A Roguish Pair of Eyes

Dear Diary,

Hoo boy, almost done.  I'll have to take less ambitious hikes going forward; this has taken almost as long to write about as it took to walk.  This final page for the night concerns Woodland Park, but is not intended as my full treatment for spring or for the next year as the three previous pages are for the smaller parks to the south.

It was after 7 P.M., the notional closing time of most Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation restrooms, when I got there, so I confined myself to a few things.  I checked on a few restrooms and water fountains, and took multiple photos of two more or less opposite things that obtruded themselves - the Woodland Park Rose Garden, which I walked through today for the first time, and a pile-up of uncollected trash, again, near the camps in upper Lower Woodland Park.  I suppose I should start with the trash, and end with the Rose Garden, so as to give you, dear Diary, a better chance of sweet dreams.

On that theory, I should start with the restrooms, actually.  As usual, the "50th St" rooms were open, as were the "Pink Palace" ones; the "lawn bowling" ones were not.  I don't know what happened there during the day, one reason I'll have to go back to Woodland Park.  But at 7:44 P.M. I took this photo at the door to the "lawn bowling" men's room:

 Yes, dear Diary, I'm pretty sure that's actual human Number Two there.

Shelter 6 is the core of the camp setup, the main source of electricity, the focal point of the nearby tents.  Last autumn the water fountain adjacent to it was one of only two in this huge park, with more water fountains than any other in North Seattle, that actually provided water.  Not now:

Trash was piled up in three places that I'm guessing are established collection points.  Now, the City Council met and exceeded the mayor's request for more money to collect homeless people's trash, so I'm not clear on why there should still be a problem at Woodland Park, the place where in general the parks staff have treated homeless campers better than anywhere else during the pandemic.  But there is.  The first place is right near that water fountain (its base is at the left of this photo) and shelter 6:

The second is near the transition from pavement to gravel, on the road between the "Pink Palace" restrooms and shelter 6 (and the "lawn bowling" restrooms):

And the third surrounds the water fountains, that have now been dead for at least a year and a half, attached to the "Pink Palace" building:

The Woodland Park Rose Garden

This was closed each time I tried last year (which was only a few times, not nearly as many as my visits to Lower Woodland Park), because it's managed by the same organisation that manages the Woodland Park Zoo next door.  But now it's open 7:30 A.M. to dusk.

It includes something I vaguely remember reading about, something slightly at odds with the more traditional Rose Garden, a "Sensory Garden".  This has elements meant to appeal to each sense.  Of course, right now, the taste, smell, and maybe even touch elements have to be off limits.  But here's the big one for sound:

Their signage gives that a pretentious name and makes the garden's makers sound dumber than they can possibly actually be, but anything that puts windchimes into a park can't be all bad.

The Rose Garden proper is much simpler and easier to enjoy.  Some flowering trees:

A view down its middle:

I walked what seemed to be the main trail, entrance to exit, and found no water fountains nor restrooms.

Back to reality

The only other water fountain that ran last October in Lower Woodland Park was the one attached to the 5427 Building at the middle of the "cloverleaf" (Leo Lassen) baseball fields.  It isn't running now:

I'm lucky I'm housed now, and can indulge my water addiction as much as I like.  Since the lockdowns began, that has been way too difficult for way too many homeless people.  Bottled water companies benefit from this situation, as do people who hate homeless people and want them (us) all to die, but I don't see why normal people without a pecuniary interest would want, for a second year running, to make spurious claims that water fountains are dangerous.  The first time around, there was something resembling a medical justification for the claim, although not for nearly as long as the parks department kept making the claim.  This second time it's just stupid and evil.