Dear Diary,
On the evening of January 19 I went from Ballard back to Woodland and Green Lake Parks to try to figure out their restroom schedules. This turned out to be my last attempt in January, although I not only went back to these parks on January 21, but spent the day there. I should warn you up front that I took no photos. The previous relevant page on March 27, "Hikes 0 to 7", has pointers to maps, one of which is also below. As usual, I'm ignoring Woodland Park Zoo, which has the only restrooms on its block, and confining my attention to the block the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation somewhat inaccurately calls "Lower Woodland Park".
Each park has five pairs of restrooms. I started (hike 8D) at the southeast corner of (in this case actually lower) Woodland Park, with the restrooms in the Citywide Athletic Building that open to the outdoors. These, whose nickname at the parks department is "Rio", had been closed due to vandalism, and on January 19 at 6:50 P.M. I found them still so closed, and didn't return that night.
North of there are restrooms in the building at the middle of the four "cloverleaf" (Leo Lassen) baseball fields. These restrooms aren't normally open in winter, and their hours were indicated as "dawn to dusk", as at Jackson Park. Sure enough, they were closed at 6:58 P.M. (Remember, this was January.) Again, I didn't come back that night.
I then went uphill to the restroom building at the main entrance to the northwest of (so-called lower) Woodland Park. This building is painted pink, and is nicknamed the "Pink Palace". Its restrooms were open at 7:13 P.M.; I found the men's room out of soap.
North of there are lawn bowling greens, with the "lawn bowling" restrooms amid them. (The map I was checking has changed the nickname to "bowling green", but I don't think that had happened by January.) These restrooms also normally aren't open in winter, and I suspected they were closed at dusk, like the "cloverleaf" pair. At any rate I found them closed at 7:18 P.M.
Then I went back to the "Pink Palace" and well south from it, to the (rather lower) southeast of the block, and the "50th St" restrooms. These were open at 7:35 P.M.
Returning to the "Pink Palace" again, I went downhill to Green Lake Park's southernmost restrooms, in one of the buildings of the Small Craft Center there, nicknamed "Shellhouse". These I found open at 7:56 P.M.
I then walked in the currently approved counter-clockwise direction to the restrooms near N 64th St, nicknamed "65th St". These were open at 8:09 P.M.
The Green Lake Community Center's outdoor-facing restrooms were open at 8:22 P.M. Unlike my nightmare experience of January 11, this time the cold water was running.
The park's northernmost restrooms, near the Wallingford Ave N exit, are nicknamed "wading pool". They were open at 8:39 P.M.
I got to the last pair, the outdoor-facing restrooms of the Bathhouse Theater, just in time to see the Phoenix Patrol guy lock the men's room's door at 8:44 P.M. I talked with him for a little while, then he locked the women's room at 8:51 P.M.
What he'd told me was that they'd been hired to lock the Green Lake Park restrooms that were getting locked, which were, according to him, the "Bath House", "Community Center", and "Shellhouse" pairs.
However, it wasn't quite that simple. I'm not sure what I actually did between 9 P.M. and 3:45 A.M. - probably found someplace to sleep and slept, which is why from here it's hike 9A - but at 3:55 A.M. I returned to the "wading pool" pair and found the men's room audibly occupied, but locked. The women's room was open.
Rebelliously, I went clockwise from there. The "Community Center" and "Shellhouse" pairs were indeed locked, at 4:13 and 4:54 A.M. respectively, the "65th St" pair open at 4:36 A.M. In Woodland Park I found everything the same: "Pink Palace" and "50th St" open at 5:06 and 5:23 A.M., "lawn bowling" closed at 5:11 A.M.
As far as I was concerned, everything was settled except the question of when the "lawn bowling" restrooms were locked. So my mission on January 21 (hike 10), after verifying that all the restrooms were open that day, was to settle that question, but in order to have something to do while I waited for sunset, I tackled an unrelated question that had been on my mind since an unsuccessful attempt to escape Green Lake Park had destroyed my previous shopping cart. The standard map of that park - ah, heck, I should at least try to post one photo from my laptop, so here goes:
Well, it shows the park bristling with exits. Not just because of the cart's death, but because of my subsequent troubles in a torrential rain (relevant previous pages: February 7 and 16, "Escaping Green Lake Park"), I strongly doubted this. So I decided to investigate. More specifically, I wanted to find all the exits from the paved trail around the lake (hereafter "circum-lake trail"), especially paved ones. This time I went counter-clockwise.
I started with the exit I was supposed to take the previous time, which is paved, and leads to Aurora Ave N and N 68th St.
After this there's a paved exit to West Green Lake Way N, and then at least seven exits - it's pretty much all paved and usable as exits - around the Small Craft Center, also leading to West Green Lake Way. By this point we're far south, south of N 60th St. Now, naively, I would think this cluster of exits suggests that not only pedestrians, but people with wheels, can safely leave the park via West Green Lake Way, but I'd found that to be untrue.
Anyway, from there it's another long hike to the exit that leads to East Green Lake Way N and N 64th St. There's no paved path from the circum-lake trail.
The next exit starts from at least three places along the trail, but only one is paved; they all lead to Sunnyside Ave N and East Green Lake Way N. Note that here we're about as far north as 68th again.
Past the baseball fields, the next exit, paved, leads to the intersection of NE 71st St, NE Ravenna Boulevard, and East Green Lake, which changes at that intersection from a Way N to a Drive N.
Past the basketball courts and the Community Center, there are hundreds of paved paths going hither and yon, but all those safe for non-drivers exit the park either to Ravenna Boulevard and 71st, or to Latona Ave NE and East Green Lake Drive N, which is about as far north as NE 73rd St.
There are several inconspicuous and probably unofficial trails leading from the circum-lake trail to Sunnyside Ave N and East Green Lake Drive N.
After the building at 7701 East Green Lake Drive N, there's a paved path from the trail to the first of two exits that go to East Green Lake Drive N and N 77th St. This one goes to 77th eastbound.
Four paths, two paved, lead from the circum-lake trail to Wallingford Ave N and East Green Lake Drive N. This is the exit counter-clockwise to the "wading pool" restrooms.
A paved path leads to an exit at East Green Lake Drive N and N 77th St westbound, near Winona Ave N.
Several paths, one paved, lead to an exit on West Green Lake Drive N between N 76th St and Stone Ave N.
A paved path opposite the Bathhouse Theater leads to a parking lot whose exits are on either side of Stone Ave N at West Green Lake Drive N. A path I described in my notes as "mostly paved" exits a few feet further west.
And there's an unpaved path from the trail to Aurora Ave N and West Green Lake Drive N, not far from N 72nd St.
As you might have guessed, dear Diary, this took me quite a while. Sunset that day was officially at 6:10 P.M., and I did get back to the "lawn bowling" restrooms by 6:08, but they were already locked.
I took one more observation of restrooms in these parks in January. On January 26 I tried to check into the Travelodge at N 85th St and Aurora Ave N again, only to be refused because I'd left the room, on my previous stay there, so smelly it had needed a week's airing. If you ever get any homeless readers, dear Diary, they should know that this can be an issue. Anyway, on my way back to campus, I checked the "50th St" restrooms, which had usually been open all night, and found them both locked sometime around 10 P.M.
The next part of the story is my return to Ballard, and I think I'll have to tell yiou about that tomorrow, dear Diary. Good night!
No comments:
Post a Comment