Another RUNNING street fountain in today's hike

Dear Diary,

I went hiking for you today.  I don't have time to write for you today the page that occasioned that hike, but will try to get the stuff that I should write today so as to keep certain photos dated, that stuff I'll try to get written.

I went to:

• Ballard Community Center (restrooms) and Playground (water fountain)
• The Burke-Gilman Trail (no plumbing where I was then)
  
• The Broadview branch of the Seattle Public Library (both)
  
• Bitter Lake Playfield (both; I didn't look, today, at the Community Center there)
• Northacres Park (both)
  
• Virgil Flaim Park (water fountain)
  
• Albert Davis Park (water fountain)
  
• The Lake City branch of the Seattle Public Library (both)
  
• The Burke-Gilman Trail again (water fountain)
• Ravenna Park (both)
  
• Ravenna Boulevard (neither)
  
• Cowen Park (both)
  
• Greenwood Ave N just south of N 85th St (water fountain I hadn't previously known of)
• And back to N 45th St just east of Wallingford Ave N (water fountain)
  

I'll update the spreadsheet in the shared folder tomorrow - that is, this folder, dear Diary:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cfrNdJI9NVY3ux7OoGI7B8Vg3Klq3liT?usp=sharing>

But I also set up another shared folder.  Community Centers and Pools are at least run by the same department as runs the parks, but libraries are a whole separate city department, so I set up a folder for libraries too:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10OrFusDTEySPSu7-Ophv35VCKZq-zAaF?usp=sharing>

In general, nothing has changed from what I previously told you, dear Diary (I want to emphasise that, in case there are new readers here), but here are the exceptions:

Ballard Community Center

You may remember that last time I went to this place, I considered its front doors too crowded to approach.  That wasn't the case this morning.

Here's a detail:

I doubt very much that the Community Centers are preparing to re-open to the general public, or at least those in North Seattle.  If they are, they're planning to surprise everyone.

Ballard Community Center, again

This time I found the restrooms at the back of the building, whose doors open outward, open.  I did not find yellow spots on the toilet seats.  However:

These are single-user stalls, each with one toilet, no urinal, one sink, one old-fashioned dryer that doesn't work, and one soap dispenser.  Neither sink splashed me, but one - the one with two buttons for calling the water - was under high enough pressure that it really wanted to.

Northacres Park

One of the single-user stalls there was closed for maintenance:

I remembered that I hadn't tested the sinks and dryers of those, so I washed my hands (I'd touched the toilet seats at Ballard Community Center, after all) and thus found that the dryer in the stall currently open (on the left as one faces the water fountains, north of the closed one) does work, but one has to push the button a few times to convince it to do so.

Virgil Flaim Park

I have to eat a whole lot of crow here.

I made a judgement last time I was at this park, that the damage to the water fountain was obviously the fault of homeless people who use bottles.  I was wrong, completely wrong.

I managed this time to take a photo that showed how the water now comes out.

Darn, no it doesn't, and I'll have to go back there.

Basically, the water comes from above the pipe I showed you last time, dear Diary, this pipe:

As a result, no, it isn't any better for filling bottles than it is for drinking from.  Turns out it comes from a hole in another pipe:

so no wonder it comes out diffusely.  I was unable to screw the pipe that's loose back into that hole, so I strongly suspect whoever sabotaged the water fountain removed something, anything from a washer on up.  Given how much other metal they left alone, I doubt this was a metal thief; I think the saboteur was someone who wanted to deny users of Virgil Flaim Park water, very probably specifically homeless users in the neighbourhood.  So I must apologise heartily to you, dear Diary, and to anyone who read the page I'll correct tomorrow:  I blamed the victim.

The Burke-Gilman Trail

This was, at the time, the only working water fountain I expected to encounter after Bitter Lake, it was hours later, I hadn't brought any bottles, and I was parched.  So I tried to drink from this fountain:

but found that the stream was so interrupted, whether by the wind or by something internal to the fountain, that I couldn't really drink from it.  At the time I wondered whether I was just out of the habit of drinking directly from water fountains.

Ravenna Boulevard

I will emphasise, again, dear Diary, that nothing has changed from what I previously told you unless I mention it here (or in a later embarrassed page).

The street fountain at 85th & Greenwood

One of the most frustrating aspects for me, dear Diary, of your readers never commenting, is that I get too many opportunities to be ignorant.  I spent a few days hiking past this intersection, in January, while I was at the Travelodge near there that saved my life (as recounted in "Escaping Green Lake Park", part II and "Fear of Rain"), and never noticed this fountain.  Unsurprising since at the time I couldn't wear glasses, but my point is, surely someone who's read you knew about that fountain and didn't tell us.  I have no idea how many more street fountains are scattered around North Seattle, running or otherwise, that I've missed; I only found this one because I happened to get off a bus there this evening.  So anyone who reads this now.  This is what a street water fountain in Seattle usually looks like:

Notice especially the stepped base.  This is something street fountains can do:

usually all year round when the city has a mayor who doesn't have some sort of personal hatred for homeless people.

So please, dear Diary, if you notice anyone reading you who knows of such fountains in North Seattle, beyond the former two, now one, on the Burke-Gilman Trail, the one on N 45th St out front of QFC, and this one I stumbled on today, could you please persuade them to say something?  Whether or not the fountains are currently running or the reader even knows one way or the other.  Thank you, very, very much.

On the strength of that (and two very long drinks from it) I went back to the one on 45th, but it's still off.

Good night, dear Diary.  I just signed a new lease that said I'd observe the quiet hours, and here I am typing in you during them again.  Good night.