A Hike in Jackson Park, part I

Dear Diary,

Jackson Park is a 150-acre park, fifth-largest in North Seattle.  The Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation thinks of it as two things:  the Jackson Park Perimeter Trail, and the Jackson Park Golf Course, which is managed by a private company.  However, the stated hours for both of these, according to signs on the spot (the parks department doesn't have the same kind of web page for either part as it does for other parks), are "dawn to dusk", which is pretty exotic for parks department parks in North Seattle, so I think of it just as Jackson Park, one place.

I was reluctant to push my luck by taking photos when, as a homeless man, I visited this park last May and October.  As a result, I've never shown you, dear Diary, any pictures of it.  This time, perhaps because, as a tenant with a lease, I'm now in some sense equal to that private company, I felt less reluctant, and took so many photos that unfortunately I have to reinforce the parks department's split, and show you the pictures of the golf course in one page, and of the trail in the other.

I should also mention that I decided at Jackson Park that in this round of hikes, I didn't want to photograph anything through a fence.  So none of the photos in the second part are views of the golf course, the ostensible reason for the existence of the perimeter trail.

Map:

The sign at the entrance at 15th Ave NE and NE 135th St knows the golf course is the only thing it needs to mention:

In "Land and Water in North Seattle", part III, dear Diary, I told you there's a tall round hill in Jackson Park.  The part of the golf course that's free to the public is halfway up the south slopes of that hill:

Although the park's official address is 1000 NE 135th St, one gets to these buildings from the westernmost parking lot accessible from 11th Ave NE and NE 135th St.  In the second page, I'll explain how to find that from the perimeter trail.  Here's a map, also from the Open Street Map project, somewhat confusingly showing the buildings:

The first relevant building seems not to be on this map; it faces the driving range, which is the paler green thing in the upper left corner.  I've normally reached it by walking through the big building shown, which has a breezeway in its middle, and past the upper left building shown, which is some kind of workshop.  The building facing the driving range has two, gendered, single-user restrooms:

I've used the men's room (on the left facing the water fountains) on pretty much every visit.  It's reasonably nice, with hot and cold taps for example, but the way the toilet paper is hidden inside a plastic cover confuses me every time.

This building also has, between the doors shown above, the only water fountains I've found at this park, which were running Monday, as they were last May and October, and as I was told in October they also run all winter:

I also took a view down the driving range:

The driving range is free and open to the public, though since its users aren't supposed to retrieve golf balls, they probably have to buy them in the shop anyway.

The "café" is the shorter, less rectangular, left arm of the big building in the map above.  I saw a staffer, but it didn't seem to be the kind of café that offers pastries, and I'm not even sure about coffee; there was a sort of counter, but it was dominated by what looked like a soft-drink machine.  This was, however, my first visit to this building, I was in something of a hurry, and I could easily be wrong about all sorts of things.  Regardless, its restrooms, which seem to have fewer stalls than the set coming up, are at the far end of the building from the breezeway:

The shop, which is the longer right arm of the big building in the map above, is called the "pro shop" because most of the customer-facing staff of the golf course, including the manager, are professional golfers, and also, I'm guessing, because it sounds good.  It has multi-user restrooms at opposite ends of itself, the men's towards the end of the building, the women's towards the breezeway.  The men's room (in the first photo below) has several toilets, but I've never used it.

Wouldn't it be nice if the restrooms and water fountains in all the parks worked this way?  But I fear the clientele, not just governments' strained budgets and difficulties getting things done, stands in the way of that.

Upon leaving the shop, I took a view of the actual golf course, facing it over a railing across from the shop, probably looking roughly southwest.

All for now, dear Diary; Blogspot is getting resentful of the photos, and fought me really hard over the last five.  Next, and not, I hope, too much later, the Jackson Park Perimeter Trail.