  I've told you about it, therefore, dear Diary, in "At the Centre of the Universe, Does Gas Work?" on June 9, and again in "Street Ends:  North Lake Union" December 21.  But neither park nor street end brought me there on January 19; instead, the presence of a city-funded "sanican" did.

While I was there, for some reason I thought I hadn't photographed the view from the shore in October, so I took another photo.  I think it's slightly worse than the one in the street ends page, but anyhow:

In these hikes I'll take what beauty I can get.

Yes, this stop was kinda trivial, or so it seems.  But a lot of people appeared to be living, that day in January, in the parking areas across Northlake Way from this "sanican", and not all of them had RVs.  I really have no idea how much daily use the thing gets, but wouldn't be surprised if it were significant.

At this hour, today, the map correctly reports that this park hosts one "sanican", that it isn't ADA and doesn't offer hand-washing.  I think that map, all in all, represents a deliberate attempt to lie to Seattle's homeless, but it's so constructed that it also tells a fair bit of truth, and this is an example.

Gas Works Park

This is one of North Seattle's marquee parks, dear Diary, though the smallest of those.  So I've told you about it in plenty of pages.  See, besides "At the Centre":  June 21, "Past Work and Gas Works"; September 6, "Cal Anderson Park Is Not a Park"; October 8, "South of North Once More", part I; and November 23, "Standing Room Only", part III.

This park's restrooms have been announced as 24 hours, so it was no surprise at all to find them open in broad daylight:

The, um, least unattractive side of the restroom building:

From there I climbed up the right hill, by way of Troll's Knoll Park (stopping along the way to replace the photograph of the Troll my stolen phone had held) to 

B. F. Day Playground

This smallish park has figured in two of the same pages as Gas Works Park, "At the Centre" and "South of North".  And in the latter, dear Diary, I mocked it unfairly.  I showed photos of a sign saying the playground equipment was open and another saying the playground was closed, and made fun of the mixed message.  Problem is, the sign saying the playground is closed actually refers to a different playground, that of the school next door, which actually is closed.  Sorry!

To try to make up for that, I looked at the basketball court and got a pleasant surprise:  two baskets facing each other from a reasonable distance:

But the reason I was there was that the map had initially shown a "sanican" there, but then had retracted the claim, so I wanted to see for myself.  Well, here's where it used to be:

My guess is that with no ball games happening there, but COVID testing happening at Northgate Park, the city decided there was a greater need elsewhere.

Anyway, after that I went to Ballard, but I'm out of time to tell you about that tonight, dear Diary.