While Strolling in the Parks One Day, part II

Dear Diary,

This is the second of, I hope, four pages about my hike today.  This one covers two parks on Wallingford's Lake Union coast, plus one waterway (a state-owned property explained in detail October 8 in "Lake Union's North Shore").  This hike was primarily about:  1) whether restrooms were open or closed; 2) whether water fountains were running or not running; 3) taking lots of photos; 4) in particular, looking for any hint that water fountains or restrooms had been added to any park I hadn't visited since last spring, and taking photos meant to document that they hadn't.

EDIT 5/11 Map:

Gas Works Park

My January visit to this park is described in "Hike 8A" from March 21, which also gives reference to previous pages relevant to this smallest of North Seattle's famous parks.  In general, I've avoided taking any but purely functional photos of this and the other famous parks, so I started by taking some clearly non-functional ones today:

Much of Gas Works Park's land area actually consists of rolling, grassy hills pretty much like this.  The things it's famous for are concentrated in the park's eastern half:

That said, I also took functional photos.  This park was publicly announced last year as offering 24 hour restroom availability.  By my standards it's deficient in privacy and service - soap and drying capacity, in particular - compared to most of the other 24-hour park restrooms in North Seattle, so I've basically taken for granted that the city followed through on this announcement, because it would be far too easy to embarrass them if they hadn't, and avoided visiting it personally at night.  But anyway, today the restrooms were open, as expected:

And the men's room lacked privacy, soap, and a dryer, as expected.

Also as expected, the water fountain isn't running.  It wasn't last October, either.  Note, please:  The many water fountains across North Seattle in this situation haven't provided water at least since November 2019.  A year and a half ago now.  Is it any wonder many have been vandalised?

Waterway 19

As mentioned above, the state Department of Natural Resources controls the Lake Union waterways, of which at least ten, and probably at most eleven, are on the northern shores.  It licenses various entities to occupy them.  Waterway 19 is the only one the Seattle parks department has licensed and operates as a more or less regular Seattle park in its own right.  (Others have been incorporated into the Burke-Gilman Trail, and part of waterway 14 is incorporated into Northlake Park.)  Waterway 19 would be called a "Natural Area" except that in North Seattle only politically well-connected creek valleys get that name, so it just retains its previous name, but what it fundamentally is, is a Natural Area on Lake Union's shore.  Examples:

It's adjacent to Gas Works Park, to the east, and I've mentioned it to you, dear Diary, June 9 in "At the Centre of the Universe, Does Gas Work?" and October 8 in "Lake Union's North Shore", but the only previous photos I've shown you were in "Past Work and Gas Works" June 21.

Waterway 21

This is a small, pleasant viewpoint with benches not far from Stone Way N.  It had started raining - not mist or drizzle, but actual raindrops, though rather infrequent - while I was in Gas Works Park, and I needed to plan the rest of my trip in a less crowded place.  So even though it's not a bona fide Seattle parks department park, my focus on these trips, I figured it deserved a photo.

You already have several more photos of this one in "Lake Union's North Shore", dear Diary.  I have no idea who licensed it and put all that nice stuff there, frustrating though that all must be for boaters who want to use it the way waterways were used in the 19th century, as boat access to and from the water.

Well, this is a gracelessly short and rather incoherent page, but I was worried about adding these photos to the crowd on the previous page.  Next, on to Fremont.